Explosion near ship in Red Sea blamed on suspected Houthi attack

An explosion that took place near a ship in the Red Sea on Monday is suspected to have been an attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels, though the blast caused no damage, authorities said.

The master of the vessel reported the explosion and said no one was hurt, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

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The private security firm Ambrey say the incident may have involved a missile, but information remained scarce.

The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack, though it typically takes the rebels several hours to acknowledge their strikes.

The blast comes after a Houthi missile struck a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden last week, killing three of its crew members and forcing survivors to abandon the vessel.

It was the first fatal strike in a campaign of assaults by the Iranian-backed group over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis say the attacks are intended to pressure Israel into stopping the war, but their targets increasingly have little or nothing to do with the conflict.

Other recent Houthi actions include an attack last month on a cargo ship carrying fertilizer, the Rubymar, which later sank after drifting for several days, and the downing of an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars.