Ongoing tumult across the Red Sea driven by Houthi terrorist attacks spurred global shipping giant Maersk on Sunday to announce it was suspending the passage of vessels through the area for 48 hours.
The pause came after the Yemeni rebels attacked one of the Danish company’s merchant ships.
The U.S. Navy admitted earlier Saturday the Houthis had shown no sign of ending their attacks, essentially conceding failure of the U.S. led “Operation Prosperity Guardian” which was designed to protect all commercial shipping.
The Maersk Hangzhou, a Singapore-flagged, Denmark-owned and operated container vessel en route from Singapore to Port Suez in Egypt, reported being struck by a missile while transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait, as Breitbart News reported.
It appeared to be undamaged in that attack and “was able to continue its transit north”, said Maersk.
The container ship was then attacked by four ships operated by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia which “engaged fire in an expected attempt to board the vessel”, the shipping company said.
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107) supplied helicopters Sunday which sunk three Houthi boats, killing their crews, after the terrorists attempted to hijack a commercial vessel and were fired on in response to the besieged container ship’s distress call. (MC3 Taylor Parker/USN)
The U.S. military said navy helicopters sank three of the ships while the fourth fled.
“In light of the incident — and to allow time to investigate the details of the incident and assess the security situation further — it has been decided to delay all transits through the area for the next 48 hours,” said a Maersk statement as reported by AFP.