US sinks Houthi boats in the Red Sea: How did the fight unfold?
Al Jazeera
Shipping company Maersk halts operations after maritime escalation between the Houthis and US forces.
The US military said that it sunk three Houthi vessels in the Red Sea in a statement on Sunday, and killed 10 fighters of the Yemeni armed group after a clash in the middle of one of the world’s most important trade waterways.
The escalation follows weeks of Houthi attacks on ships passing through the sea, ostensibly in a bid to pressure Israel to stop its devastating war on Gaza that has killed more than 21,000 Palestinians in the besieged strip.
US destroyers have teamed up with a few other nations to try and stop the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea under Operation Prosperity Guardian — though several of its partners have distanced themselves from the initiative.
The Red Sea clash on Monday was the first major direct military engagement between the US military and Houthi fighters. Here is what we know about how it all unfolded:
On Sunday at 6:30am Yemen time (03:30 GMT), the Denmark-owned and Singapore-flagged container ship Maersk Hangzhou issued a second distress call in a day, reporting being attacked by four “Houthi small boats”, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) posted on X. CENTCOM added that the Houthis tried to board the Maersk vessel that was sailing through the Southern Red Sea.
