Yemen's Houthi rebels fired on a ship in the Red Sea on Friday, a U.S. official and Britain's maritime security agency said, a day after a similar attack in the strategic maritime area. This pro-Iranian militia, which has been engaged in the civil war in Yemen since 2015, has stepped up attacks on commercial ships in the region.
"We know that something that was fired from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen hit a ship that was damaged, and that a fire was reported," a US military official told AFP. The UK's maritime safety agency UKMTO also reported that a ship had been hit by "an unknown object", starting a fire, with no casualties.
UKMTO WARNING 010/DEC/2023 - UPDATE 001
INCIDENT
Warnings - 2023 (https://t.co/5An1YH0JyE)#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/a5dHEqtWoP
— United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) (@UK_MTO) December 15, 2023
According to the intelligence agency Ambrey, the ship was hit by a projectile while crossing the Bab Al Mandab Strait. It is a Liberian-flagged container ship owned by Germany's Hapag-Lloyd AG, which has offices in the Israeli ports of Ashdod, Haifa and Tel Aviv, Ambrey said.
"There was an attack on one of our ships," a company spokesman confirmed to AFP. He said the ship was en route to Singapore from the Greek port of Piraeus. There were no injuries and the ship is continuing on its way to its destination, according to the same source.
The U.S. reacted through U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who was visiting Tel Aviv. Yemen's Houthi rebels "pose a concrete threat to free navigation" in the Red Sea, he said on Friday. "The United States is working with the international community and our partners in the region to address this threat," he told reporters after meeting with Israeli officials.
Israel-linked vessels targeted
The Houthi rebels had warned that they would target any ship sailing off the coast of Yemen with ties to Israel in retaliation for the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, they claimed to have carried out a "military operation against a container ship, the Maersk Gibraltar," which was en route to Israel, "targeting it with a drone." A U.S. official, however, said the missile missed its target and fell into the water.
Two days earlier, on December 12, the French military shot down a drone that threatened the same tanker. The multi-mission frigate (FREMM) Languedoc then "placed itself in protection of the affected vessel, preventing the attempted hijacking of the ship," the ministry said in a statement. The French ship had itself been the target of drones fired from Yemen. The French General Staff had called for avoiding "any regional conflagration".