What a private security executive in the Gulf of Aden reveals. The court documents on the Houthi weapons seizure operation in which two American commandos died.
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The source in Athens opened a notebook and drew the Gulf of Aden –Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti and the sea passage north to the Red Sea. The man at the other end of the table works for a private marine risk management company operating in hot zones around the world.
He agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because his job for the past 15 months has been “coexisting” with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the latest threat to international maritime trade in one of the most critical international shipping lanes. “The current threat in the Gulf of Aden is not piracy. On a two-day voyage, a merchant ship may encounter as many as 200 small boats passing by. They are carrying the weapons of the Houthi rebels from Somalia to Yemen. No one can guarantee you won’t get shot,” he said.
The Houthi rebels control the northwestern part of Yemen and the Red Sea coast. They print money and collect taxes, so they are considered the de facto government of the country.
From October 2023 to date, in support of Hamas, and with the help of Iran, the Houthis have launched more than 400 missiles and drones against Israel and have carried out at least 100 indiscriminate attacks against Western merchant ships.
After the Gaza ceasefire, they announced that only Israeli ships will be targeted –not American, British or other ships– until the full implementation of the agreement between Israel and Hamas. “The Houthis were looking for a way out of the difficult situation they were in, and the ceasefire in Gaza is exactly the window of opportunity they were looking for. They claim victory over Israel. They are amazing at propaganda and communication strategies,” the source in Athens wrote on WhatsApp a few days later.
“Now let’s see who will be the first to return to the Red Sea and whether the Houthis will be true to their word –I believe they will do exactly what they say.”
The weapons of the Houthis are transported disassembled into smaller components and hidden in fishing boats.
It is estimated that before the so-called Red Sea crisis, 12-15% of international trade, or $1 trillion worth of goods, passed through this particular sea lane. Since the beginning of the crisis, merchant ships have been forced to circumnavigate Africa, adding 3,500 nautical miles to their voyage.
The involvement of the Houthis in violent attacks
The size of each circle on the map represents the number of violent incidents attributed to the same geographical location by ACLED. Different incidents that occurred on the same day have been counted separately.
Data source: ACLED
Data processing & visualization: Chrysoula Marinou & Kelly Kiki/iMEdD
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The Associated Press reported that the cost of shipping a container from Asia to Northern Europe has risen from $1,500 to $5,500. According to a report by Project44, a supply chain consultancy, the volume of goods moving through the Suez Canal in November 2024 was down 72% from the previous year.
In the past year, the same maritime area has seen the return of the big players that used to fight the pirates –there are three major companies and other smaller ones that together employ an estimated 2,000 armed guards on merchant ships. Their number is not easy to ascertain. Before the Houthi crisis, each ship had up to three armed guards. Today there are six or eight.
What is certain is that due to the high demand, especially in the first months of the crisis, many untrained people, with inadequate equipment and no experience at sea, entered the trade, alongside professional private guards, many of whom are former members of the army’s special forces.
The “Merchant of Death”
In October 2024, Wall Street Journal revealed that a Houthi delegation visited Moscow to negotiate a deal for purchasing small arms. At the same meeting, a familiar figure to international security agencies allegedly appeared—the notorious Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, also known as the “Merchant of Death.” Bout had been imprisoned in the U.S. but was released in 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange, which allowed American basketball player Brittney Griner to return home from Russia, where she had been detained. Bout, who was believed to have controlled arms trafficking from Eastern Europe to conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and 2000s, denied the report, calling it false.
100,000-150,000 fighters
“The Houthi threat in Yemen will not go away even if there is a ceasefire in Gaza tomorrow (note: the interview was conducted before the ceasefire),” Thomas Juneau, Professor of International Relations at the University of Ottawa, told iMEdD. “They may temporarily stop attacking ships in the Red Sea, but I have no doubt that they could continue to attack to put pressure on Saudi Arabia or Israel. They are a long-term threat.”
He also noted that the number of fighters in the Houthi ranks cannot be estimated with any certainty. “I estimate a number between 100 and 150 thousand fighters, but it is not clear,” he said.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have declared themselves members of the Axis of Resistance, an informal confederation of states, organizations and extremists generally, linked to Iran and fighting alongside it, against Israel, the US and the West in general.
“They are a kind of coalition –they have their own fighters from earlier years, they have taken units from the official Yemeni army, but they have also made deals with militias from different tribes. Today, they are all considered allies, but they are not necessarily controlled by the same common authority,” explains Professor Juneau. What firepower do the Houthis have? And how do they get their hands on the weapons?
Initially, they are believed to have seized weapons reserves from the Yemeni army and received many weapons from Iran –Kalashnikovs, grenades, ammunition and land mines. But a key element is that, with Iran’s help, they have also developed the capacity to produce weapons locally. For example, they have a significant local production of land mines.
Seizures of arms shipments by Western security agencies show that the Houthis are in possession of Russian and Chinese-made weapons. The first theory is that the weapons came to Yemen indirectly, either purchased by the official army and then looted, or bought from Iran and then smuggled to the rebels as “second hand” weapons.
The two main routes of weapons
We asked our source in Athens how the weapons are getting into the hands of the Houthis. The marine risk management executive picked up the notebook and the makeshift map again. On the northern coast of Somalia, just across from Yemen, he drew a strip of land separating the autonomous provinces of Somaliland and Puntland.
“This disputed corridor, west of the port of Bosaso, is controlled by al-Shabaab jihadists. There are Islamic State forces and Houthi officials here,” the source said. “The latter support Al-Shabaab and from here they also organize the transfer of weapons to Yemen on their behalf.”
He also confirmed that the weapons are being transported by boat from Iran to Somalia. The port of the city of Bosaso is considered the center of concentration of illegal cargo. “There you can get an RPG for $550 or a Kalashnikov for $75,” the source explained. “However, weapons sent to the Houthis tend to arrive broken down into smaller components, making them easier to hide on fishing boats and other local line boats, which are typically operated by Iranians, Pakistanis and Omanis.” Off the coast of Somalia, the weapons components are loaded onto small boats operated exclusively by Somalis. They are the ones transferring the weapons to Yemen.
“The problem is that no one controls those who control the small boats,” said the source in Athens. “Therefore, it is not unlikely that they themselves will consider making more money by firing on the first merchant ship they come across.”
A lesser-known route for arms trafficking in recent years is believed to be through Djibouti, a small country at the entrance to the Red Sea that is home to many foreign bases from various countries. This is where the UN is sorting humanitarian aid for Yemen. Shipments from Russia also arrive directly in Djibouti. Officially, these are humanitarian aid packages. Recently, on the grounds of emergency, they are being sent to Yemen without being checked, so it is very likely that they are hiding weapons.
Two dead marines
On the night of January 11, 2024, a group of US commandos rescued a fishing boat named Yunus that was sailing in international waters between Somalia and Yemen. The elite Navy SEALs had disembarked from the mobile base ship “USS Lewis B. Puller” and their official mission was to perform flag recognition on board.
Who were the Houthis involved in violent events with?
37% of the incidents involving the Houthis from October 19, 2023, to the end of 2024 were violent episodes against Yemeni civilians. Approximately 17% of Houthi activities did not involve other parties, meaning they were actions carried out exclusively by them, such as remote strikes without a specified target.
Note: The larger each section of the chart, the higher the percentage of Houthi clashes with the respective group.
Data source: ACLED
Data processing: Chrysoula Marinou / iMEdD
“The captain disobeyed and asked the crew to sink the fishing boat,” the US court documents state. His name was Muhammad Pahlawan, a Pakistani national, and he was allegedly working for two Iranian brothers who were transporting Revolutionary Guard weapons to the Yemeni rebels.
According to the indictment, the Iranians transferred a total of 900 million Iranian rials ($20,500) to the Pakistani’s account in two installments to prepare the boat and find a crew of 13.
The Americans say that the first weapons test transfer with the same boat had taken place two months earlier, in November 2023. The captain sailed the boat to a specific position, which he had received on the satellite phone, in the area off Somalia and made a ship-to-ship pickup.
In the documents, there are reports of money transfers over the next few months through the Hawala shadow bank –the captain is heard on the phone asking his relatives in Pakistan to use the money he sent to buy land and a new house– as well as a series of departures from the Iranian port of Chabahar off Somalia.
The loading of the weapons that were eventually seized had taken place in Chabahar. The crew loaded the missile components in the presence of one of the two Iranian smugglers. The fishing boat set sail for Somalia and sailed for six days without a flag. According to the Americans, the captain was talking to the Iranian smuggler on the satellite phone and sailed off the coast of Somalia. During the journey, he allegedly received two calls about the boat’s position. Analysts found at least four calls ranging from 1 to 2.5 minutes in length. Two other outgoing calls to Iranian smugglers went unanswered.
The number of Houthi fighters is estimated to be between 100,000 and 150,000.
The Navy SEALs boarded the fishing boat and discovered Iranian-made advanced conventional weapons, including ballistic missile and anti-ship cruise missile components, under the nets and other fishing gear. The file notes that this is the first confiscation of Iranian-supplied or Iranian-made weapons since the beginning of the Red Sea crisis in November 2023.
The Americans removed the weapons and then, since they considered the boat dangerous and unseaworthy, they sank it, as noted. That same evening, the 14 sailors were transferred to the US warship. The main suspect said that the captain managed to jump overboard and in a later statement claimed that the real captain never boarded the boat. They all denied knowing they were carrying weapons.
Some said they were carrying drugs, but nothing was found, and others said they were fishing and planning to sail to warmer waters. The documents state that the captain and other crew members have been extradited to the US, but no further information is given.
It is noteworthy that two Navy SEALs died in the same operation: Christopher J. Champers and Nathan Gage. The file contains a 31-page statement by an FBI agent, but only a four-line reference to the deaths of the two Americans.
It is reported that the first one fell into the sea during the boarding of the boat. A second followed, as protocol dictated, to rescue him. After 11 days of fruitless searches at sea, the two US Special Forces members were officially presumed dead.
The military report published by the Associated Press notes that the two deaths could have been avoided. The report notes that the weight of their uniforms and equipment, kept the two US Special Forces members at the bottom of the Gulf of Aden, somewhere between Somalia and Yemen.
Translation: Evita Lykou
Read all articles and analyses of the Special Report: “Armories of the Middle East” here.
This article was first published on Feb. 22 by the weekend edition of the newspaper “TA NEA”.
