The United States said it shot down four drones on Wednesday over areas of Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels, who said they targeted American and Israeli ships.
A Greek ship deployed to the Gulf of Aden as part of a European Union naval coalition also shot down a drone off the coast of Yemen early Thursday, the Greek General Staff said in a statement.
For its part, the British maritime safety agency, UKMTO, later reported that a ship transiting off Aden had heard a “loud bang” and seen from the “smoke” coming from the sea. “The ship and its crew are safe”UKMTO said without providing further details.
According to the US Middle East Command (Centcom), US forces managed to “destroy four drones” Who “posed an imminent threat to U.S. ships, coalition ships, and merchant ships in the region.”
A coalition ship also managed to intercept an anti-ship missile launched from areas controlled by Yemeni rebels towards the Gulf of Aden on the same day, Centcom said in a statement on X.
This missile “probably aimed at the MV Yorktown”a container ship “flying the American flag and owned and operated by Americans”, he said, emphasizing that no injuries or damage had been reported. On Wednesday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the rebels had attacked U.S. and Israeli ships, including the MV Yorktown, which he said was hit.
The group also said it had sent “several drones” towards “an American destroyer in the Gulf of Aden (…) and, in another operation, towards an Israeli ship (MSC Veracruz) in the Indian Ocean”according to Yahya Saree.
Supported by Iran, the Houthis have been carrying out attacks on ships they consider linked to Israel since November, claiming to act in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where a war pits Israel against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
Faced with Houthi attacks, the United States, Israel’s supporter, set up a multinational maritime protection force in the Red Sea in December and launched, with the help of the United Kingdom, strikes in Yemen against the Houthis.
Despite a decline in their attacks in recent weeks, the Houthis said on Wednesday that they “continued their military actions against all hostile targets in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.”
