US military drowns Houthi boats after attack on navy helicopters, merchant ships

US Navy helicopters destroyed three ships on Sunday that the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are supported by Iran, had used to attack a container ship in the Red Sea.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced in a statement that the Houthis opened fire on the US helicopters, to which they “returned fire in self-defense,” drowning three of the four small boats that had approached the ship within twenty metres and killed the crew members.

“The fourth boat fled the area,” it added.

According to CENTCOM, the Maersk Hangzhou, a container ship owned and operated by Denmark and flying the Singaporean flag, requested assistance from the navy after reporting that it had been attacked twice in a day while cruising the Red Sea.

Two anti-ship ballistic missiles had been fired at the ship earlier, which the US Navy shot down.

Both missiles were fired from Yemen under Houthi control, and one of them struck the Maersk Hangzhou.

The Houthis have frequently attacked ships in the crucial Red Sea shipping channel, claiming their attacks are in favour of the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is engaged in combat with the terrorist organisation Hamas.

The United States established a multinational naval task force this month to safeguard Red Sea commerce in response to the attacks, which are putting a transit route that handles up to 12 percent of world trade in jeopardy.

Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched a surprise cross-border raid from Gaza on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,140 individuals, the majority of whom were civilians. This marked the beginning of the most recent round of the confrontation between Israel and Hamas.

The health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave reports that Israel has killed at least 21,672 individuals in Gaza as a result of its relentless onslaught, the majority of them were civilians. The United States has rushed military aid to back Israel.

(With agency inputs)