Houthi militia attacks ship near Red Sea, Pentagon says

A commercial ship was hit and set on fire by an anti-ship cruise missile in the southern Red Sea, an attack U.S. officials said came from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia.

The Strinda, a Norwegian motor tanker, was hit by “what is estimated to be an anti-ship cruise missile launched from a Houthi-controlled area in Yemen,” the US Department of Defense Central Command said.

It represents the latest attack by the Houthi militia on targets in the Red Sea and the wider region during the more than two-month war between Israel and Hamas, which is also backed by Iran. The Houthis – a rebel group long embroiled in a civil war in Yemen – have launched a series of drone and missile attacks on Israeli and US targets since Hamas killed at least 1,200 people in southern Israel in October.

The Houthis have said they plan to prevent Israeli ships from sailing in the Red Sea until Israel stops its attack on Hamas in Gaza. At least 15,000 people, and possibly thousands more, have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to health authorities there. It was not immediately clear whether the Strinda had any connection to Israel, and some of the Houthi’s previous targets had no discernible connection to Israel.

Last week, President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States was in talks with allies to set up a naval task force to monitor ships traveling through the Red Sea.

The ship was struck around midnight local time on Tuesday while transiting the Bab-el-Mandeb, the Central Command. said at

Geir Belsnes, CEO of Mowinckels Rederi, the shipping company that owns the Strinda, confirmed that the ship, which was carrying raw materials for biofuel and was headed to Italy, caught fire after being hit by a missile.

“Fortunately, there were no injuries to the crew members who managed to extinguish the fire,” he said. The ship, manned by a crew of Indian nationals, was now sailing to a safe port, he said.

No US ships had been in the area during the attack, Central Command said, adding that a US Navy ship, the USS Mason, responded to the Strinda’s distress call and was at the scene of the attack to provide assistance.