Houthis granting China, Russia safe passage in Red Sea, CENTCOM says

China and Russia are supporting the Houthis—and reaping safe passage through international waters that the Iran-backed group have been showering with missiles and drones, the top U.S. military official in the region said Thursday.

“Russia and China have a bye on any movement through the Red Sea,” Gen. Michael Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee. “So what you're seeing is Iran is using its proxy to allow access for Russia and and China to go through the Red Sea while blocking access to others.”

That’s one payoff for Beijing’s willingness to purchase Iranian oil despite sanctions on Tehran, Kurilla said.

“Iran is selling 90% of its oil–and that is the largest part of their GDP, is oil” to China, he said.

Kurilla said China and Iran have grown adept at hiding their trade. 

“Iran is evading those sanctions by using an entire ghost fleet, called a dark fleet, of ships, to be able to go out and do ship-to-ship transfers,” he said.

Such ships may turn off the AIS indicators required by international law. 

Iran uses the oil profits to build attack drones of the sort that Russia is using to strike civilian targets in Ukraine—up to 100 Shahed-136 drones per week, Kurilla said. Iran also outfits the Houthi militias with drones and missiles to attack U.S. and other ships in the Red Sea.

“China is interested in purchasing some Iranian UAVs as well,” he said.  

On Wednesday, military officials told lawmakers that China is building up its military at a pace not seen since World War II in anticipation of a potential attack on Taiwan. 

Meanwhile, Russia is hinting at giving Iranian additional military capabilities. Kurilla said he would discuss those only discuss in a classified session.