{"id":953078,"date":"2026-07-23T02:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T02:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/953078\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T02:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T02:14:16","slug":"yemens-houthis-claim-attack-on-two-saudi-oil-tankers-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/953078\/","title":{"rendered":"Yemen\u2019s Houthis claim attack on two Saudi oil tankers | Conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

DEVELOPING STORY<\/strong>DEVELOPING STORY, <\/p>\n

Claimed attacks come days after Houthis announced naval embargo on Saudi vessels.<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s Iran-aligned Houthis have claimed an attack on two Saudi oil tankers transiting through the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe targeted two Saudi oil tankers, named ENCELA and LAYLIA, for their violation of the blockade decision issued by the armed forces,\u201d Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Saree added that the attacks were carried out, \u201cusing a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones\u201d, and led to fires on the ships.<\/p>\n

The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, had also forced \u201cnearly ten ships\u2026 to abandon their routes, and turn back\u201d, Saree said.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has not commented on the claims, but the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said it had received reports<\/a> that a tanker has been struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe master of a tanker reports being struck by an unknown projectile which has caused a fire onboard that the crew are currently fighting,\u201d UKMTO, which monitors shipping in the region, said.<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s Houthi group, which has fought the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led coalition that backs it for more than a decade, imposed a maritime blockade<\/a> on Saudi Arabia on July 20. That followed some of the worst violence Yemen has seen for four years, after the Yemeni government bombed the Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane from landing.<\/p>\n

The Houthis said the declaration of the maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia was \u201cbased on the equation of \u2018an eye for an eye\u2019 and affirmed \u201cthe right of our great people to respond to the blockade with a blockade\u201d.<\/p>\n

The group, which seized Sanaa in 2014, accused Saudi leaders of imposing \u201can unjust and oppressive siege\u201d for nearly 12 years, \u201cplundering our resources and imposing a comprehensive blockade on our ports and airports by land, sea, and air\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saudis feel that they can instigate a popular uprising against the Houthis using these economic strangulation methods,\u201d Hussain al-Bukhaiti, a journalist based in Sanaa told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Riyadh has rejected claims that it was imposing a siege on the Yemeni people, and the group\u2019s critics point out that they have rejected a proposal from Jordan to resume flights between Amman and Sanaa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate goal for Ansar Allah\u2019s naval blockade against the Saudis, is to force Riyadh to lift its embargo on the ports and airports controlled by the Houthis,\u201d al-Bukhaiti said.<\/p>\n

Amid the disruption in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz due to the US-Israel war on Iran<\/a>, Saudi Arabia has been attempting to facilitate oil flow through alternative routes<\/a> through the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. But that route is now under threat from the Houthis.<\/p>\n

The Houthis disrupted global commerce when they began\u00a0attacking ships<\/a> around the Bab al-Mandeb after the launch of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023. The attacks ended with the announcement of a \u201cceasefire\u201d in Gaza in October 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who are questioning if the Houthis can successfully do a blockade against the Saudis should remember, how successfully the Houthis closed access to the Red Sea for the Israeli ports, which in fact resulted in the closure of Eilat port in southern Israel,\u201d said al-Bukhaiti. \u201cEventually the Americans had to do a deal with the Houthis, with mediation from Oman,\u201d he added, referring to a May 2025 agreement.<\/p>\n

The Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden is one of the world\u2019s most important shipping routes, including for oil exports.<\/p>\n

Between Yemen to the northeast and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa to the southwest, the strait is just 29km (18 miles) wide at its narrowest point, limiting traffic to two channels for inbound and outbound vessels using the Suez Canal.<\/p>\n

In 2024, about 4.1 billion barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products passed through the strait \u2013 about 5 percent of the global total.<\/p>\n

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed since Israel and the US launched their war on Iran in late February, shutting down Bab al-Mandeb as well could block 25 percent of the world\u2019s oil and gas supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Claimed attacks come days after Houthis announced naval embargo on Saudi vessels. Yemen\u2019s Iran-aligned Houthis…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":953079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[113,51,3097,50,271,4690,52,13193],"class_list":["post-953078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-conflict","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-shipping","tag-top-stories","tag-yemen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116966880980933058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/953079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}