China called for an end to attacks on civilian ships in the Red Sea and to ensure the safety of navigation there, during a meeting of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi with his Yemeni counterpart Shaye’ al-Zindani in Beijing, today, Tuesday. Wang said that China is ready to continue to play a constructive role in this matter, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

The US Central Command (Centcom) announced yesterday, Monday, the destruction of a drone over the Red Sea. The command said, in a statement, that American forces destroyed a drone over the Red Sea that had been launched from an area controlled by the Houthis in Yemen. The statement added, "These drones represent an imminent threat to both coalition forces and commercial ships in the region, and these measures are being taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters protected and safer for American, coalition, and commercial ships."

For its part, the Yemeni Houthi group said yesterday, Monday, that it attacked three ships in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, and also targeted two American destroyers in the Red Sea.

The group added that it targeted the American ship Larigo Desert and the Israeli ship Michela in the Indian Ocean, and the ship Minerva Lisa in the Red Sea. The movement did not mention the names of the two destroyers. The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, did not specify the time of the attacks, but he said in a speech broadcast on television that the movement targeted the ships with missiles and attacked the two American destroyers with drones.

The leader of the Houthi group in Yemen, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, announced last Thursday that one of the operations launched by the group last week was carried out towards the Mediterranean Sea. The Houthis announced, earlier this month, that the group would expand the scope of its attacks and would target all ships heading to Israeli ports, not just ships crossing the Red Sea region, as they had previously done.

Since last November, the Houthi group in Yemen has been launching attacks on ships in the Red Sea heading to Israel, while, in return, a Washington-led coalition has been launching retaliatory raids that it says target the Houthi group’s positions in various regions of Yemen, 12 years ago. January, in response to its attacks in the Red Sea, and with the aim of “protecting” maritime navigation in this strategic region through which 12% of global trade passes.

(Reuters, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed)