“Armed Persons in Violence”
Another attack on a ship in the Red Sea
November 26, 2023, 10:13 p.m
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Another ship is attacked that is supposedly connected to Israel. Unknown people are said to have taken control of the “Central Park” in the Red Sea. The Houthi rebels from Yemen had previously threatened such an attack. They see themselves as part of an “axis” fighting against Israel.
An oil tanker belonging to a British company linked to Israel has been hijacked by armed attackers in the Red Sea. There are “indications that an unknown number of armed individuals took control of the ‘M/V Central Park’ in the Gulf of Aden on November 26th,” said a US Navy official. The US military had already spoken of an attack on another Israeli ship in the Indian Ocean on Saturday.
US troops and their allies are “close by” and monitoring the situation “closely,” it said about the hijacking of the oil tanker. Maritime security firm Ambrey said that “US naval forces were involved in the situation” after the ship Central Park was hijacked off the coast of the Yemeni port city of Aden. According to Ambrey, the tanker belongs to a British-based company linked to Israel. The pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen had previously threatened to attack the tanker if it did not divert to the port of Hodeidah, it was said.
The incident came two days after an Israeli ship was allegedly attacked by Iran in the Indian Ocean. The US has information that “a Shahed 136 drone hit a ship in the Indian Ocean,” said a US military official. The ship, which is said to belong to an Israeli businessman, was slightly damaged on Friday. However, there were no injuries on board. Shahed 136 drones are part of the arsenal of the Iranian armed forces – suggesting an Iranian attack.
Axis with Iran and Hezbollah
According to Ambrey, the ship attacked on Friday was a “container ship flying the Maltese flag” and the operator is therefore a French company. Before the attack, transmissions to locate the ship were interrupted shortly after it left Jebel Ali port in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The increased incidents over the weekend came after threats by the pro-Iranian Houthi militia in Yemen to attack Israeli ships and vessels belonging to Israel’s allies operating in the Red Sea. Last Sunday, a Houthi spokesman said the Iran-backed Shiite militant group had hijacked a ship in the Red Sea and brought it to the Yemeni coast.
The Houthi militia sees itself as part of the self-proclaimed “Axis of Resistance” directed against Israel. This also includes other Iranian-backed groups such as the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas and the Shiite Islamist Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in response to their brutal attack on Israeli territory, the Houthis have fired drones and rockets at Israel on several occasions, which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and US warships.