Yemen says targeted British oil tanker with 'direct' missile hit

The spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces says the country’s naval units have targeted with missiles a British oil tanker in the Red Sea in support of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and in retaliation for the recent US-UK aggression on Yemen’s soil.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree said in a video statement on Saturday that the retaliatory strikes hit British oil ship Pollux in the Red Sea and that the attack, which was carried out “with a large number of appropriate naval missiles” in the strategic waterway, was “accurate and direct.”

Praising the attack as a “triumph” for Palestinians, Saree underscored the continuation of military operations in the Red and Arabian Seas against Israeli shipping until the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in Gaza is lifted.

“Yemeni Armed Forces persist with their military operations, enforcing a blockade on Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas until a ceasefire is achieved and a siege is lifted in the Gaza Strip,” the spokesman said.

“The Yemeni armed forces will not hesitate to implement and expand their military operations in defense of beloved Yemen and in confirmation of continued practical solidarity with the Palestinian people,” he added.

Earlier in the day, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said an incident involving a ship in the Red Sea occurred 72 nautical miles (133 km) northwest of the port of Mokha in Yemen.

The ship transiting the Yemeni port “was attacked by a missile and reports an explosion in close proximity,” the agency said, adding that military authorities were responding.

The Yemeni Armed Forces also fired missiles at a British ship passing through the Gulf of Aden on Thursday and scored a “direct hit” in their latest operation in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Yemen’s armed forces have been targeting Israeli ships and those bound for Israeli ports since November in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza which has been subject to five months of ferocious airstrikes and a ground invasion.

The Yemeni operations have prompted some shipping companies to detour around southern Africa to avoid the Red Sea, which normally carries about 12 percent of global maritime trade.

The Yemeni army says only Israeli, US and British ships are targeted, stating that other countries can rest assured of the safety of their cargoes.

Yemen not to give in to US policies: Ansarullah

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, spokesman for Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement, said on Friday that Sana’a would not surrender to the US hegemonic policies in the West Asia region and would press ahead with its retaliatory strikes on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea in support of Palestinians.

Abdul-Salam made the statement in a post on his X social media account after the administration of US President Joe Biden returned Yemen’s Ansarullah to a so-called list of “terrorist” groups and imposed harsh sanctions on the popular resistance movement.

The US State Department said the move aimed to cut off funding and weapons to Ansarullah over the movement’s attacks on Israeli-owned and -bound vessels in the vital Red Sea shipping lanes in support of Gazans.

Abdul-Salam said Washington aims to harm Yemen to support Israel and encourage the regime to continue its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, underlining that Yemen will not retreat from its “principled, moral and humanitarian” stance on supporting Gaza.

“The US is the one encouraging, supporting, and backing global terrorism by supporting Israel, coming to our shores, and encroaching on our territories, while we did not go to its beaches and coasts,” Yemen’s Ansarullah spokesman said on X.

“Although the US may have become accustomed to the submissiveness of a number of regimes to their arrogant and terrorist policies, this would not be the case with Yemen,” he added.

“Yemen will continue to support Gaza by all available means, and will continue to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine until the Israeli aggression stops and the siege on Gaza is lifted.”

More than 28,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and over 68,000 others injured since the Israeli regime launched its US-backed onslaught on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

The United States, Israel’s biggest ally, has provided Israel with a raft of arms and ammunition since the initiation of the Gaza war and also vetoed UN Security Council resolutions that called on the regime to cease its aggression.