SANAA: Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed early Friday they had carried out a missile attack on a US ship in the Gulf of Aden.
The Huthis said in a statement posted on their social media that their "naval forces... carried out a targeting operation against an American ship" – identified as the Chem Ranger – "with several appropriate naval missiles, resulting in direct hits."
It did not give a time or other details for the latest attack in international shipping lanes.
Huthi aggression against vessels in and around the Red Sea has led to strikes in Yemen by US and British forces, with the United States reporting its latest attack on Huthi targets on Thursday.
The specialist website Marine Traffic identified the Chem Ranger as a Marshall Islands-flagged chemical tanker sailing from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Kuwait.
British maritime risk management company Ambrey said a Marshallese chemical tanker sailing along the same route had reported a "suspicious" approach by drones southeast of the Yemeni port of Aden.
One fell in the sea approximately 30 metres from the tanker, it added. "An Indian warship responded to the event."
"There were no crew casualties or damage reported," the monitor said.
The British maritime security agency UKMTO, without naming the vessel, also reported an incident in the same area in which a drone approached a merchant ship, with an explosion reported in the water about 30 metres away.
"Coalition forces are responding, vessel and crew are safe, vessel proceeding to next port," it said in a bulletin.
The Huthis have launched numerous attacks on Red Sea shipping since the war in Gaza erupted on Oct 7 with Hamas's bloody attack on Israel.
The Huthi statement said the rebels were acting against "the oppression of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and within the response to the American-British aggression against our country."
As the United States announced its latest attack on the Huthis on Thursday, President Joe Biden said the strikes would continue until the Iran-backed rebels stopped targeting ships in the Red Sea.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that US forces had hit "a couple of anti-ship missiles that we had reason to believe were being prepared for imminent fire into the southern Red Sea."
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said US Navy warplanes carried out the latest strikes, and that the air raids that began against the Huthis last week had been able to "degrade and severely disrupt and destroy a significant number of their capabilities."
Several major shipping firms have halted their traffic through the area because of the attacks.
Russia on Thursday said the United States should halt its strikes against the Huthis to aid a diplomatic resolution to the attacks on merchant vessels.
"The most important thing now is to stop the aggression against Yemen, because the more the Americans and the British bomb, the less willing the Huthis are to talk," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
Denmark, meanwhile, said Thursday it would join the coalition behind the air strikes against the Huthis.
The Scandinavian country, which has previously said it would send a frigate to the region, is home to shipping giant Maersk, which is among the firms to have rerouted ships away from the Red Sea. — AFP