Major oil spill averted after Houthi attack set tanker alight

A burning lipid tanker that was attacked by Yemen’s Houthi question has been towed to a harmless country successful the Red Sea without immoderate spill, an EU naval ngo says.

The Greek-owned and flagged MV Sounion, carrying astir a cardinal barrels of crude, was abandoned by its unit aft being deed by missiles connected 21 August. Houthi fighters aboriginal detonated explosives connected board, sparking respective fires.

A photograph released connected Monday nighttime showed 3 vessels belonging to what the EU ngo described arsenic “private stakeholders” carrying retired the salvage operation, protected by a warship.

The Sounion’s destination was not given, but Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered to assistance the salvagers offload its oil.

“The completion of this signifier of the salvage cognition is the effect of a broad attack and adjacent co-operation betwixt each stakeholders committed to forestall an biology catastrophe affecting the full region,” the EU’s Operation Aspides said connected X.

A imaginable spill from the Sounion could beryllium astir 4 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which saw 2,100km (1,300 miles) of coastline contaminated aft a tanker ran aground disconnected Alaska, according to the US.

The Iran-backed Houthis said astatine the extremity of August that they had agreed to let the Sounion to beryllium towed distant from Yemen aft being contacted by “several planetary parties”.

They besides stressed that the onslaught connected the tanker showed their “seriousness successful targeting immoderate vessel that violates the Yemeni embargo”.

The Houthis person repeatedly targeted commercialized shipping successful the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November, sinking 2 vessels, seizing different and causing the deaths of astatine slightest 4 unit members.

They accidental they are acting successful enactment of the Palestinians successful the warfare betwixt Israel and Hamas successful the Gaza Strip. They person claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships lone linked to Israel, the US oregon the UK.

They person not been deterred by the deployment of Western warships to support merchant vessels, nor by US and British aerial strikes connected territory they power successful north-western Yemen.

Israel besides bombed Yemen successful retaliation for a deadly drone onslaught connected Tel Aviv, and it has vowed to marque the Houthis wage a “heavy price” for a rocket onslaught connected Sunday.

In a abstracted improvement connected Monday, the Houthis said they had changeable down a US-made MQ-9 Reaper drone implicit Yemen’s Dhamar state and released videos which they said showed the charred wreckage connected the ground. The US subject said it was alert of the claim.