A court of the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen has sentenced 13 people to public execution on homosexuality charges, the French wire service AFP reported on Tuesday. Another 35 people have been detained for similar charges. The ruling was made in Ibb, a Houthi-controlled province from which the jihadist group has been launching attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, opening a war that reached its four-month mark this week. The Houthis have a history of sentencing more people to death than they actually execute, according to a 2022 report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which counted 350 death sentences by the group since 2014, only 11 of which have resulted in execution. But the group’s attacks on global trade could change this calculus.