This is the best summary I could come up with:
The European Union wants to send at least three warships to safeguard vessels in the Red Sea facing attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
According to a document from the European External Action Service seen by POLITICO, the EU’s diplomatic arm, the bloc should create “a new EU operation” that would “act in a broader area of operation, from the Red Sea to the Gulf.”
Iran-backed Houthis rebels say they have targeted ships in the Red Sea — one of the world’s busiest waterways — as a show of support for Palestinians under Israeli bombardment in Gaza.
The Houthi rebels have attacked ships, forcing them to take long detours around the Horn of Africa.
This operation is composed of an ad hoc coalition of partners (20 reportedly so far, with only 13 willing to disclose their participation).
The new mission would build on Agenor, a French-led joint surveillance operation covering the entire Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and part of the Arabian Sea and which is composed of nine European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal), the document says.
The original article contains 290 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 37%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Why governments feel they need to hide their involvement? What they are scared of?
Retaliation and political backlash
In what timeline are we living where protecting civilian shipping lanes from terrorists is seen as controversial? Yes, any sort of armed conflict sucks, but it isn’t like you always have the choice not to get involved like that.
For the EU my speculation would be Qatar. They have taken over for the loss of Russian natural gas with their large LNG exports. Qatar also seeks to mediate a lot of the issues see them housing Hamas & their agenda setting with their state-funded Al Jazeera. After that they probably don’t want to risk having their flagged vessels subject to a swarm of drones like US & UK endured.
