Djibouti

Why Every Country Has Military Bases in Djibouti
RealLifeLore

I've been reading Djibouti by Elmore Leonard. It's a novel about a middle aged woman filming a documentary about pirates around the Horn of Africa. I've been working on it for a while, it's not a page turner, but the story is interesting enough that I keep plugging away. I'll probably finish it in the next couple of days.

It seems like there has been a problem with pirates in that area for a long time. Since 2008 pirates have attacked over 200 ships. Now we have the Houthis attacking cargo ships in the Red Sea just north of Djibouti, so I'm a little curious about what's going on over there. We've got Navy ships over there and it seems like squashing the Houthis would be the an easy task for the most powerful Navy in the world, but the attacks seem to just keep getting worse instead of going away. Of course, we have Ukraine occupying our commander-in-chief's attention and everyone knows that keeping those gas pipeline tariff kickbacks coming is more important than any silly commercial shipping business, right?

It took five years for the shipping companies to get their ducks in a row and get enough security personnel to bring the piracy problem under control, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Houthis haven't been squashed yet.

Straits of Tiran

Ship passing through the Straits of Tiran - Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Al Reuters

Aljazeera tells us that the UN is withdrawing their peacekeeping force from the Straits of Tiran and installing cameras to keep an eye on things, so maybe things have calmed down here. But just where are the Straits of Tiran? So off to Google Maps we go.

Gulf of Aqaba

The Straits of Tiran are at the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba where it joins the Red Sea. It's not a vital shipping lane, unless you are Israel or Jordan who both have ports at the northern end of the Gulf. Jordan has a large oil terminal there, which might be where the ship in the first photo is coming from.

I was surprised by Jordan's presence there. I shouldn't have been, Jordan forms Israel's entire eastern border except the most northern portion, but you never hear anything about Jordan, it's like it doesn't exist.

Straits of Tiran, Tiran and Sanafir Islands

The Straits of Tiran are narrow, only about two miles wide and there are reefs in the middle. The islands look pretty desolate, but on the western (Egyptian) shore we have a bunch of resorts.

Party at Jackson Reef
Island in the background is the same one as in the first photo

I am looking at some street view images hoping to find a view of the pier that is in the first photo on this post, and this pops up. At first glance it looks like a typical drunken boat party, but if you take in the whole 360 degree view you see that the boats are almost entirely empty.

Divers at Jackson Reef

Turns out they are dive boats for tourists from the resorts and all the people are underwater. The sea life on the reefs is pretty spectacular.

Piers

I wasn't able to locate the pier on Google Maps until I realized that there were lines crossing a large green area adjacent to the shore and I realized that it was shallow water, not land, and those lines were light duty piers suitable for people to walk on, not for freight.

P.S. I thought I had looked at this part of the world once before but I couldn't remember why. Then I clicked on the place mark on the resort and all was revealed. The Super Tucanos stopped there on their round the world delivery flight.

Jamnagar Refinery

The second refinery's work site covered an area larger than London - Bechtel

I'm reading a story about how India is scooping up discounted oil from Russia and they mention that the largest oil refinery in the world is located in Jamnagar, India, about 300 miles northwest of Bombay.

Who'd a thunk it?

I looking at the map and I'm thinking the oil is probably being transported by tanker across the Black Sea, through downtown Istanbul, which prompted me to wonder what that looks like, and wouldn't you know it, YouTube has a video.

Passing bosphorus strait, Turkey | timelapse, daytime
Juan Lorenzo Experience

Then it goes

• across the Mediterranean,
• through the Suez canal,
• down the Red Sea,
• across the Gulf of Aden and
• across the Arabian Sea. I guess we aren't far enough south to be considered in the Indian Ocean.

Shipping Oil from Russia to India
It's 5,000 miles one way along a very complicated path. Well, complicated compared to sailing across the Pacific.

1956 Suez Crisis

Sunk ships Blocking the Suez Canal

Distinguished daughter wanted to take a look at a Foreign Service Officer practice test, so we did. Part of the test was to correct a piece of text. The piece they chose was a short summary of the 1956 Suez Crisis. We really didn't know anything about it, but we kind of expected the typical kind of diplomatic bullshit we read about in the news today. But that's not what we got. This bit of text contained a big surprise. Seems the Brits and the French really put their foot in it. It starts on page 32 of the PDF file, page 29 if you looking at the printed page numbers.

In July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal and nationalized the British- and French-owned company that managed it, threatening both British and French stock holdings and Europe's access to Middle Eastern oil. The ensuing crisis had important consequences for U.S. relations with its European allies and the Middle East. Not surprisingly, a crisis transpired. Previously, the United States and Britain had agreed to finance Egypt’s Aswan Dam, which was to be both a symbol of modernization and a source of electricity. However, after Nasser made several moves that appeared friendly to the Communist bloc, the United States and Britain reneged on the agreement and withdrew financing. Belatedly, Nasser realized that the building of the Aswan Dam was important to Egypt’s future. 

The United States regarded Nasser's nationalization of the Canal as a problem and pursued a diplomatic solution. Britain and France, however, viewed it as a threat to their national interests. They secretly contacted the Israeli government and proposed that Israel invade the Sinai Peninsula and march toward the Suez Canal zone. Then Britain and France would warn both Egypt and Israel to stay away from the Suez Canal and land paratroopers in the zone on the pretext of protecting it. In October 1956, Israeli forces crossed the border to defeat the Egyptian army in the Sinai. Britain and France then issued their warning and landed troops as planned. 

Both the United States and the USSR responded by demanding a cease-fire to these events. In addition, the United States also called for the evacuation of Israeli, French, and British troops under the supervision of a special UN force. This force arrived in mid November and by the end of the year the last British and French troops had withdrawn. 

The Suez conflict was a military defeat for Egypt, but Nasser’s status as the defender of Arab nationalism grew in the Arab world. The United States had improved its relations with Egypt, but fundamental disputes between Israel and its neighbors remained unresolved. Israel withdrew from Egyptian territory gained in the fighting but regained access to the Straits of Tiran.

Before the Egyptian forces were defeated, they had blocked the canal to all shipping by sinking 40 ships in the canal. It took the Brits five months to clear them out.

 

Jizan, Jazan

Houthi forces launch a ballistic missile aimed at Saudi Arabia on March 25, 2018
[Houthi Military Media Unit via Reuters]

Video Shows Saudi Red Sea Oil Terminal Ablaze After Fresh Drone Attack by Tyler Durden

The oil terminal is in Jizan (or Jazan, depending on who's spelling it). An oil terminal in Saudi Arabia, on the Red Sea, near the border with Yemen? That sounds familiar, and sure enough I put up a post about another attack a few months ago. All the videos in the ZeroHedge post are from Twitter, which don't lend themselves to clean embedding, so I went to YouTube to see if they had one. YouTube has bunch of videos of rocket attacks on Jizan. I didn't see any of the latest attack. I don't know if that matters though. The conflict has been going on for a while and will probably continue indefinitely. Another Forever War for your entertainment.

The Red Sea

Agrari oil tanker

There was some kind of incident involving an oil tanker on the Red Sea recently. It sounds like there was a small explosion. Some people are accusing Yemeni rebels of planting a bomb.

I'm looking at this and I'm wondering what an oil tanker is doing tied to the shore in the Red Sea. Sure, oil tankers pass up and down the Red Sea all the time going between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean, but I haven't heard of a great deal of oil production in the area. (I did some checking and while there are a few oil rigs in the Red Sea, there are ten times as many in the Persian Gulf, which is on the other side of the Arabian peninsula.)

Shuqaiq 2 IWPP

It seems that the tanker, rather than taking on a load of oil was delivering a load to a facility that generates electrical power and desalinates water for a couple of other cities in Saudi Arabia - Abha and Jizan.

I just finished reading Treason's Harbor by Patrick O'Brian. The story describes a mission to attack a French fort located along the Red Sea. The description of the conditions they encounter makes it sound like one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. Soaring temperatures with humidity being either very high or very low. When it is very high, it is stifling, but when a desert wind blows in and the humidity suddenly drops, now the wind is sucking the water right out of your body.

Shuqaiq, Abha & Jizan Saudi Arabia
Looking due North

Shuqaiq and Jizan are at sea level on the coast and get the full brunt of the harsh weather. Abha is up in the mountains at an elevation of 7,500 feet, which is a half mile farther up than Denver and the climate is much more pleasant. Not suprisingly, Abha has seven times as many people as Jizan.