Militants in latest ship attack near Yemen were likely Somali: Pentagon

A group of five militants who seized another commercial ship near Yemen were likely Somali and not Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and were captured by US forces after fleeing the MV Central Park in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Monday.

Ballistic missiles had been fired shortly after from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, and the Pentagon has not ruled out that the Houthis were somehow linked to the Somali-conducted attack.

The attacks on commercial vessels have previously been conducted by Houthis and are part of a larger rise in violence in the region due to the Israel-Hamas war.

Yemen's internationally recognised government in Aden has said this was a Houthi attack on the Central Park, a Liberian-flagged ship managed by Zodiac Maritime. The ship sent out a distress call and forces from the USS Mason, an American destroyer, responded.

Zodiac called the attack a suspected piracy incident.

Our priority is the safety of our 22 crew onboard, Zodiac said in a statement. The Turkish-captained vessel has a multinational crew consisting of a crew of Russian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Indian, Georgian and Filipino nationals. The vessel is carrying a full cargo of phosphoric acid.

Zodiac described the vessel as being owned by Clumvez Shipping Inc, though other records directly linked Zodiac as the owner. London-based Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer's Zodiac Group. British corporate records listed two men with the last name Ofer as a current and former director of Clumvez Shipping, including Daniel Guy Ofer, who is also a director at Zodiac Maritime.

It wasn't immediately clear who was behind the attack. Aden is held by forces allied to Yemen's internationally recognised government and a Saudi-led coalition that has battled Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for years. That part of the Gulf of Aden in theory is under the control of those forces and is fairly distant from Houthi-controlled territory in the country. Somali pirates also are not known to operate in that area.

The US defence official said that it appeared an unknown number of unidentified armed individuals seized the ship.

US and coalition forces are in the vicinity and we are closely monitoring the situation," the official said.

Ambrey said that it appeared that US naval forces are engaged in the situation and have asked vessels to stay clear of the area.

Zodiac Maritime has been targeted previously amid a wider yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel. In 2021, a drone attack assessed by the US and other Western nations to have been carried out by Iran killed two crew members aboard Zodiac's oil tanker Mercer Street off the coast of Oman.

The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, had earlier issued a warning to sailors that two black-and-white craft carrying eight persons in military-style clothing had been seen in the area. It issued another warning saying that radio traffic suggested a possible attack had occurred.

The Central Park seizure comes after a container ship, CMA CGM Symi, owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack Friday by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean as Israel wages war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, an American defense official said Saturday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to discuss intelligence matters.

The attacks come as global shipping increasingly finds itself targeted in the weekslong war that threatens to become a wider regional conflict even as a truce has halted fighting and Hamas exchanges hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

With the Israel-Hamas war which began with the militant Palestinian group's Oct 7 attack raging on, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship in the Red Sea off Yemen.