Yemen Rebels Strike Saudi Oil Tanker
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said the vessel suffered only minor damage
A man inspected a destroyed house last month in Yemen’s capital, San’a. PHOTO: HANI AL-ANSI/DPA/ZUMA PRESS
Yemen’s Houthis attacked and damaged a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea on Tuesday, striking at the economic engine of an adversary that has waged a three-year war against the rebels.
The afternoon attack near the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeidah put a hole in the side of the tanker, according to photos posted on the website of the official Saudi Press Agency.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis said the vessel suffered only minor damage and was able to continue on its course. The ship’s ownership and destination weren’t immediately clear.
The attack “poses a serious threat to the freedom of maritime navigation and international trade” the spokesman, Col. Turki al-Maliki, said. It also posed an environmental threat, he said, but added that the tanker wasn’t leaking.
Mohammed al-Share’i, a Houthi spokesman, said the attack was a response to Saudi Arabia’s aggression, including its long-running campaign of airstrikes. A coalition strike on Monday in Hodeidah killed some 15 people, according to Mr. Share’i. He declined to say what type of ammunition was used in Tuesday’s attack.
The coalition didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the alleged Monday strike.
On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General AntĆ³nio Guterres called the situation in Yemen “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” and said that a child under five dies of preventable causes every 10 minutes.
The Red Sea is a major conduit for oil and other trade flowing from the Middle East to Europe, Asia and North America. About 4.8 million barrels a day of crude and refined petroleum products were shipped through the Bab el-Mandeb strait that separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The attack on the oil tanker follows a recent escalation in the yearslong conflict. Last week, the Houthis fired a barrage of seven missiles at Saudi Arabia, including three at Riyadh. Saudi defense forces intercepted all the missiles, according to the coalition, but a piece of shrapnel tore through a house in Riyadh and killed one man, an Egyptian.
The Yemen conflict pits the Saudi coalition against the Houthis, who took over the capital, San’a, in 2014. Saudi Arabia and its allies see the Houthis as pawns of Iran, their main regional rival for power, and accuse the Islamic Republic of supplying the rebels with missiles and other arms. Iran has denied arming the Houthis.
While the coalition described the damage to the tanker as minor, the assault appeared to be the first time since the war began in 2015 that the Houthis have caused significant damage to a ship carrying Saudi oil. There have been other incidents in recent years where rocket-propelled grenades were fired at tankers near the Bab el-Mandeb, but it wasn’t clear who was responsible.
Recognizing the economic stakes for one of the world’s biggest oil exporters, the Houthis have targeted Saudi oil infrastructure before, and have vowed specifically to target Saudi tankers near Hodeidah.
Last month, the group claimed to have fired a missile at facilities run by the state-owned oil giant Aramco, but the company denied that its operations were affected. In April of last year, a Houthi remote-controlled boat fitted with an explosive attempted an attack on an Aramco oil distribution terminal, but Saudi forces blew it up before it reached its target, according to Saudi authorities.
The rebels have hit other non-oil Saudi naval vessels in the past, including in January of last year, when another drone boat blew a hole in a Saudi frigate patrolling near Hodeidah.
—Mohammed al-Kibsi in San’a contributed to this article.
