Rumours of Houthi truce with China and Russia fall flat with latest tanker attack
Putting paid to reports last week that Chinese and Russian ships were to be given safe passage through the Red Sea by the Houthis, a Chinese tanker was attacked by missiles fired from Yemen on Saturday.
A total of five missiles were aimed at the Huang Pu, a 2009-built aframax. The Chinese manned vessel, carrying a cargo of Russian crude to India, suffered minimal damage and a fire onboard was extinguished within 30 minutes. No casualties were reported. It has since continued its voyage to India.
Bloomberg reported last week that the Houthis would not target Chinese and Russian ships. Citing unnamed sources, the financial newswire said an agreement had been reached following recent talks between Chinese and Russian diplomats with a senior Houthi figure, Mohammed Abdel Salam, in Oman.
The Houthis have been waging a series of attacks aimed at Israeli, US and UK-linked ships, taking sides with Hamas in its near six-month war with Israel. However, the Houthis’ selection of targets has often proven to be off, with outdated, or incorrect, shipping databases leading to attacks on ships with no links to Israel, the US or the UK.
Some 70 merchant ships have been targeted to date leading to a massive rerouting of the global merchant fleet to head around the continent of Africa in order to connect between Asia and Europe.
Quite. Anyone who believed otherwise should be sectioned.
As everybody knows, China and Russia are allies with Iran and Houties are also very closed allied with Iran. It was obvious that Houties do not attack friends (chineese or Russian interests). But latest attack was a cheep and clever move from China to show the world that they are not exempt from the attacks and they are not cooperating with Houties. All of this is a Dirty game from the powerful governments.
LOL. The Houthis didn’t and don’t have a clue as to the ownership or trade the ships they attack. So far the majority of ‘enemy’ ships they have have attacked were friendly.
It is blatantly obvious whoever is /are responsible for these rumours were influential and trying to foment antagonism. Some fell for it.
“In late 2022, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was reacting to a joint statement issued by China and states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which called for peaceful resolution of the islands dispute with the United Arab Emirates”