Tanker in the Red Sea damaged by underwater mine
A mine in the Red Sea off the c o a s t o f S a u d i Ar a b i a n e a r Yemen has exploded and damaged an oil tanker, authorities have said.
The blast happened early yesterdayandstruckthemtagrari, a Maltese-flagged, Greek-managed oil tanker near Shuqaiq. "Their vessel was attacked by an unknown source," a statement from the Agrari's operators said.
"T h e A g r a r i w a s s t r u c k ab out one metre ab ove the w a t e r l i n e a n d s u f f e r e d a breach. It has been confirmed t h a t t h e c r e w a r e s a f e a n d there have been no injuries." The ship was still floating off the coast and had been boarded by Saudi officials, the company said.
Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the incident. A m b r e y, a B r i t i s h s e c u r i - t y f i r m, r e p o r t e d t h e b l a s t and attributed it to a mine. It said the Agrari had cargo
from the Dutch city of Rotterdam that it had discharged at the Shuqaiq Steam Power Plant.
"The explosion took place in port limits and punctured the hull of the vessel," Ambrey said. Saudi state television later aired a report claiming a militar y coalition led by the kingdom destroyed a bomb-laden Houthi drone boat and that a merchant ship sustained light damage.
The report offered no details and it was not immediately clear if the report was the same incident at Shuqaiq.
The explosion comes after a cruise missile fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels struck an oil facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
T h e S a u d i - l e d c o a l i t i o n repor ted on Tuesday that it removed and destroyed five Iranian-made naval mines planted by the Houthis in the southern Red Sea, condemning the attempted attacks as posing "a serious threat to maritime security in the Bab al-mandab strait".
A S a u d i - l e d c o a l i t i o n h a s been battling the Houthis since March 2015.
A United Nations panel in 2018 found the Houthis used both improvised and what appear to be Iranian-manufactured "bottom" mines, explosives that could be live in the water for as long as a decade.
"Sea mines are low cost, easy to deploy, tactically very effect ive , d i f f i c u l t t o d e te c t a n d t h u s a r e a p o te n t t h r e a t t o both naval and commercial vessels," that repor t warned Iran has repeatedly denied arming the Houthis, though experts s ay I r a n i a n we a p o n s h ave been smuggled to the rebels.