Saudi Arabia suspends oil shipments through Red Sea after Yemeni Houthi rebels attack an oil tanker.

The Yemeni port of Aden. NBC News/AFP.

Saudi Arabia has suspended oil shipments through the Red Sea after Yemeni Houthi rebels have attacked an oil tanker. NBC News. The Houthi rebels attacked two oil tankers and managed to damage one of them. The Red Sea is one of the most oil corridors in the world and is only 12 miles wide. But it is within range of Houthi rebels in Yemen which could potentially sink of the oil tankers. 4.8 billion barrels of oil and petroleum products pass through the Red Sea each day. The closure has already caused oil prices to spike. 

 My Comment:

A dangerous situation in Yemen has gotten more dangerous. In the past nobody really cared all that much about the Yemeni conflict, despite the use of ballistic missiles, multiple terror groups and horrible human suffering, because it did not effect the outside world. With the Houthis attacking oil tankers in the Red Sea that has changed. 

Indeed, it is pretty funny to see this on NBC News as their cable news affiliate MSNBC has devoted no news to the Yemen conflict for a year despite giving the Stormy Daniels non story 455 segments. It seems very clear that nobody seems to care about the Yemen war despite how important it has been.   

This is bad news for the world economy. Europe especially is vulnerable to disruptions of Middle Eastern oil and that can damage their economy very quickly. The United States is not so vulnerable and even can benefit because we are now energy independent due to fracking and we even export oil now. Still, the greater economy will be hurt by any disruption of oil shipping in the Red Sea. If this situation goes on for much longer we could all see higher prices at the pump and everything that relies on transport. 

The Houthi rebels have once again shown to be more sophisticated than any other rebel group in recent memory. They have launched ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia, have heavy anti-air weapons and now are cable of hitting ships in the Red Sea. They are a huge threat to everyone in the area that they have a problem with, which is almost anyone. 

This is due to Iran of course. Iran is providing weapons, training and support to those Houthi rebels, largely as a proxy war between them and Saudi Arabia. That situation seems to be spiraling out of control with now international trade being threatened. I fear that there may be a wider war now...