Foreign Policy: “Merchant of Death” Supports Maritime Terrorism.. Viktor Bout’s Talks with the Houthis Show Moscow Has No Limits

How do you solve a problem like the Houthis? That’s what the U.S. Navy has certainly tried. It has fired missiles at militia facilities in Yemen. And, in conjunction with the British Royal Navy, it has intercepted Houthi missiles fired at ships in the Red Sea.

All manner of Western navies are patrolling the troubled waters. But the Houthis are not relenting. On the contrary, they have asked the world’s most notorious arms dealer for more weapons. The arrival of the Viktor Bout in the Red Sea is bad news for global shipping.

The Houthis are unlike any other enemy Western militaries have faced in recent decades. They are not a conventional armed force. They are not a Taliban-like insurgency whose sole aim is to seize regional power. And they are certainly not a criminal gang, like the Somali pirates.

Instead, the group is a powerful militia that has discovered that it can attack ships to gain global attention, and it uses weapons normally reserved for official armed forces.

Even Hezbollah doesn’t have such capabilities—or at least doesn’t use them, perhaps because Lebanon depends on shipping for its survival. And since the Houthis launched their campaign against Western-linked shipping, they’ve certainly gotten the attention they crave, showing that they have access to highly sophisticated weaponry.

For example, on October 10, the group struck a Liberian-flagged ship with drones and missiles, and less than a month earlier, it fired a rocket that reached central Israel before being disabled by an Israeli interceptor missile.

AK-47s and grenade launchers, but it seems capable of providing everything its customers need.

In 2008, he offered two FARC fighters who arranged to meet him in Thailand 30,000 Kalashnikovs, “10 million or more rounds of ammunition, five tons of C-4 plastic explosives, light aircraft equipped with grenade launchers, mortars, drones, Dragunov sniper rifles with night vision, and vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft guns that could shoot down a passenger plane,” not to mention some 700 to 800 man-portable air-defense systems, Politico later reported.

That means Western navies and shipping companies should prepare for the potential arrival of new weapons in the Red Sea. The Wall Street Journal reported in early October that the first two shipments facilitated by Bout, expected to arrive early this month, “will mostly be AK-74 rifles, an upgraded version of the AK-47 assault rifle.” Bout and the Houthis have also discussed Kornet anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.

The Houthis may need automatic assault rifles in their armed struggle against Yemen's official government, but it's the larger weapons that Western nations should worry about most.

If Bout’s relationship with the Houthis begins, anti-ship weapons could follow. Thanks to Iran, the Houthis already have access to drones and missiles, but Iran is weak and may not be able to focus much on the Houthis. That’s where Bout could come in handy.

But it’s also about the division of the world. Since launching its campaign against shipping last November, Yemeni militias have avoided attacking Russian and Chinese ships. Both powers have shown their appreciation by not pressuring the Houthis to end their campaign and—unlike previous operations against Red Sea pirates, where China participated—by not participating in escort plans. (Western countries escort and combat Houthi attacks regardless of which ships fly their flag or where they are owned.)

The fact that Moscow appears willing to finance an attack on Western ships shows that global shipping is splitting in two—and that a divided ocean will be a more dangerous and costly place.

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• Elizabeth Brau is a staff writer at Foreign Policy and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
• Source: Foreign Policy - Translation: Yemen Youth Net