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16-01-2024
SANA’A/ JERUSALEM: A US-owned ship has been hit “in response to strikes by the US and UK on Houthis in Yemen”, a maritime security firm says.
The master of the vessel reported being hit by a missile near Yemen’s port city of Aden.
The Iran-backed Houthis have been attacking cargo ships since November. They say these are Israeli-linked though many have no connections with Israel
Ambrey, the maritime security firm, says the vessel was “assessed to not be Israel-affiliated”.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says the UK will not hesitate to take further action against the Houthis to protect itself in the Red Sea.
“We faced an escalating series of attacks … including an attack on a Royal Navy warship,” Sunak tells reporters, calling it “unacceptable”.
The Houthis are a political and military group in control of a large part of Yemen, and are also key allies of Hamas in Gaza. They’ve vowed to continue attacks on ships bound for Israel.
A missile struck a ship Monday just off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, less than a day after Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, officials said.
Details remained scarce on the missile strike, though it marked the latest attack roiling global shipping amid Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Suspicion immediately fell on the Houthis, a Shiite rebel group allied with Iran that seized Yemen’s capital in 2014.
They have targeted that crucial corridor linking Asian and Mideast energy and cargo shipments to the Suez Canal onward to Europe over the war, attacks that threaten to widen that conflict into a regional conflagration.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which oversees Mideast waters, said the attack on the ship Monday happened some 110 miles (177 kilometers) miles southeast of Aden.
It offered few details, other than to say the ship’s captain reported that the “port side of vessel hit from above by a missile.” It did not identify the ship or elaborate.
The US Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Yemen’s Houthi rebels did not acknowledge any attack, though they have fired missiles previously in that area.
Sunday’s attack toward the American warship also marked the first US-acknowledged fire by the Houthis since America and allied nations began strikes Friday on the rebels following weeks of assaults on shipping in the Red Sea.
The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the attack.
It wasn’t presently clear whether the US would retaliate for the latest attacks, though President Joe Biden has said he “will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.” (Int’l News Desk)
