Iran Sends Warship to Red Sea as US Navy’s Largest Aircraft Carrier Heads Home

Just two days after a U.S. flotilla sank three speedboats of Houthi pirates in the Red Sea, Iran is sending another warship into the waters that control access to the Suez Canal.

The Alborz, an Iranian frigate built in 1969, entered the Red Sea on Monday, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency, which did not specify the ship’s mission.

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been targeting ships in the Red Sea since November, and have vowed to attack ships headed to Israel until Gaza receives medicine and supplies.

Major shipping forms have suspended much of their traffic through the Suez Canal, opting instead for longer and more expensive journeys around the southern tip of Africa, a trip that can add as much as 10 days to voyages.

The Iranian ship’s deployment comes as the U.S. is working feverishly to assemble a multinational naval force to protect Red Sea shipping from the Houthis and as Iran has increasingly moved to assert dominance in the region. The US-led Red Sea task force is facing reluctance from other nations, including Spain and Italy, that are wary of placing their ships under U.S. command. 

Iran’s plans in the Red Sea are unclear. Its naval presence there is minimal, apart from an intelligence and communications ship thought to be actively coordinating Houthi attacks.

Tehran has been largely silent on the country’s intentions, with the last significant comment coming in December from Iran's Defense Minister, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, who said in reference to the Red Sea that "nobody can make a move in a region where we have predominance".

Meanwhile, the U.S. announced that the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the 1,092-foot long U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, would be leaving its post off the coast of Israel to return to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia, after eight months, having extended its mission twice.

The Ford had been sent to the eastern Mediterranean to contribute to the U.S.’s “regional deterrence and defense posture,” the U.S. Navy said in a statement.

The Ford’s return home still leaves the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower and its strike group in the Middle East, and a handful of amphibious attack ships and landing ships operating in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Protecting international shipping in the Red Sea has proved challenging.

“Iran’s latent threat to disrupt the Persian Gulf remains a real concern,” Bruce Jones, a senior fellow and expert on naval warfare at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said in an email.

“The world’s navies are already overstretched,” Jones said, as China’s navy becomes more powerful and Russian submarines become more active in northern European waters.

“There’s no way for the West to respond to all of this at once without more naval power, and without a better division of labor.”

Plans for a Red Sea task force, Jones said, “are coming together slow and messy, reflecting [these] strains on capacity and division of labor. “

On Sunday, helicopters from the Eisenhower strike group stopped four small boats of Houthi militants from attacking a merchant ship, the Danish-operated Maersk Hangzhou. As the Houthi boats came within 20 yards of the Hangzhou in an attempt to board it, American helicopters flew to the ship’s aid and warned the Houthis through loudspeakers to back off. The Houthis ignored the call, and instead fired at the helicopters. The U.S. returned fire, sinking three of the Houthi boars and killing their crews. The fourth boat fled, the U.S. Central Command said. 

Maersk said it will decide on Tuesday whether to resume sending vessels through the Suez via the Red Sea or redirect them around Africa, a company spokesman told Reuters.

Maersk, which has the largest fleet capacity of any shipper in the world, had more than 30 container vessels set to sail through Suez via the Red Sea, an advisory on Monday showed, while 17 other voyages were put on hold.