A new photo released by the French military on Thursday captures one of its warships battling an explosive drone boat during a rescue mission in the Red Sea.
The European Union’s counter-Houthi mission, known as Operation Aspides, said that it dispatched a French frigate to rescue the crew of a wounded commercial tanker following an attack on Wednesday that left the vessel without power and stranded in the water.
As the frigate arrived in the area, the warship detected another incoming attack on the oil tanker from a drone boat “heavily loaded” with explosives and destroyed the threat on-site, the French military said Thursday.
The military said that the frigate then evacuated more than two dozen crew members from the tanker, which is presently anchored in international waters.
The French armed forces did not specify who was responsible for the incident, but it follows months of regular attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels on merchant shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with unmanned systems and missiles and drone boats in assaults like this. The Houthis have not claimed responsibility for the initial or follow-on attack on the tanker.
On the latest incident, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, an element of the Royal Navy, said that gunmen in small watercraft opened fire on the Greek-flagged MV Sounion as it was sailing through the Red Sea on Wednesday. The vessel was later struck by several unidentified projectiles.
The attack left the Sounion without power and adrift off the coast of Yemen, prompting the French rescue mission. Operation Aspides said on Thursday that the crew was transported to the nearest safe port of call in Djibouti.
“The lives of seafarers and freedom on the high seas are nonnegotiable values and their protection is a key objective” of the security mission, Operation Aspides said.
But the European Union warned that the Sounion and the loads of crude oil it’s carrying “now represents a navigational and environmental hazard. It is essential that everyone in the area exercises caution and refrains from any actions that could lead to a deterioration of the current situation.”
The incident appears to be the latest successful attack on a Red Sea vessel. The Houthis have struck a number of merchant ships since they began their campaign last October, even sinking at least two of them.
US and European naval forces operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have been tasked with intercepting Houthi missiles and drones, and the American military frequently carries out strikes in Yemen targeting rebel facilities and weapons.
US forces destroyed a Houthi surface-to-air missile and radar system earlier in the week, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday.
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