DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A drone boat loaded with explosives crashed into a ship Tuesday in the Red Sea, the British military and private security officials said, the latest suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The drone attack and an earlier attempted attack Tuesday likely are the rebels’ first assaults on commercial shipping in weeks as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a regional conflict.
The attacks come as Israeli ground forces entered Lebanon after days of Israeli airstrikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top officials, and earlier explosions of sabotaged electronic devices used by the Shiite militia. The Houthis threatened “escalating military operations” targeting Israel on Monday after they apparently shot down a U.S. military drone flying over Yemen.
The first attack took place some 110 kilometers (70 miles) off the port city of Hodeida. 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. That likely would have been missiles or drones launched at the vessel.
The UKMTO later reported a second attack north of the first. The private intelligence firm Ambrey similarly reported two separate attacks.
The UKMTO later said the first ship it reported on was later damaged by a drone that punctured one of its ballast tanks in another attack. Those tanks control a ship’s buoyancy. Houthi strikes in the past have targeted ships at their waterline to disable the vessels.
Ambrey identified the drone as a drone boat, which have been increasingly used by the Houthis. The ship had been heading north to the Suez Canal with armed private security guards aboard, the firm said.
It was not immediately clear if all the attacks targeted the same vessel.
The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attacks. However, they sometimes take hours or days to acknowledge their assaults.
Instead, Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a prerecorded video Tuesday that the rebels had launched drones targeting Israel — attacks unreported by Israel as it faces incoming fire from Hezbollah. The Houthis have exaggerated claims in the past.
The Red Sea has become a battlefield for shippers since the Houthis began their campaign targeting ships traveling through the waterway, which once saw $1 trillion a year of cargo pass through it.
Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started last October. They have seized one vessel and sunk two in the campaign that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels.
The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the U.S. 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 last attack on a merchant ship by the Houthis was on Sept. 2.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack targeting American warships last week. The rebels fired more than a half dozen ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles and two drones at three U.S. ships that were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but all were intercepted by the Navy destroyers, a U.S. official said Friday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet publicly released.
The Houthis also continue to launch missiles targeting Israel, drawing retaliatory airstrikes from the Israelis this weekend on Hodeida.
