Ship carrying wheat to Yemen hit by missile - EU navy force

Ship carrying wheat to Yemen hit by missile - EU navy force
Jonathan Saul 24 May 2018

LONDON (Reuters) - A Turkish vessel carrying wheat to Yemen this month was hit by a rocket or missile and more attacks on merchant ships are likely due to a spillover of the conflict, a senior European naval official said on Wednesday.

The Turkish flagged Ince Inebolu bulk carrier was damaged by an explosion on May 10, some 70 miles off the Red Sea port of Salif where it was due to deliver a 50,000 tonne cargo of Russian wheat.

“The assessment at the moment is it was almost certainly non-state Yemen based actors firing a land-based missile or rocket at the vessel,” Major Tom Mobbs, head of intelligence and security with the European Union’s counter piracy mission EU Navfor, told Reuters.

“It has sharpened the focus in our mind with this happening.”

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Sunni Muslim allies have been fighting in Yemen for three years against the Houthis, a Shi’ite group that controls much of North Yemen including the capital Sanaa, and drove a Saudi-backed government into exile in 2014.

The Houthis, who are aligned with the Middle East’s pre-eminent Shi’ite power Iran, have fired missiles into Saudi Arabia. The Saudi-led coalition has carried out a campaign of thousands of airstrikes and restricted imports into Yemen, worsening what the United Nations says is potentially the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Mobbs declined to comment on whether the attack on the Turkish ship was carried out by Houthis, adding “that is the natural speculation”.

more...https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-yemen-security-shipping/ship-carrying-...