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The Associated Press said, Houthi group They targeted an oil tanker flying the Marshall Islands flag coming from India and heading towards the Suez Canal, with an armed security crew on board.
The agency quoted an American official as saying that an American warship shot down a drone suspected of belonging to the Houthis that was flying in its direction.
This morning, the Houthis fired two missiles at a commercial ship in Bab al-Mandab StraitBut they did not hit their target.
In the same context, Reuters quoted a memorandum issued by the British maritime security company Ambrey on Wednesday, that a speedboat carrying armed men approached two ships that were sailing off the coast of the port of Hodeidah in the Red Sea in Yemen.
The British Maritime Trade Operations Authority said earlier that it had received reports of an accident in the vicinity of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, without revealing the details.
Embry said that a chemical tanker flying the flag of the Marshall Islands reported an exchange of fire with a speedboat 55 nautical miles off Hodeidah, adding that the boat approached the tanker and began firing at a distance of 300 meters.
She added that the tanker was contacted by a party claiming to be the Yemeni Navy, and asked the ship to change its course, but a warship belonging to the “Coalition” advised the ship to continue on its current course.
Embry did not specifically clarify which alliance she was referring to, but it is known that the Alliance Task Force (STF) is the executive arm of the International Alliance for the Security and Protection of Freedom of Maritime Navigation, which was established in 2019 to address the growing threats to navigation and the flow of trade.
Embry reported shortly after the tanker incident that the speedboat approached a Maltese-flagged bulk carrier 52 nautical miles off the coast of Hodeidah, adding that it would provide updates as soon as they were relevant.
On December 5, US Department of Defense spokesman Patrick Ryder announced that the United States is holding discussions to establish an international “naval task force” against Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, indicating that the force will be an alliance that includes 38 countries willing to do so. .
Today, Wednesday, the Yemeni government denied its participation in a new international coalition to protect maritime shipping lines, commenting on news in this regard.
Before that, the Houthi group announced that it had targeted two Israeli ships in the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea, western Yemen, with a naval missile and a drone.
On November 19, the Houthis announced the seizure of the cargo ship “Galaxy Leader”, owned by an Israeli businessman, in the Red Sea, and took it to the Yemeni coast, in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip, according to Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree.
The Houthi group has repeatedly vowed to target ships owned or operated by Israeli companies, in solidarity with Palestine, and called on countries to withdraw their citizens working on the crews of these ships.
The Israeli army is waging a devastating war on Gaza, which, as of Tuesday evening, has left 18,412 dead, 50,100 injured, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to Palestinian and UN sources.
