Shapps warns Iran: Patience is running out

Defence Secretary orders Tehran to call off Houthi ‘thugs’ after UK strikes on Yemen

GRANT SHAPPS has warned Iran that the world is “running out of patience” after Britain and America launched air strikes against Tehran-backed Houthi rebels.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Defence Secretary said the Iranian regime must tell the Houthis and other Middle Eastern proxies to “cease and desist”, warning that a “limit has been truly crossed”.

On Thursday night, RAF Typhoon jets launched Paveway IV laser-guided bombs at two Houthi-controlled sites in Yemen, in a raid that the Government believes has significantly reduced the group’s ability to attack commercial ships in the Red Sea.

The mission was undertaken with US forces, who used air, sea and submarine assets in the Red Sea to target more than 60 Houthi sites that have been linked to 27 attacks since November.

Asked what his message to Iran would be, Mr Shapps said: “You must get the Houthi rebels, others who are acting as proxies for you, Lebanese Hezbollah are obvious examples, [and] some in Iraq and Syria, you must get these different organisations to cease and desist because we are, the world is, running out of patience.

“We see you, we see through what you’re doing. We see how you’re doing it, particularly the Houthi rebels, and no good can come from it.”

Rishi Sunak said yesterday that the strikes were intended to warn the Houthis that further attacks would lead to reprisals from the West. “This type of behaviour can’t be met without a response,” he said on a visit to Kyiv. “We need to send a strong signal that this breach of international law is wrong. People can’t act like this with impunity.”

The Telegraph can reveal today that Britain’s aircraft carriers are not ready to be sent to the region because of the recruitment crisis engulfing the Armed Forces. Despite calls to send HMS Queen Elizabeth, the UK’s £3billion aircraft carrier, to the Red Sea, it cannot be deployed because its support ship, RFA Fort Victoria, is operating on a skeleton crew and remains in a Liverpool shipyard.

Adml Lord West, the former first sea lord, said it was “atrocious” that the ship was not ready to deploy, adding: “It’s extraordinary that when things started hotting up in the Red Sea region there wasn’t the immediate move to send an aircraft carrier there.” The US Navy’s carrier, the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, arrived in the Red Sea last Friday in response to continued Houthi attacks.

Mr Shapps said: “We are acting in self-defence because of the shipping situation, because of HMS Diamond being attacked. Iran has an important part to play here and needs to understand that it needs to be clearer with its many proxies in the region that no good can come from this and everyone loses if they carry on going down this track.

“We can’t have thugs, essentially, harassing international shipping and running the risks. It’s only a matter of time before there are deaths of entirely innocent people [who are] completely disconnected to what’s going on in the Israel-Gaza conflict.”

Mr Shapps also defended the decision not to get MPs to vote on the strikes before they took place. He said: “If you had to go through a parliamentary process then it would... potentially degrade the quality of the operation itself.”

Mr Shapps’s comments come after the US insisted that the strikes were not an attack on Iran. Joe Biden, the US President, in a statement delivered to the leaders of both houses of Congress, wrote: “The strikes were taken to deter and degrade Houthi capacity to

conduct future attacks and were conducted in a manner designed to limit the risk of escalation and avoid civilian casualties.” Yesterday, a split emerged between EU countries over the attacks, with Italy and France refusing to join the military action or endorse a statement on their justification.

The Netherlands along with Australia, Canada and Bahrain added logistical and intelligence support to the US and UK strikes. An Italian government source told Reuters that Giorgia Meloni’s administration had refused to participate because the country wanted to pursue a “calming” policy in the Red Sea.

Antonio Tajani, the deputy prime minister, said Italy could not have participated at such short notice “because the constitution does not allow us to commit acts of war without a debate in parliament”. The French government is understood to have thought striking the Houthis would have hindered its attempts to de-escalate conflict in Lebanon. Rear-Adml Emmanuel Slaars, the French naval commander in the region, said he did not have a mandate to attack Houthis directly. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, accused the UK-US alliance of turning the Red Sea into a “sea of blood” with a “disproportionate use of force”.

The UK and US insist that the strikes were in self-defence, on behalf of naval and commercial shipping vessels from various countries that have been attacked in recent weeks.

Houthi commanders have vowed to retaliate against the US and UK for the strikes, which the rebels said had killed five fighters and injured another six.

“The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for this criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished,” a statement by the group said. A US assessment of the strikes released yesterday morning said they had been a “success”. Yesterday, a British maritime security firm said that Houthi militants had mistakenly targeted a tanker carrying Russian oil in a missile attack off Yemen.

A missile was reported to have been fired at the vessel but there were no injuries or damage. Security firm Ambrey said they believed it had been mistakenly targeted because outdated information suggested it was linked to the UK.

Despite London and Washington issuing strong warnings to the Houthis, the White House said it was “not looking for conflict” with Iran.