CAIRO (Reuters) – Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement said on Wednesday that it had targeted a ship identified as the Contship Ono in the Red Sea as well as two U.S. destroyers in the adjacent Gulf of Aden.
The Houthi air force targeted U.S. destroyer Cole with a number of drones and the U.S. destroyer Laboon with a number of ballistic missiles, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said.
The Liberia-flagged container ship Contship Ono was targeted with ballistic missiles and drones in the Red Sea, Saree added.
The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships in the crucial shipping channels of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden since November to show their support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.
This has forced shippers to re-route cargo to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa and has stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread and destabilise the Middle East.
The frequency of the attacks, however, appeared to have decreased after Israel hit military targets near Yemen’s Hodeidah port on July 20, killing six people and wounding more than 80, a day after a drone launched by the Iranian-backed group hit Israeli economic hub Tel Aviv.
On Aug.4, the Yemeni group claimed the first attack on shipping lanes in two weeks since the Israeli attack by targeting the Liberia-flagged container vessel MV Groton in the Gulf of Aden.
(Reporting by Jaidaa Taha and Yomna Ehab; editing by Mark Heinrich and Diane Craft)
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