Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthis have claimed on Thursday a missile and drone attack on two Saudi oil tankers transiting through the Red Sea.
The Iran-backed group wrote on Telegram that it “carried out a qualitative military operation targeting two Saudi oil tankers that violated the blockade”, naming the vessels as the Encelia and the Layla.
Earlier, the British naval security monitor UKMTO reported that a projectile struck a tanker in the Red Sea off Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
“The Master of a tanker reports being struck by an unknown projectile which has caused a fire onboard that the crew are currently fighting,” it wrote in a statement.
The Tehran-backed group announced on Monday that they were imposing a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for a blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on Sanaa International Airport.
Amid the Iran war, the move threatened another vital waterway for global shipping, raising fears of further escalating the regional conflict.
Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the gateway to the Red Sea through which around 12% of the world’s trade usually passes. A fourth of global container trade transits through the 32-kilometre-wide strait to and from the Suez Canal.
A closure would force vessels to take the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope, adding two to three weeks to journeys between Asia and Europe and sharply increasing shipping costs.
At least nine tankers have changed course after the Houthi blockade announcement, maritime data revealed, including three vessels that had taken on oil at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Yanbu terminal.