Houthi leader says group targeted 7 ships with 19 missiles, drones since Friday

Yemen’s Houthis have launched 19 missiles and drones against seven ships since Friday using modern weaponry that went undetected by the US and UK navies, leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi announced on Thursday.

In a televised speech, Al-Houthi added that the group had launched 403 drones and missiles against 61 ships in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden since the start of their pro-Palestine solidarity operations in November last year.

“In yesterday’s strike, there was amazement at the precision of the attack and the power of damage,” he remarked, pointing out: “Discovering ships and hitting them with such precision using ballistic missiles for the first time is an achievement in every sense of the word.”

On Wednesday, the group fired a missile at the Barbados-flagged, Greek-operated True Confidence about 50 nautical miles off the southern Yemeni port of Aden, setting it ablaze and killing three seafarers in the first civilian fatalities from the Yemeni group’s campaign against the key shipping route.

Read: Ship evacuated after first civilian fatalities in Houthis’ Red Sea attacks

Al-Houthi said his group had launched 403 ballistic and winged missiles and drones in pro-Gaza operations.

In November, the Houthis started targeting Israeli-owned and Israeli-bound ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians facing a genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip. The group has repeatedly confirmed that it would stop its operations when Israel stops its attacks on Gaza, which has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children.

However, in January, Washington and London escalated tension in the Red Sea by targeting Houthi sites inside Yemen, prompting the group to include ships from those countries in their attacks.