Yemen has been ramping up attacks in support of the Palestinians on vessels either owned by Israel or headed to the occupied territories in the strategic waterway.
On Sunday, Britain’s broadsheet newspaper Daily Telegraph quoted an unnamed UK defense source as saying that HMS Diamond, the Royal Navy destroyer stationed in the Red Sea, lacks “the capability to fire to land targets”.
HMS Diamond, the source said, was instead involved in downing “Houthi drones targeting shipping in the Red Sea”, with the only functioning weapons systems on UK destroyers being fixed artillery guns.
Britain has joined the United States in conducting operations against the Yemeni Armed Forces and Ansarullah in an attempt to halt those attacks in the Red Sea. The US Navy has had to carry out the majority of strikes on Yemen’s mainland.
“It’s clearly a scandal and completely unsatisfactory; this is what happens when the Royal Navy is forced to make crucial decisions which can affect capability,” a former senior defense chief told the paper.
“The UK is now having to fly Royal Air Force jets thousands of miles to do the job of what a surface-to-surface missile can do.”
Conservative MP Mark Francois, a former armed forces minister, also told the Daily Telegraph that the “lack of a land attack missile from the Royal Navy’s surface fleet was specifically highlighted in a defense committee report some two years ago”.
“It is disappointing that it is still not yet in operational service.”
Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against Israel in the wake of the regime’s devastating war on Gaza on October 7, 2023. The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against Israel on that October day.
The Yemeni Armed Forces say they will not stop the Red Sea attacks until Israel stops the ground and aerial offensives in Gaza.
The regime has killed more than 26,400 people in Gaza since early October.
