Bombs set by Yemeni rebels on vessel threat Red Sea oil spill

DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi rebels released footage on Thursday showing their fighters boarded and placed explosives on a Greek-flagged tanker, setting off blasts that put the Red Sea at risk of a major oil spill. The vessel was abandoned earlier, after the Houthis repeatedly attacked it.

In the video, the Iran-backed Houthis chant their motto as the bombs detonated aboard the oil tanker Sounion: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”

The blasts capped the most-serious attack in weeks by the Houthis in their campaign disrupting the $1 trillion in goods that pass through the Red Sea each year over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, as well as halting some aid shipments to conflict-ravaged Sudan and Yemen.

The Sounion carried some 1 million barrels of oil when the Houthis initially attacked it on Aug. 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of the European Union’s Operation Aspides rescued the Sounion’s crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.