Yemen’s Houthis said on Saturday they had launched several missile strikes on a British oil ship in the Red Sea.
The US State Department said on Friday that the Panama-flagged tanker Pollux, carrying crude oil to India, was hit by a missile from its port side.
“The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out out a targeting operation against a British oil ship (Pollux) in the Red Sea with a large number of appropriate naval missiles, and the strikes were accurate and direct,” the Houthis’ military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a statement.
Since the middle of November, the Houthis have repeatedly launched drone and missile strikes against international commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians as Israel wages war on Hamas.
The spokesman stressed that “military operations in the Red and Arabian Seas against Israeli shipping or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine will continue until the aggression against Palestinian people stops and the siege is lifted.”
The Houthis say their attacks are aimed at forcing Israel to halt its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, prompting the US and Britain to launch retaliatory airstrikes against Houthi targets inside Yemen.
The British side has not yet commented in any way on the Houthi statement.
