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The US-Israel war on Iran is well into its third week yet one of Tehran's most menacing allies, Yemen's Houthis, are keeping their missiles and drones away from ships in the Red Sea.
This became the rebel group's target of choice shortly after the Gaza war broke out in October 2023.
While a blessing to global shipping and energy markets, the absence of Houthi attacks on vessels plying the waterway is baffling experts who, like most Middle East observers, were virtually certain of the group joining the war on Tehran's side the day it began.
The Houthis' position is more difficult to understand because other Iranian-backed groups have already joined the fray, with Lebanon's Hezbollah launching missiles at Israel, saying it was avenging the killing of Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iraqi militias hitting US targets across the country as well as in neighbouring Kuwait and Jordan.
The Houthis, after all, started targeting shipping in the Red Sea – about 15 per cent of global trade passes through the waterway – shortly after the Gaza war broke out on October 7, 2023, in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Their actions forced a significant segment of commercial vessels to take the much longer and costlier route between Europe and Asia, around the Cape of Good Hope, to avoid being attacked by the Houthis.
That in turn disrupted international supply chains and cost Egypt $10 billion in lost revenue from the Suez Canal that links the Mediterranean and Red Sea.
The attacks also invited air strikes by the US, Israel and Britain but a deal with Washington last May halted them.
On the lack of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, Michael Hanna, a prominent Middle East expert from the International Crisis Group, said: “We are not exactly sure to be honest.
“There are some theories, of course, and some of them are plausible, including one that says the Iranians are holding off Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping in reserve, as part of strategic patience. It's a potentially major escalation that could be used by Iran at some point in the future.”
Already, Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf – about 20 per cent of the world's oil trade passes through the waterway – has sent energy prices shooting up. Targeting shipping in the Red Sea could push up energy prices further, and affect economies in the region and across the world.
The Houthis have a history, predating the Gaza war, of firing rockets and drones well beyond their borders, including at targets in Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has led an anti-Houthi alliance in Yemen since early 2015, six months after the militants captured the capital Sanaa and began to march on other parts of the Arab nation whose Red Sea coastline includes the Bab Al Mandeb, the waterway's southern entrance.
“The Houthis have a deal with the Americans and perhaps also an understanding with the Saudis to stop the attacks in the Red Sea,” said Samir Ragheb, a retired Egyptian army brigadier turned strategic and political analyst. “They risk losing the goodwill of both if they launch attacks on shipping at a time when the US has a massive naval presence in the region.
“However, if Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping will bring Iran any strategic value, they would have done it by now.”
Mr Ragheb speculated that the rebels were currently distracted dealing with pressing issues at home, primarily the threat to their rule posed by a secessionist movement in government-controlled southern Yemen.
Salma Hassan, a Yemen expert with the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said the decision to attack shipping in the Red Sea may have to do with timing more than anything else.
“The idea that the Houthis are showing restraint out of humanitarian concern does not hold water,” she said. “They had never prioritised the welfare of civilians.
“What we are seeing is a strategic pause. They are waiting for Iran's co-ordination and calculating how to send a powerful message against the US and Israel. In other words, this isn't about healing wounds from previous attacks on Yemen; it's about timing and signalling.”
