UPDATE - Yemen's Houthis strike Norwegian-flagged oil tanker heading to Israel

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Ahmed Asmar

ANKARA (AA) – The Yemeni Houthi group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for attacking a Norwegian-flagged oil tanker off Yemen that it said was heading to Israel.

"The navy forces of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a qualitative military operation against the STRINDA ship of Norway which was loaded with fuel and heading towards the Israeli entity," Yahya Saree, spokesman of the Houthi group, said in a statement.

He added that the operation was carried out with "an appropriate navy cruise missile" in the Red Sea, adding that the ship refused to listen to the warnings.

The Houthi spokesman also said that in the past two days, several ships responded to the Houthi warnings contrary to the Norwegian ship.

The operation, he said, was carried out in support of the Palestinian people under the deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza.

He stressed that the Houthi group will continue to target all ships sailing in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea and heading to Israel unless food and medicine are allowed to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Early on Tuesday, the US military said an anti-ship cruise missile was fired from a Houthi controlled area in Yemen against a commercial tanker vessel, STRINDA, causing fire and damage in the ship but no casualties reported.

For its part, Israeli public broadcaster KAN confirmed that the ship was targeted off the Yemeni coast.

It added that the vessel was scheduled to arrive at the port of Ashdod in southern Israel on Jan. 4.

*Mahmoud Barakat contributed to this report from Ankara.