Combating Terrorism, Smuggling, Deceptive Colonial Titles to Control Seas, Oceans, Global Straits

 Water bodies and sea straits were and still are of great importance at the international level in all different eras of history. This importance doubled in the modern era, the era of active international trade and colonialism in the modern sense, which increased the activity and movement of the colonial countries in their relentless pursuit to control the seas, oceans, and maritime straits in service of their military and commercial goals and ambitions.

Yemen enjoys special importance due to its important location overlooking the Red and Arabian Seas, the Indian Ocean, and its full control over the Bab al-Mandab Strait. This sensitive geopolitical location has become coveted by many colonial countries, past and present, as it has the second longest coastline in the Arab world, after Morocco, with a length of 2,200 km. For this reason only, Yemen remained the focus of attention of the colonial countries with the aim of controlling its coasts and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is crossed by the largest fuel ships from the Persian Gulf towards Europe, in addition to the commercial ships going to and from Southeast Asia.

Finally, the colonial countries were able to find a foothold on Yemen’s coasts after long decades, in which they were looking for pretexts to occupy them and occupy the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The exceptional circumstance created by the US-British-Zionist colonialism came, taking Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a spearhead in the active presence of its ships and military battleships in Yemen’s territorial waters and Bab al-Mandab Strait. This is evident in the US announcement, last April, of the formation of what it called the 153 Joint Task Force, which consists of 34 countries. The last to join that colonial naval alliance were the Egyptian naval forces that were pushed by the US, Britain and the Zionist entity to the forefront of joint military operations in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea under the name of combating terrorism and smuggling and confronting illegal activities. These titles are throwing ashes over the eyes, while the truth is that the US naval presence in the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab is to cordon off Yemen’s coasts to serve as the spearhead of Saudi Arabia and UAE which are involved in the aggression against Yemen.

The surprising thing is that the Egyptian leadership accepts that its naval forces assume command of the joint missions 153 under flimsy and false justifications such as combating terrorism and other deceptive names that colonial countries market to pass their projects in controlling the seas, oceans and global straits.

It was incumbent on the Yemeni leadership to take a position on this, and this is what actually happened after the Minister of Defense of the National Salvation Government in Sana’a made his recent statements.

“The Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, the territorial extension of the Socotra Archipelago, and the Yemeni islands are Yemeni lands, that it has full sovereignty over them and security in them will have priority,” he said. The colonial countries should only be aware of this and to reckon with this statement.