Yemen: The French, American and Indian armies rescued a British oil tanker hit by the Houthis

Washington carried out an attack against the rebels at dawn on Saturday, a day after another attack on a merchant ship.

Published on January 27, 2024 7:49 p.m

Reading time: 2 minutes

The “Marlin Luanda” burned in the Gulf of Aden on January 27, 2024 after an attack by the Houthis from Yemen. (INDIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE VIA AFP)

American forces attacked a Houthi rebel base in Yemen on Saturday, January 27, after they attacked a British oil tanker that “caught fire” in the Gulf of Aden. “At approximately 3:45 a.m. local time, the US Military Middle East Command (Centcom) conducted an attack against a Houthi anti-ship missile that was preparing to launch in the Red Sea,” a message published on X said, adding that this missile poses an “imminent threat” to U.S. destroyers and merchant ships in the region.

Iran-aligned rebels, who are increasingly carrying out attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, announced the day before that they had fired “missiles” against a “British oil tanker, the Marlin Luanda,” “hit head-on, caught fire. France, the United States and India jointly “provided assistance” to the tanker, the French army explains.

Last night, a device 🇫🇷🇺🇸🇮🇳 in the Gulf of Aden provided assistance to the oil tanker Marlin Luanda 🇲🇭, which was hit by a missile coming from Yemen.
Maritime safety and the protection of human life at sea will always be a priority. https://t.co/XaXtfCyV3F pic.twitter.com/5i1VMXTrGy

— French Army – Military Operations (@EtatMajorFR) January 27, 2024

The frigate Alsass, which was on patrol around a hundred kilometers away at the time, intervened “immediately”, followed by the American frigate USS Carney, according to a press release from the Maritime Command of the Indian Ocean Zone. Then an Indian frigate, Visakhapatnam, arrived at the scene. These reinforcements made it possible to deploy “large quantities of foam” to fight the hydrocarbon fire, according to the French naval command in the area, and the flames were finally brought under control after twenty hours of fighting. The Trafigura group, which operates the Marlin Luanda, said on Saturday that no injuries had been reported.

Since November, Houthi rebels have fired numerous rockets and drones off the coast of Yemen, saying they are targeting Israeli-linked ships in “solidarity” with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an area that has been under Israeli control since the Israeli army's bloody attack Army bombs and besieges Islamist movement Hamas on October 7th. In response, US forces, sometimes jointly with Britain, have carried out a series of attacks against the Houthis to deter them from continuing to attack merchant ships, but so far without success.