> Maybe there's a paid option that gives more detail or newer updates.
Or one of the Houthi rebels has a cousin who works in the industry and can query a not-so-public/free database.
Either way, I'm saying it's not quite as tangled or secret as, say, banking privacy or corporate ownership structures, especially since big cargo ships are hard to hide when they come into any port.
Sure, I agree it’s information they can get. But the larger point was that “the Houthis have sufficient intelligence” is a moot statement if the Houthis don’t have a command structure that prevents random cells from attacking whoever they please. An adjacent thread pointed out that at least one unrelated Russian ship appears to have learnt this the hard way.
I'd recommend reading the Wiki on them. [1] They're not a terrorist organization in the sense that you're thinking. They were an opposition movement in Yemen. Yemen decided to crack down on them, this led to their opposition turning into an insurrection and sparking a civil war. The Houthis defeated not only the government of Yemen but also Saudi Arabia who joined the party. They now have stable control over a large part of Yemen, including all of its western land facing the Suez Canal.
They were designated a terrorist organization at the tail end of Trump's presidency, presumably to garner favor with Saudi Arabia. Biden then removed that designation as relations between Saudi Arabia and US deteriorated. He then put them back on it after they chose to intervene in the Israeli War. In this case it seems the designation is mostly political - not the sort you might associate with loosely clad terror cells that run around blowing random people up.
There have only been two US media reported incidents where they targeted an inappropriate ship, and the truth is not entirely clear in both cases, as both come down to there being a discrepancy or time lag between real ownership and the updating of the public naval sources. And in one of those two cases the ship was also not even damaged, but had some missiles fired over it, and was then followed briefly by several, presumably Houth-linked, small vessels. Presumably there was ongoing communication between the vessel and the Houthis in the interim.
>God is the Greatest
>Death to America
>Death to Israel
>A Curse Upon the Jews
>Victory to Islam
In Arabic.
We're literally watching them, frankly effectively indiscriminately because of the staggering levels of incompetence in targetting, attack civilian vessels in international waters and murder merchant mariners.
The Houthis should clearly be designated a terrorist organisation.
As I understand it, the problem is that when designated as terrorists, getting aid to Yemenis in Houthi-controlled areas is extremely difficult because you can't give it to the Houthis and you can't give it to them yourselves because of the Houthis.
So when the Houthis are correctly labelled, a lot of Yemenis die because the Houthis do not give a shit and so the Yemenis civilians starve to death without aid.
Or one of the Houthi rebels has a cousin who works in the industry and can query a not-so-public/free database.
Either way, I'm saying it's not quite as tangled or secret as, say, banking privacy or corporate ownership structures, especially since big cargo ships are hard to hide when they come into any port.