2024-01-15 20:40:04
An American cargo ship was hit on Monday by a missile fired by the Houthis off the Yemeni city of Aden, the day after an attack targeting an American destroyer in the Red Sea, blamed by Washington on Yemen’s rebels.
• Read also: US military confirms new strike against Houthis in Yemen
At around 4:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. GMT), “Iran-backed Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile (…) and hit the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a cargo ship flying the flag of the Marshall Islands,” belonging to a shipowner American, indicated the American military Command in the Middle East (Centcom) specifying that there were no injuries “nor significant damage”.
The incident was reported earlier by the British Maritime Safety Agency (UKMTO), which reported a ship “hit from above by a missile” southeast of the city of Aden, in the southern Yemen.
The Houthi rebels, who control large swaths of Yemen, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they “targeted a US ship in the Gulf of Aden with a number of appropriate naval missiles, hitting it precisely and directly.”
This attack is part of “the response” to the American-British strikes against Yemen, declared their military spokesperson, Yehya Saree.
He added that his movement considered “all American and British ships and warships participating in the aggression against (the) country as hostile targets.”
American and British forces carried out strikes on Yemen on Friday and Saturday targeting Houthi positions, in response to the increase in attacks by Yemeni rebels in the Red Sea in recent weeks.
These attacks have disrupted maritime traffic in this strategic area, where the Houthis say they target ships they suspect of being linked to Israel, claiming to act in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
According to the British maritime risk company Ambrey, the cargo ship targeted on Monday was heading towards the Suez Canal, and was not linked to Israel. He was targeted because of his membership in an American group, Ambrey believes.
New strategy?
On Sunday, Houthi media reported new strikes, but these reports were denied by Washington, which said it had shot down a cruise missile targeting an American destroyer in the southern Red Sea.
The American army, for its part, said it had shot down “an anti-ship ballistic missile fired towards the shipping lanes of the southern Red Sea”, which fell on Yemeni territory.
In this context, the Department of Transport in Washington reiterated its warning to American ships, emphasizing the “high degree of risks in the southern Red Sea”.
For Mohamed Albasha, of the American consultancy firm Navanti, the attack off the coast of Aden could, however, be a sign of a change in strategy on the part of the Houthis.
“With the warships of the American and British navies concentrated mainly on the Red Sea”, to the west of Yemen, the Houthis could “redirect their attention towards the ships in the Gulf of Aden (south) and in the Sea of ‘Arabia (east)’, he stressed.
About 12% of global trade passes through the Red Sea, but since mid-November, Houthi attacks have forced many shipping companies to avoid the area, and take the longest route around the tip of Africa, to the price of additional transport costs and longer delivery times.
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