The British Maritime Trade Operations Authority said today that a merchant ship was attacked off the coast of eastern Yemen, and the nature of the accident and the party behind it were not clear, and the director of the Al-Jazeera office in Yemen stated that a British merchant ship had previously been attacked next May off the coast of Yemen.
Later, this authority updated the notice on its website to say, "The incident is now over, the ship and the crew are fine," and indicated ships in the vicinity as the source of the incident, and did not mention any other details.
On the other hand, the director of the Al-Jazeera office in Yemen, Saeed Thabet, said that the ship was targeted opposite the towns of Qishn and Mashton in the Al-Mahra governorate in southeastern Yemen, and he did not specify the nature of the attack and the party behind it.
He added that it was not the first time that a British merchant ship was attacked off the Yemeni coast. On May 17, a British merchant ship was attacked off the coast of the port of Mukalla near the area of today's attack.
The attack came 3 days after the US ambassador to Yemen, Christopher Hanzel, visited Al-Mahra governorate from Saudi Arabia, and met with local authority leaders there. He praised the efforts of the Coastal Spur forces to combat smuggling and "terrorism."
The marine area is a trade corridor close to the coasts of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, and it is a strategic location for the global trade of oil and other goods, as well as the movement of warships, and Saudi and Emirati naval forces have been managing this area within the operations of the Riyadh-led coalition since its intervention in the Yemeni war in 2015.