Ship attacked off Yemen in Red Sea, days after Israeli airstrike on Houthis
Crew safe after projectiles hit water near vessel, in first apparent strike by Iran-backed group on shipping after vowing ‘resistance won’t be broken’ by assassination of Nasrallah
A suspected attack Tuesday by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the Red Sea, likely marking their first assault on commercial shipping in weeks as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a regional conflict.
The attack comes two days after the Israeli Air Force launched airstrikes against what it said was Houthi infrastructure in western Yemen, in response to the Iran-backed group firing a surface-to-surface ballistic missile at central Israel on Saturday. The Houthis said the missile was aimed at Ben Gurion Airport, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plane had just landed.
The group had vowed that the “resistance won’t be broken” following an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday that killed the leader of the Hezbollah terror group Hassan Nasrallah and earlier explosions of communications devices used by the group, also attributed to Israel.
The attack Tuesday morning took place some 110 kilometers (70 miles) off the port city of Hodeida in the Red Sea, which has become a battlefield since the Houthis began targeting ships traveling through a waterway that once saw $1 trillion a year of cargo pass through it, saying they were doing so in support of Gaza.
A captain on a ship saw four “splashes” near his vessel, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in a warning Tuesday. That likely would have been missiles or drones launched at the vessel.
“All crew are safe and the vessel is proceeding to (its) next port of call,” the UKMTO said.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack. However, they sometimes take hours or days to acknowledge one of their assaults.
Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since October.
Four sailors have been killed in the Houthis’ campaign, and they have seized one vessel and sunk two. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels.
The Houthi campaign began in October with the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war, which was triggered by Hamas-led terrorists infiltrating southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the United Kingdom to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
The Houthis claimed an attack targeted American warships last week. The rebels fired more than a half dozen ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles and two drones at three US ships that were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but all were intercepted by the Navy destroyers, a US official said Friday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet publicly released.
The last attack on a merchant ship by the Houthis came on September 2.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report .
