Prepare to be attacked by Reuters

By Renee Maltezou and Jonathan Saul

ATHENS/LONDON (Reuters) – On a warm spring night in Athens, just before midnight, a senior executive of a Greek shipping company noticed an unusual email had arrived in his personal inbox.

The message, which was also sent to the manager’s business email address, warned that one of the company’s ships traveling through the Red Sea was at risk of attack by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia.

The Greek-run ship had violated the Houthi-imposed transit ban by docking in an Israeli port and would be “directly targeted by the Yemeni armed forces in any area they deem fit,” the message, written in English and reviewed by Reuters.

“You bear the responsibility and consequences of including the vessel on the banned list,” said the email, signed by Yemen’s Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOCC), a body set up in February to liaise between Houthi forces and shipping operators. commercial. .

The Houthis have carried out nearly 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November, acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza. They sank two ships, captured another, and killed at least four sailors.

The email, received at the end of May, warned of “sanctions” for the company’s entire fleet if the vessel continued to “breach the ban criteria and enter the ports of the usurping Israeli entity.”

The executive and the company declined to be named for security reasons.

The warning message was the first of more than a dozen increasingly threatening emails sent to at least six Greek shipping companies since May amid rising geopolitical tension in the Middle East, according to six sources in industry with direct knowledge of emails and two with indirect knowledge.

Since last year, the Houthis have fired rockets, sent armed drones and launched boats laden with explosives at merchant ships with ties to Israeli, American and British entities.

The email campaign, which has not been previously reported, indicates that the Houthi rebels are expanding their network and targeting Greek merchant ships with little or no connection to Israel.

Threats have also, for the first time in recent months, been directed at entire fleets, increasing the risks for those ships still trying to cross the Red Sea.

“Your ships violated the decision of the Yemeni armed forces,” wrote a separate email sent in June from a Yemeni government web domain to the first company weeks later and to another Greek shipping company, which also she declined to be named. “Therefore, punishments will be imposed on all ships of your company… Sincerely, Yemen Navy.”

Yemen, which sits at the entrance to the Red Sea, has been embroiled in years of civil war. In 2014, the Houthis took control of the capital, Sanaa, and ousted the internationally recognized government. In January, the United States reinstated the Houthis on the list of terrorist groups.

Contacted by Reuters, Houthi officials declined to confirm they had sent the emails or offer any further comment, saying they were classified military information.

Reuters could not determine whether the emails were also sent to other foreign shipping companies.

Hellenic-owned ships, which represent one of the world’s largest fleets, accounted for nearly 30 percent of attacks carried out by Houthi forces through early September, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data which did not specify whether the ships had ties to Israel. .

In August, the Houthi militia – part of Iran’s Axis of Resistance Alliance of irregular anti-Israel armed groups – attacked the Sounion tank, leaving it burning for weeks before it could be towed to a safer area.

The strikes caused many goods to take a much longer route around Africa. Traffic through the Suez Canal fell from about 2,000 transits a month before November 2023 to about 800 in August, Lloyd’s List Intelligence data showed.

Middle East tensions reached a new peak on Tuesday when Iran hit Israel with more than 180 missiles in retaliation for the killing of militant leaders in Lebanon, including Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, on Friday.

NEW PHASE

The European Union’s Aspides naval force, which has helped more than 200 ships navigate safely through the Red Sea, confirmed the development of the Houthis’ tactics in a closed-door meeting with shipping companies in early September, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

In the document, shared with shipping companies, Aspides said the Houthis’ decision to extend the warnings to entire fleets marked the start of the “fourth phase” of their military campaign in the Red Sea.

Aspides also urged shipowners to turn off their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders, which show a vessel’s position and act as a navigational aid to nearby vessels, saying they must “stop or be shot” .

Aspides said the Houthis’ missile strikes were 75 percent accurate when targeting vessels operating with the AIS tracking system activated. But 96 percent of attacks missed when AIS was turned off, according to the same briefing.

Aspides did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The Houthis’ email campaign began in February with messages sent to shipowners, insurance companies and the main seafarers’ union at the HOCC.

Those initial emails, two of which were seen by Reuters, alerted the industry that the Houthis had imposed a Red Sea travel ban on certain ships, although they did not explicitly warn the companies of an impending attack.

The messages sent after May were more threatening.

At least two shipping companies operated by Greece that received email threats have decided to end such Red Sea voyages, two sources with direct knowledge told Reuters, declining to identify the companies for security reasons.

An executive from a third shipping company, which also received a letter, said they had decided to stop doing business with Israel in order to continue using the Red Sea route.

“If safe transit through the Red Sea cannot be guaranteed, companies have a duty to act – even if that means delaying their delivery windows,” said Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, the main organisation. trade union for seafarers. who received an email from HOCC in February. “Seafarers’ lives depend on it.”

The email campaign raised alarm among shipping companies. Insurance costs for Western shipowners have already risen because of the Houthi attacks, with some insurers suspending cover altogether, the sources told Reuters.

Greece-based Conbulk Shipmanagement Corporation halted Red Sea voyages after its vessel MV Groton was attacked twice in August.

“No ship (Conbulk) trades in the Red Sea. It is mainly about the safety of the crew. Once the crew is in danger, all discussion stops,” Conbulk Shipmanagement CEO Dimitris Dalakouras told a news conference in shipping Capital Link to London on September 10. Torben Kolln, managing director of German container shipping group Leonhardt & Blumberg, said the Red Sea and the wider Gulf of Aden were a “no-go” area for their fleet.

Contacted by Reuters, the companies did not respond to a request for comment on whether they were targeted by the Houthi email campaign.

Some companies continue to cross the Red Sea because of binding long-term agreements with charterers or because they need to transfer cargo in that particular area. The Red Sea remains the fastest way to get goods to consumers in Europe and Asia.

The Houthis have not stopped all traffic, and most ships owned by the Chinese and Russians — which they do not consider affiliated with Israel — are able to sail unhindered with lower insurance costs.

“We assure ships belonging to companies that have no connection with the Israeli enemy that they are safe and have freedom (of movement) and (to) keep AIS devices working at all times,” according to an audio recording. of a Houthi message delivered to ships in the Red Sea in September, shared with Reuters.

“Thanks for your cooperation. Out.”