Three small Houthi ships were sunk by helicopters from the American navy and their crews killed, announced the US military, this Sunday, December 31, 2023.
The American military command in the Middle East (Centcom) said, in a statement, that helicopters of the American navy have flowed three Houthi boats, which had attacked a container carrier in the Red Sea.
After Houthi shots targeting American helicopters, the latter retaliated, flowing three of the four small ships, and killing the crews, “said Centcom, adding that the fourth boat had” fled the area “.
The American navy, said Centcom, responded to a request for assistance from Maersk Hangzhou, a container ship beating Singapore pavilion, belonging to Denmark, after being targeted by two ballistic missiles launched from Yemen.
On Wednesday, the US military announced that it had shot in the Red Sea 12 attack drones, 3 anti-Navire ballistic missiles and 2 cruise missiles in the south of the Red Sea, pulled by the Houthi rebels.
The United States patrols this strategic region alongside an international coalition to protect the maritime traffic of the attacks by the Houthis, which say they are united in Hamas in its war against Israel in the Gaza Strip.
But the Houthi rebels do not intend to end their attacks. A high official of this group said a few days ago that attacks would stop only “if Israel stops their crimes and food, medicines and fuel reach the besieged population of the Gaza Strip”.
The Houthis led, in two months more than a hundred attacks targeting military buildings, but especially ten merchant ships in 35 countries in more than 35 countries. They returned the passage to the Suez Canal where more than 20,000 merchant ships pass, an unsafe pass, which caused a slowdown in world trade.
The attacks by the Houthi rebels of Yemen take place in the Strait of Bab El-Mandeb. Located off Yemen, it connects the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, then the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. A strategic area by which 12% of world trade transit, according to the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS).
