Yemen’s Houthis claim to have attacked three ships in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean

On Friday, the Houthis claimed they had fired a missile at an Israeli ship (objective)

A military spokesman for the Yemeni Houthi group announced that the group had launched attacks on three ships in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

“The first (attack) targeted the American ship Larego Desert in the Indian Ocean, the second targeted the Israeli ship (MSC Mechela) in the Indian Ocean. The third targeted the ship (Minerva Lisa) in the Red Sea,” Yahya Sarea said in a statement on Monday on the Houthi-run al-Masirah television channel.

Sarea said his group also launched drone strikes against “two US warships in the Red Sea” and that the hits were targeted. He vowed to continue the attacks until Israel ends its war in Gaza.

No public information could be found on the first two vessels, but several vessel traffic trackers showed that a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker, Largo Desert, was active in the area en route from Durban, South Africa, to Beira, Mozambique, Xinhua news agency reported.

Online tracker Marine Traffic showed that the crude oil tanker Minerva Lisa was in the Red Sea earlier in the day.

On Friday, the Houthi group claimed it launched a missile attack on the Israeli ship Essex in the Mediterranean Sea.

To show their solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis began firing anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones at ships allegedly linked to Israel transiting the Red Sea last November.

In response, the US-UK naval coalition based in Yemeni waters has been conducting airstrikes and missile attacks on Houthi targets since January in an attempt to deter the group, but this has only led to an escalation of Houthi attacks on US and British merchant and warships.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)