Yemeni Houthi forces announced on Thursday that, as part of their implementation of a “naval blockade” plan against Saudi Arabia, they targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. According to the group, the attacks were carried out using missiles and drones.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia’s state news agency, SPA, citing an official source, reported that one of the oil tankers was hit, causing a fire in the bow section. A maritime security source also stated that the tanker sent a distress signal after being struck by a missile near the port of Jizan.<\/p>\n
This incident comes after the Houthis previously announced the start of a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia. Following increased threats, at least five oil tankers have altered their routes to avoid passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Three tankers carrying Saudi oil bound for China and India also changed their course on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Millions of barrels of Saudi oil are transported daily via the Red Sea and the port of Yanbu to avoid passing through the Strait of Hormuz. If the southern Red Sea route becomes unsafe, tankers will be forced to use the northern route through the Suez Canal, a route that increases both transit time and costs.<\/p>\n
According to shipping data, two large Chinese tankers with a combined capacity of four million barrels of Saudi oil were also heading toward the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Current and former U.S. officials have warned that the threat of a naval blockade could escalate the scope of conflicts and increase pressure on U.S. forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yemeni Houthis attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea using missiles and drones, raising fears of a naval blockade and increased regional tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}