ADEN, Yemen, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The Houthi group in Yemen announced on Sunday that it had carried out strikes targeting a British naval destroyer and two commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.

In a televised statement broadcast on the group's Al-Masirah channel, Yahya Sarea, the military spokesman for the Houthis, said that their forces had launched an operation against the British warship HMS Diamond in the Red Sea, hitting it "accurately" with a number of ballistic missiles.

Sarea said that Houthis launched a combined missile and drone attack and directly hit two commercial vessels, Norderney and MSC Tavvishi, in the Arabian Sea, claiming that the two violated the group's maritime shipment ban on Israeli ports.

He declared that the Houthi forces' "operations will not stop until the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted."

Earlier in the day, an official from the Yemeni government Coast Guard reported that a Liberian-flagged container ship, identified as the MSC Tavvishi, had been hit by a Houthi missile attack while sailing in the Gulf of Aden, approximately 70 nautical miles southwest of the temporary capital Aden. The official stated that the ship was struck in the stern section, causing a fire, but no casualties were reported among the crew.

Since November 2023, the Houthi rebels have been conducting military operations in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, targeting vessels they claim are Israeli or bound for Israel, in retaliation for the ongoing conflict between the Israeli military and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip.

In response to the Houthi naval attacks, the United States and Britain launched a joint military operation in January 2024, involving airstrikes and missile strikes against Houthi targets in various areas of Yemen.

This prompted the group to expand its targeting to include American and British commercial and military ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, further escalating the conflict in the strategic region. Enditem

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