The commander of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Vice Admiral George Wikoff, admitted on Wednesday that his country had failed to stop attacks by the Yemeni armed forces on ships in the Red Sea.
Russia Today website quoted a spokesman for the Center for Strategic and International Studies as saying: “We have certainly reduced their capabilities, there is no doubt about that, but have we stopped them? No.” He cited several attacks by the Yemeni armed forces on commercial ships in recent days, and in his estimation that this only serves to “strengthen the Yemenis’ desire to terrorize shipping” in the Middle East.
Wikoff added: “Our mission is still to reduce their capabilities and maintain some semblance of order at sea.”
According to him, the instability in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden is due to the actions of the Yemenis, adding: “They can stop this at any time.”
Tensions have been escalating in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf of Aden since the Yemeni Armed Forces began last November to launch attacks on Zionist ships or those linked to the Zionist entity or heading to its ports, in response to the Zionist aggression launched against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. On October 10, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced that they would support the Palestinian factions in confronting the Zionist enemy army in the Gaza Strip, with missile and air attacks and “other military options,” if the United States intervened militarily directly in the Palestinian-Zionist conflict in the Strip.
