The Saudi-led coalition announced on July 9 that it had destroyed two booby-trapped boats of the Houthis off the west coast of Yemen.
In an official statement, Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the coalition revealed that the two boats were parked 6 km south of Salif Port in the province of al-Hudaydah. Pinpoint strikes destroyed both boats.
“The targeting operation is in line with international humanitarian law and its customary rules, preventive measures have been taken to protect civilians during the operation,” the spokesman said.
Col. Turki al-Maliki claimed that the Houthis are using al-Hudaydah, where a U.N.-sponsored ceasefire is implemented, as a base to launch missiles, drones and booby-trapped boats.
The Saudi-led coalition released a video showing only one of the two strikes. There is no way to confirm that the boat seen in the video was in fact a remotely-controlled water-born improvised explosive devices (WBIEDs) as the coalition claimed.
تحالف دعم الشرعية يحبط “تهديدا وشيكا” لأمن الملاحة والتجارة الدولية في #البحر_الأحمر عبر استهداف زورقين حوثيين مفخخين
شكرآ للتحالف الوطني? pic.twitter.com/jGs7kxSns5— بنت اليمن (@xRo8LlegLZhC2jt) July 9, 2020
The Houthis have been targeting Saudi-led coalition warships with WBIEDs for several years. In 2017, a detailed report by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) revealed that Iranian-made components were used in the Yemeni group’s WBIEDs.
The Saudi-led coalition is constantly working to neutralize the offensive capabilities of the Houthis. Nevertheless, the coalition often overestimate the effectiveness of its measures. The last two years proved that the Yemen group is only getting stronger and bolder.
And how do we (or they) know that it was not a fishing boat? It did not look like it was moving, the video did not show that much of an observation period. It was a long distance shot, did anyone make a closer inspection to see if there were people in the boat, that would be a sure fire way to tell if it was a remote controlled SVED.