Yemen’s Houthi attack kills 3 crew members, first fatal assault on shipping

A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden on March 6 killed three of its crew members and forced survivors to abandon the vessel, the U.S. military said. It was the first fatal strike in a campaign of assaults by the Iranian-backed group over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The attack on the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned bulk carrier True Confidence further escalates the conflict on a crucial maritime route linking Asia and the Middle East to Europe that has disrupted global shipping. The Houthis have launched attacks since November, and the U.S. began an airstrike campaign in January that so far hasn’t halted their attacks.

Meanwhile, Iran announced on March 6 that it would confiscate a $50 million cargo of Kuwaiti crude oil for American energy firm Chevron Corp. aboard a tanker it seized nearly a year earlier. It is the latest twist in a yearslong shadow war playing out in the Middle East’s waterways even before the Houthi attacks began.

The U.S. military’s Central Command said an anti-ship ballistic missile launched from a Houthi-controlled area in Yemen struck the True Confidence, causing significant damage to the ship. In addition to the three deaths, at least four crew members were wounded, with three in critical condition.

Two aerial photos released by the U.S. military showed the the ship’s bridge and cargo on board ablaze.

“These reckless attacks by the Houthis have disrupted global trade and taken the lives of international seafarers simply doing their jobs, which are some of the hardest jobs in the world, and the ones relied on by the global public for sustainment of supply chains,” Central Command said.

The attack came after the ship had been hailed over radio by men claiming to be the Yemeni military, officials said. The Houthis have been hailing ships over the radio in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since beginning their attacks, with analysts suspecting the rebels want to seize the vessels.

After the missile hit, the crew abandoned the ship and deployed lifeboats. A U.S. warship and the Indian navy were on the scene, trying to assist in rescue efforts.

The ship’s managers and owners said the ship’s crew of 20 included one Indian, 15 Filipinos and four Vietnamese. Three armed guards, two from Sri Lanka and one from Nepal, also were on board. The ship had been carrying steel from China to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations called on the Houthis “to cease all attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, expressing serious concern about the continuing attacks, including the latest incident where the status of the crew is unknown.

Mr. Dujarric said the attacks are causing risks “to property, to life, to ecology in the area.”

At the State Department in Washington, spokesman Matthew Miller condemned the attack. “We continue to watch these reckless attacks with no regard for the well being of innocent civilians who are transiting through the Red Sea. And now they have, unfortunately and tragically, killed innocent civilians,” he told reporters.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre separately warned: “The U.S. obviously is going to continue to take action.”

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, claimed the attack in a prerecorded message, saying its missile fire set the vessel ablaze. He said the rebels’ attacks would only stop when the “siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza is lifted.”

The rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea and surrounding waters over the Israel-Hamas war, but up to March 6 hadn’t killed any crew members. The vessels have included at least one with cargo bound for Iran, the Houthis’ main benefactor, and an aid ship later bound for Houthi-controlled territory.

Despite more than a month and a half of U.S.-led airstrikes, Houthi rebels have remained capable of launching significant attacks. They include the attack last month on a cargo ship carrying fertilizer, the Rubymar, which sank on March 2 after drifting for several days, and the downing of an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars.

It was unclear why the Houthis targeted the True Confidence. However, it had previously been owned by Oaktree Capital Management, a Los Angeles-based fund that finances vessels on installments. Oaktree declined to comment.

Meanwhile, a separate Houthi assault on March 5 apparently targeted the USS Carney, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that has been involved in the American campaign against the rebels. The Carney shot down bomb-carrying drones and one anti-ship ballistic missile, Central Command said. Saree acknowledged that attack as well.

The U.S. later launched an airstrike destroying three anti-ship missiles and three bomb-carrying drone boats, Central Command said.

The Houthis haven’t offered any assessment of the damage they’ve suffered in the American-led strikes that began in January, though they’ve said at least 22 of their fighters have been killed. One civilian has reportedly been killed.

The U.S. Treasury separately announced new sanctions targeting a Houthi financier and the expeditionary Quds Force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which arms the rebels.

The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014. They’ve battled a Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in a long-stalemated war there.

Meanwhile, the Indian Navy released a video of its sailors from the INS Kolkata fighting a fire aboard the MSC Sky II, which had been targeted by the Houthis in the Gulf of Aden on Monday. The Mediterranean Shipping Co., a Switzerland-based company, said the missile struck the ship as it was traveling from Singapore to Djibouti. No one was injured.

Iran separately announced the seizure of the crude oil aboard the Advantage Sweet through an announcement carried by the judiciary’s state-run Mizan news agency. At the time, Iran alleged that the Advantage Sweet collided with another ship, without offering any evidence.

The court order for the seizure offered an entirely different reason for the confiscation. Mizan said it was part of a court order over U.S. sanctions it alleged barred the importation of a Swedish medicine used to treat patients suffering from epidermolysis bullosa, a rare genetic condition that causes blisters all over the body and eyes. It didn’t reconcile the different reasons for the seizure.

The Advantage Sweet had been in the Persian Gulf in late April, but its track showed no unusual behavior as it transited through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of all traded oil passes. Iran has made allegations in other seizures that later fell apart as it became clear that Tehran was trying to leverage the capture as a bargaining chip to negotiate with foreign nations.

Chevron, based in San Ramon, California, said on March 6 that the Advantage Sweet had been “seized under false pretenses” and that the company “has not had any direct communication with Iran over the seizure of the vessel.”

“Chevron has not been permitted access to the vessel and considers the cargo a total loss due to Iran’s illegal actions,” Chevron said in a statement. “We now consider the cargo the responsibility of the Iranian government.”

Ship seizures and explosions have roiled the region since 2019. The incidents began after then President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

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US military strikes another Houthi-controlled site after warning ships to avoid parts of Red Sea

The U.S. military struck another Houthi-controlled site in Yemen that it had determined was putting commercial vessels in the Red Sea at risk on January 13, a day after the U.S. and Britain launched multiple airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels.

Associated Press journalists in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, heard one loud explosion.

U.S. Central Command said the “follow-on action” early Jan. 13 local time against a Houthi radar site was conducted by the Navy destroyer USS Carney using Tomahawk land attack missiles.

The first day of strikes on Jan. 12 hit 28 locations and struck more than 60 targets. President Joe Biden had warned on Jan.12 that the Houthis could face further strikes.

The latest strike came after the U.S. Navy warned American-flagged vessels to steer clear of areas around Yemen in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden for the next 72 hours after the initial airstrikes. The warning came as Yemen’s Houthis vowed fierce retaliation, further raising the prospect of a wider conflict in a region already beset by Israel’s war in Gaza.

U.S. military and White House officials said they expected the Houthis to try to strike back.

We respond to the Houthis, says Biden

The U.S.-led bombardment — launched in response to a recent campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in the vital Red Sea — killed at least five people and wounded six, the Houthis said. The U.S. said the strikes, in two waves, took aim at targets in 28 different locations across Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

“We will make sure that we respond to the Houthis if they continue this outrageous behaviour along with our allies,” Biden told reporters during a stop in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.

Asked if he believes the Houthis are a terrorist group, Biden responded, “I think they are.” The president in a later exchange with reporters during a stop in Allentown, Pennsylvania, said whether the Houthis are redesignated as such was “irrelevant.”

Biden also pushed back against some lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, who said he should have sought congressional authorization before carrying out the strikes.“They’re wrong, and I sent up this morning when the strikes occurred exactly what happened,” Biden said.

The Pentagon said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the military action from the hospital where he is recovering from complications following prostate cancer surgery.

The White House said in November that it was considering redesignating the Houthis as a terrorist organisation after they began their targeting of civilian vessels. The administration formally delisted the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organisation” and “specially designated global terrorists” in 2021, undoing a move by President Donald Trump.

Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday’s U.S. strikes were largely in low-populated areas, and the number of those killed would not be high. He said the strikes hit weapons, radar and targeting sites, including in remote mountain areas.

Focus on Yemen’s civil war

As the bombing lit the predawn sky over multiple sites held by the Iranian-backed rebels, it forced the world to again focus on Yemen’s yearslong war, which began when the Houthis seized the country’s capital.

Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea, saying they were avenging Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperilling shipping in a key route for global trade and energy shipments.

The Houthis’ military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, said in a recorded address that the U.S. strikes would “not go unanswered or unpunished.”

Though the Biden administration and its allies have tried to calm tensions in West Asia for weeks and prevent any wider conflict, the strikes threatened to ignite one.

Saudi Arabia — which supports the government-in-exile that the Houthis are fighting — quickly sought to distance itself from the attacks as it seeks to maintain a delicate détente with Iran and a cease-fire it has in Yemen. The Saudi-led, U.S.-backed war in Yemen has killed more than 1,50,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, killing tens of thousands more.

It remained unclear how extensive the damage was from Friday’s strikes, though the Houthis said at least five sites, including airfields, had been attacked. The White House said the U.S. military was still assessing the extent the militants’ capabilities might have been degraded.

U.S. Air Forces Central Command said the strikes focused on the Houthi’s command and control nodes, munition depots, launching systems, production facilities and air defense radar systems. The strikes involved more than 150 precision-guided munitions including air-launched missiles by F/A-18 Super Hornets based on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Tomahawk missiles from the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and USS Mason, the Navy cruiser USS Philippine Sea, and a U.S. submarine.

The United Kingdom said strikes hit a site in Bani allegedly used by the Houthis to launch drones and an airfield in Abbs used to launch cruise missiles and drones.

In a separate development, Iran released footage of its seizure of an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman that once had been at the center of a dispute between Tehran and Washington.

In the footage, a helicopter hovers over the deck of the St. Nikolas. Iran’s navy seized the vessel Thursday. The vessel had been known earlier as the Suez Rajan. The U.S. seized 1 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian oil off the vessel last year.

In Yemen, Hussein al-Ezzi, a Houthi official in their Foreign Ministry, said, “America and Britain will undoubtedly have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences of this blatant aggression.”

The Red Sea route is a crucial waterway, and attacks there have caused severe disruptions to global trade. Benchmark Brent crude oil traded up some 4% Friday at over $80 a barrel.

Tesla, meanwhile, said it would temporarily halt most production at its German factory because of attacks in the Red Sea.

In Saada, the Houthis’ stronghold in northwest Yemen, hundreds gathered for a rally on Jan. 12, denouncing the U.S. and Israel. Another drew thousands in Sanaa, the capital.

Houthis now control territory that is home to some two-thirds of Yemen’s population of 34 million. War and misgovernment have made Yemen one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, and the World Food Programme considers the vast majority of Yemen’s people as food-insecure.

Yemen has been targeted by U.S. military action over the last four American presidencies. A campaign of drone strikes began under President George W. Bush to target the local affiliate of al-Qaida, attacks that have continued under the Biden administration. Meanwhile, the U.S. has launched raids and other military operations amid the ongoing war in Yemen.

That war began when the Houthis swept into Sanaa in 2014. A Saudi-led coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, launched a war to back Yemen’s exiled government in 2015, quickly morphing the conflict into a regional confrontation as Iran backed the Houthis with weapons and other support.

The conflict, however, has slowed as the Houthis maintain their grip on the territory they hold. In March, Saudi Arabia reached a Chinese-mediated deal to restart relations with Iran in hopes of ultimately withdrawing from the war.

Attacks fuel “insecurity and instability”

Iran condemned Friday’s attack in a statement from Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani. “Arbitrary attacks will have no result other than fueling insecurity and instability in the region,” he said.

At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council late on Jan. 12, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the U.S., U.K. and allies of “blatant armed aggression” against Yemen and warned “if the escalation continues, the entire Middle East could encounter a catastrophe.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and U.K. Ambassador Barbara Woodward insisted the attacks were in self-defence. “So de-escalation needs to happen,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “It needs to happen from the Houthis who are putting all of our shipping lines in jeopardy.”

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