Home Iran Houthi Missiles, Drones Target Container Ship, Two U.S. Destroyers

Houthi Missiles, Drones Target Container Ship, Two U.S. Destroyers

Edited By
Ramananda Sengupta
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USS Cole
The US Navy's Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Cole. (Picture source: US DoD)

CAIRO: Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement said on Wednesday that it had targeted a ship identified as the Contship Ono in the Red Sea as well as two U.S. destroyers in the adjacent Gulf of Aden.

The Houthi air force targeted U.S. destroyer Cole with a number of drones and the U.S. destroyer Laboon with a number of ballistic missiles, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said.

One report said that the two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers had separated from the Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group near the Strait of Hormuz, and were navigating the Red Sea en route to Israel.

The Liberia-flagged container ship Contship Ono was targeted with ballistic missiles and drones in the Red Sea, Saree added.

“The missile force, the drone force and the naval forces of the Yemeni (Houthi) Armed Forces carried out – with the help of Allah Almighty – a joint military operation targeting the ship Contship Ono in the Red Sea with a number of ballistic missiles and drones, and thanks to Allah the hit was accurate,” he said.

The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships in the crucial shipping channels of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden since November to show their support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.

This has forced shippers to re-route cargo to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa and has stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread and destabilise the Middle East.

The frequency of the attacks, however, appeared to have decreased after Israel hit military targets near Yemen’s Hodeidah port on July 20, killing six people and wounding more than 80, a day after a drone launched by the Iranian-backed group hit Israeli economic hub Tel Aviv.

On August 4, the Yemeni group claimed the first attack on shipping lanes in two weeks since the Israeli attack by targeting the Liberia-flagged container vessel MV Groton in the Gulf of Aden.
(REUTERS)

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Ramananda Sengupta
In a career spanning over three decades and counting, I’ve been the Foreign Editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and The New Indian Express. I helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.

My work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and The Asahi Shimbun. My one constant over all these years, however, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.

On demand, I can rustle up a mean salad, my oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and depending on the time of the day, all it takes to rock my soul is some beer and some jazz or good ole rhythm & blues.

Talk to me about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
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