Reuters: The use of boats in the Red Sea is a complex shift in the war tactics
Posted on July 3, 2024
Ansarollah website – Follow-ups
Security sources confirmed to Reuters that the use of drone boats in the Red Sea is a complex shift in asymmetric warfare tactics, stressing that the drone boats enable the Houthis to target accurately and at a long distance and make them less vulnerable to counterattacks.
Sources in the insurance sector told Reuters that premiums for war risks in the Red Sea rose to 0.7% of the ship’s price in the past few days, compared to 0.1% at the beginning of this year, explaining that insurance at the beginning of the year amounted to 0.1% of the ship’s price.
The sources pointed out that the high cost of insurance causes additional costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars and threatens to increase prices in the coming weeks, adding that the cost of war risk insurance on ships that have no connection to “Israel” or US remained at 0.2-0.3%.
Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of Maritime Risk Managers, told Reuters, “The drone boats loaded with explosives represent a complex shift in asymmetric warfare tactics that enables the Houthis to target accurately and at a long distance, thus reducing their vulnerability to counterattacks.”
Monroe Anderson, the head of operations at Vessel Protect, a company that specializes in war risks and marine insurance, told Reuters: “Droned boats hit ships in the area of contact with water, and this, in addition to the large size of the warhead, is capable of causing a large amount of water to enter (the ship).” “It may result in difficulty in damage control.”
He added, “It is very likely that in light of the known success achieved by these tools when used by Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea, the Houthis sought to use these methods to achieve their goals.”
An official at Greek maritime security company Diablos pointed to a new reported tactic of launching drone boats likely carrying pirate-like dummies in a psychological approach aimed at disorienting sailors.
“We realize that the Houthis use ‘observers’ at sea in most cases, who often record the attack from a close range, and in most (if not all) operations direct the drone boats to the target from a distance,” Maniatis of Maritime Risk Managers told the agency.
Reuters also reported from the German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd that the strong demand for container shipping has pushed shipping prices to rise over the past two months, expecting growth in global demand for container space to increase between 3% and 40% on an annual basis during the year 2024.
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