31 January 2017•Update: 01 February 2017
By Zakaria al-Kamaali
SANAA, Yemen
Two sailors were killed on Monday in a suicide attack by Shia Houthi militiamen on a Saudi frigate patrolling the Red Sea, according to officials from a Saudi-led military coalition.
The frigate came under attack by three Houthi-piloted suicide boats west of Yemen’s Port of Hudeidah, the coalition said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
One of the boats collided with the ship’s stern, causing an explosion and subsequent fire that killed two crew members, the coalition asserted.
"Another three crew members were injured," it added.
According to the statement, coalition warplanes and ships had pursued the remaining attack boats and "dealt with them".
Yemen’s Houthi-run Saba news agency, for its part, quoted an unnamed military source as saying that the Saudi vessel had been struck by a guided missile.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, swiftly condemned the reported attack.
"We condemn the suicide attack perpetrated by the Houthi militias against a Saudi frigate west of the Port of Hudeida," the ministry said in a statement.
In 2014, the Houthis overran capital Sanaa and other parts of Yemen, forcing members of the country’s internationally-recognized government to temporarily flee to Saudi Arabia.
The following year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a major air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s Saudi-backed government.
