Ansarallah, the Shiite jihadist terror organization commonly known as the Houthis, published a video on Thursday that it claimed showed its members boarding the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion and planting bombs while chanting, “Allahu akbar.”
The Houthis, who control the Yemeni capital of Sana’a and launched a terrorist campaign to disrupt commercial shipping in the Red Sea late in 2023, attacked the Sounion on August 21, reportedly using projectiles and a private attack at sea. The attack necessitated the evacuation of the ship’s crew, leaving the oil tanker and its cargo of 150,000 tons of crude oil abandoned, a floating ecological disaster waiting to happen in the Red Sea. Reports differ over whether the Sounion is leaking oil — European officials say it is not, while the Pentagon suggested it is — and rescuers have not approached the ship to mitigate the damage out of fear that the Houthis will, in turn, attack them.
Houthi leaders suggested, though did not confirm, that they would allow rescue efforts to prevent an environmental catastrophe, but such efforts do not appear to have begun at press time.
Fires burn aboard the oil tanker Sounion in the Red Sea on August 25, 2024. (European Union’s Operation Aspides via AP)
Houthi leaders appeared to publish the video on Thursday to show that they had boarded the ship after the rescue of its crew and planted explosives, demonstrating the level of control they have over the waters of the Red Sea. International efforts to stop Houthi terrorists from attacking commercial ships — most notably President Joe Biden’s effort, known as “Operation Prosperity Guardian” — have categorically failed to stop the terror campaign.
“The footage released Thursday shows masked Houthi fighters carrying Kalashnikov-style rifles boarding the Sounion after it was abandoned. The bridge appeared ransacked,” the Associated Press narrated in its report on the video on Thursday. “Fighters then rigged explosives over hatches on its deck leading to the oil tankers below. At least six simultaneous blasts could be seen in the footage.”
The terrorists can be heard repeatedly chanting the official slogan of the Houthi movement: “Allahu akbar, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.” The terrorists did not offer a clear date on when the video, which drones apparently captured, was filmed or the most recent update on the ship.
The Houthis declared war on Israel in October — despite not being a legitimate government entity with war powers in Yemen — in solidarity with the fellow Iran-backed terrorists of Hamas, who executed an unprecedented massacre in Israel on October 7, prompting a self-defense operation into Gaza from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Houthi leaders announced a campaign shortly after that to starve Israel by blocking ships traveling to and from the country, cutting its supplies. They later expanded that campaign to American and British vessels in response to airstrikes on Houthi territory intended to wipe out Houthi missiles and other assets used against the ships.
In reality, however, the Houthis have attacked dozens of ships seemingly at random, many with no clear connection to Israel. Houthi leaders claimed that the Sounion was facilitating trade with Israel, but, in reality, the Greek-flagged ship was traveling from Iraq to Greece with no clear association with Israel. Similarly, Houthi strikes have targeted ships associated with Houthi allies and countries the terrorists have explicitly claimed to exempt from their attacks, including Russia, China, and Iran.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed on Thursday that the Sounion sealed its fate by “violating” the Houthi blockade on Israel but offered no explanation of how it did so or any proof of the allegation. The leader of Ansarallah, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, claimed in his regular remarks on Thursday that the purpose of publishing the video was to show the “incinerating” of the ship “in support of Gaza,” according to the pro-jihadist Lebanese publication al-Manar.
“Sayyed Houthi underlined the footage which shows the Yemeni Armed Forces storming and incinerating the Greek Ship SOUNION in the Red Sea for violating the decision of banning accessing the seaports of occupied Palestine [sic] in support of Gaza,” the outlet claimed. “Sayyed Houthi affirmed that the Zionist escalation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank necessitates steadfastness and confrontation, blaming some Arab regimes and the international community for their silence about the Israeli massacres.”
Al-Mayadeen, another jihadist-friendly outlet in that country, quoted al-Houthi, using his speech on Thursday to call Israel a “disgrace to humanity” and accuse the Israeli government of “genocide” for responding to Hamas’s slaughter of 1,200 people, mass abduction of hundreds, and rape and torture spree in October.
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Al-Houthi reportedly described the attack on the Greek ship as “courageous and bold.”
“He revealed that two teams from the Yemeni naval forces boarded the ship in two phases, rigged it with explosives, and detonated it, destroying its cargo,” al-Mayadeen continued. “The Yemeni leader said that the bombing of the Sounion ship was thoroughly documented, showing that the Americans’ claims of deterring Yemeni operations in support of Palestine [sic] are false.”
To the extent that the Houthis had stopped terrorizing commercial ships, he claimed, it was only “due to the scarcity of enemy-affiliated vessels” since the terror campaign began in 2023.
Other Houthi leaders, nonetheless, claimed before al-Houthi’s speech that they would allow rescuers to tow the ship out of its current location to protect the ecosystem of the Red Sea. The vessel remains in the sea at press time.