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Amid Houthi attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea, a Biden administration official on Wednesday snapped at claims that the U.S. is provoking war.
Iran-aligned Houthi rebels have mounted attacks on commercial ships passing through the Red Sea for weeks, often using anti-ship missiles or attack drones. The rebels say the attacks are aimed at vessels associated with Israel as it continues its ground offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas through the Gaza Strip. The U.S. has since upped its presence in the region, announcing its Operation Prosperity Guardian in December.
The initiative, beefing up Combined Maritime Forces in the Red Sea, and Task Force 153 based out of Bahrain, is designed to calm the nerves of shipping companies using the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, ensuring that the region "remains safe for commercial shipping," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
Since unveiling the initiative on December 18, 1,200 merchant ships have passed through the Red Sea without any drone or missile strikes, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, who heads up the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, told the Associated Press in an article published Sunday.
Several countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Norway, are cooperating with the U.S. and Bahrain to protect vessels making their way through the Red Sea.
On Wednesday, during a White House press briefing with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, an exchange ensued with a reporter who suggested the United States has provoked Iran with its naval presence in the Red Sea.
"Given the Red Sea patrols, we knew in advance those being set up that Iranian defense minister said very clearly, 'nobody can make a move in a region where we have predominance,' the United States knew that, set it up anyway. Is that not being seen as a provocation? If you know that Iran sees that as a provocation, you take the action anyway," the reporter said.
In response, Kirby slammed the claim, adding that the initiative is a "defensive posture, it's a coalition of the willing ... to try and protect international shipping.
"Wouldn't you consider provocation launching ballistic missiles and drones at commercial, wait wait wait, let me finish! Wouldn't that be considered provocation? Targeting innocent merchant shipping, that's a provocation, what we are doing. What Prosperity Guardian is all about ... it's a defensive posture, it's a coalition of the willing ... to try and protect international shipping," Kirby said.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House via email for comment Wednesday.
Conversations around the initiative at the briefing arrived on the same day that the White House released a joint statement with Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, condemning the Houthi attacks.
"Ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are illegal, unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing. There is no lawful justification for intentionally targeting civilian shipping and naval vessels. Let our message now be clear: we call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region's critical waterways," the joint statement read.
"We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks," the joint statement added.
The joint response came after the U.S. military fired on and sank three boats operated by Iran-backed Houthi rebels—killing their crews—after the militants tried to attack a Maersk container vessel in the Red Sea on Sunday.
Kirby insisted that the U.S. is not looking to expand the conflict and that the boats were sunk in self-defense.
"We've got significant national security interests in the region just on our own, the United States, and we're going to put the kind of forces we need in the region to protect those interests, and we're going to act in self-defense going forward," Kirby told ABC News.
"We don't seek a conflict wider in the region, and we're not looking for a conflict with the Houthis. The best outcome here would be for the Houthis to stop these attacks, as we have made clear over and over again," he said.
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About the writer
Natalie Venegas is a Weekend Reporter at Newsweek based in New York. Her focus is reporting on education, social justice ... Read more