Three crew members of a merchant ship were killed in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday when it was hit by a missile fired from Yemen, the US military said, in the first deadly attack by Houthi rebels on international shipping off the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country.

Yemeni rebels, close to Iran, have been launching attacks against ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since mid-November, sea routes of major importance for world trade.

They say they are targeting ships they say are linked to Israel and its allies, particularly the US and Britain, in a show of support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an enclave that has been bombarded and besieged by the Israeli military since October 7.

At around 10:30am (GMT) yesterday, an anti-ship ballistic missile was fired from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen against the True Confidence, a “Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned” dry bulk carrier, the joint command of the armed forces of the US in charge of the Middle East region (CENTCOM, “Central Command”).

“The missile hit the ship and the (…) crew reported three deaths, at least four injuries, three of which are critical, and extensive damage,” CENTCOM clarified via X (formerly Twitter).

Taking to social networking sites, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Shari noted for his part that the True Confidence was hit by “missiles” after its crew defied “warning messages”.

Earlier yesterday, maritime security services said a cargo ship had been attacked and damaged off Aden, in southern Yemen, a country that has been at war for the past decade.

The British Maritime Safety Agency UKMTO noted via X that the crew were forced to abandon the vessel, which is now unmanned.

“The Houthis killed innocent civilians,” a US official said on condition of anonymity.

British Foreign Minister David Cameron underlined through X that he was “horrified” by this attack, while the British embassy in Yemen considered that the bloody incident was a “sad” and “inevitable consequence” of Houthi attacks against international shipping.

According to the UKMTO, the merchant ship received a radio message “from an entity posing as the Yemeni navy ordering it to change course”.

British maritime security company Ambrey said the truck belonged to an American company. But the American official countered that it was a ship of “Liberian interests”.

UKMTO reported an intervention by “coalition forces” on the ship. The US in December formed a multinational naval force deployed off the coast of Yemen to protect merchant ships from attacks by the Ansar Allah (“Supporters of God”) movement, better known by the family name of its founders and leaders, the Houthis.

After the deadly attack yesterday, a representative of the American diplomacy explained that Washington will continue to make sure that the Houthis are “accountable”.

The actions of the rebels, who control almost all of northern Yemen, have forced many major shipping companies to suspend their ships in the strategically important region, through which before the war between 12% and 15% of world trade passed.

According to the International Monetary Fund, container traffic through the Red Sea has fallen by almost 30% year-on-year.

Besides, yesterday at around 19:14 (Sanaa time; 18:14 Greek time), the US armed forces destroyed two Houthi remote-controlled aerial drones in Yemen in “legitimate defense” as they “posed a direct threat to commercial ships and vessels of the US Navy in the region,” CENTCOM announced today.

Earlier, the US military said the Houthis fired five anti-ship ballistic missiles off the coast of Yemen in two days, two of which hit their targets — the True Confidence and MSC Sky II — and one was shot down.

In February, Yemeni rebels attacked a cargo ship carrying chemical fertilizers, the Rubymar. The vessel sank, posing a serious risk to the environment and shipping traffic in the Red Sea, according to CENTCOM.