{"id":278712,"date":"2023-12-24T09:05:40","date_gmt":"2023-12-24T09:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=278712"},"modified":"2023-12-26T09:39:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T09:39:00","slug":"major-setback-for-us-led-naval-coalition-as-france-spain-and-italy-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=278712","title":{"rendered":"Major setback for US-led naval coalition as France, Spain and Italy leave"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 Dec 24, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\n
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USS Carney destroyer transits the Suez Canal in Egypt in October. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In a major setback to a US-led maritime task force in the Red Sea to protect passage of Israeli-owned and Israel-bound merchant vessels, France, Spain, and Italy have officially withdrawn their participation from the\u00a0alliance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The three nations have explicitly stated their commitment to operating exclusively under the command of international bodies such as the United Nations, NATO, or the European Union, choosing not to align with the United States.<\/p>\n

The French Defense Ministry announced in a statement that it supported efforts to secure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and surrounding area and said it already operated in the region.<\/p>\n

However, it said\u00a0its ships would stay under\u00a0French command\u00a0and did not say if it would deploy more naval forces.<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s Defense Ministry also said it would send naval\u00a0frigate\u00a0Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea to protect its national interests in response to specific requests made by Italian ship owners.<\/p>\n

It said this was part of its existing operations, and was\u00a0not part of the US-led naval coalition in the waterway.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Spain\u2019s Defense Ministry said it would only participate in NATO-led missions or EU-coordinated operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will\u00a0not participate unilaterally\u00a0in the Red Sea operation,\u201d it noted.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Pentagon said\u00a0more than 20 countries\u00a0had now agreed to participate in the US-led maritime task in the Red Sea, known as so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian.<\/p>\n

The lack of details and clarity over what countries are doing has added to\u00a0confusion for shipping companies, some of which have been re-routing vessels away from the area, amid a flurry\u00a0of drone and missile attacks in the Red Sea by Yemeni forces in retaliation for the Israeli war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin announced the formation of the coalition \u2013 including Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, Spain and the UK \u2013 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Austin said Greece and Australia had also joined the grouping, taking it to a total of 20, but added that at least eight countries taking part have declined to be publicly named.<\/p>\n

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine\u2019s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory\u2019s Palestinian resistance movements carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.<\/p>\n

The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has killed at least 20,258 people, most of them women and children. Another 53,688 individuals have been wounded.<\/p>\n

Reports revealed that Israeli shipping companies have already decided to reroute their vessels in fear of attacks by Yemeni forces.<\/p>\n

Yemeni forces have also launched missile and drone attacks on targets in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine after the occupying regime\u2019s aggression on Gaza.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France, Spain and Italy have officially withdrawn from a naval alliance that was formed to protect merchant vessels sailing the Red Sea to and from Israel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Iran","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278712"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278785,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278712\/revisions\/278785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}