Dubai, United Arab Emirates — An attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted a commercial ship crossing the Gulf of Aden but apparently caused no damage, authorities said Saturday, in the group’s latest strike on the shipping lane.
The Houthi attack comes after this week’s sinking of the Tutor ship, which marked what appears to be a new escalation by the Iran-backed Houthis in their campaign of strikes against ships in the vital maritime corridor in the framework of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Band.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military ordered the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading the U.S. response to Houthi attacks, to return home after a twice-extended tour.
The captain of the targeted ship on Friday evening saw “explosions near the ship”, said the British army’s maritime commercial operations center. A subsequent briefing from the US-supervised Joint Maritime Information Center said the ship initially reported two explosions on its port side, then a third later.
“The ship was not hit and suffered no damage,” the center said. “The ship and crew are reportedly safe and heading to their next port of call.”
The Houthis, who have controlled Yemen’s capital Sanaa since 2014, claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday evening. Brig. General Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, identified the targeted vessel as the bulk carrier Transworld Navigator.
The US military separately destroyed three drone boats in the Red Sea over the past day, the central command said.
The Houthis launched more than 60 attacks targeting specific ships and fired other missiles and drones during their campaign, which killed a total of four sailors. They have seized one ship and sunk two since November. A US-led airstrikes campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes on May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, according to the rebels.
In March, the Belizean-flagged Rubymar, carrying fertilizer, became the first to sink in the Red Sea after taking on water for days following a rebel attack.
The Houthis have claimed their attacks targeted ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain. However, many of the vessels attacked have little or no connection to the war between Israel and Hamas.
The Eisenhower, based in Norfolk, Virginia, is returning home after a more than eight-month combat deployment that the Navy says is the most intense since World War II. The San Diego-based USS Theodore Roosevelt will replace the Eisenhower after a planned exercise in the Indo-Pacific, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said.
The Roosevelt anchored Saturday in Busan, South Korea, amid ongoing tensions between Seoul and North Korea.
The Eisenhower had already reached the Mediterranean Sea, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ship’s movements. Flight tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed a Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopter associated with the Eisenhower flying over the Mediterranean just off the coast of Port Said, Egypt, on Saturday evening.
The Eisenhower had repeatedly been the target of false allegations of attacks by the Houthis during its stay in the Red Sea. Saree claimed responsibility for another attack on the aircraft carrier on Saturday evening – but again provided no supporting evidence as the ship had already left the area. Central Command called the claim “categorically false.”
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Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
ABC News
