Yemenis unrattled by empty threats
Ansarallah launches largest attack in Red Sea
Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement fired its largest-ever barrage of drones and missiles, targeting ships in the Red Sea heading to the ports of Israel.
The resistance movement’s spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree in a televised statement said the attack “targeted an American ship that was providing support to the Zionist entity”. Saree also described it as an “initial response” to American troops sinking Yemen’s vessels and killing 10 Ansarallah fighters last week.
Yemen will “continue to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine from navigating in the Red Sea until the aggression stops and the siege on our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip ends,” Saree said.
“The naval forces, the missile force, and the unmanned air force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a joint military operation with a large number of ballistic and naval missiles and drones,” he said in a
statement on X.
The resistance movement says they are targeting Israeli-linked vessels in support of Palestinians in Gaza. It says its attacks aim to end the pounding Israeli air-and-ground offensive targeting the Gaza Strip.
The Red Sea links the Mideast and Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal and its narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The strait is only 29 kilometers (18 miles) wide at its narrowest point, limiting traffic to two channels for inbound and outbound shipments, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Nearly 10% of all oil traded at sea passes through it and an estimated $1 trillion in goods pass through the strait annually.
US and UK forces claimed that they have shot down more than 20 drones and missiles over the Red Sea launched by the Yemeni forces, in what London branded Wednesday the “largest attack” yet by the Yemeni forces.
The Western allies’ warships and planes took out 18 drones and three missiles on Tuesday, the US military said.
HMS Diamond, a British destroyer, intervened with “her guns and Sea Viper missiles” after the drones were “heading for her and commercial shipping in the area”, UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said.
It comes a week after 12 nations led by the United States warned the resistance movement in Yemen of consequences unless they immediately halted firing on commercial vessels in the busy international shipping corridor.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the Ansarrallah movement had launched a complex attack of one-way attack UAVs, as well as firing anti-ship cruise missiles and an anti-ship ballistic missile from Yemen.
It claimed that they were downed by a combination of F/A-18 warplanes, operating from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, three American destroyers and the British naval vessel, CENTCOM said.
The incident is the latest since the US set up a multinational naval task force last month against the Ansarrallah movement.