US navy arrests attackers who held tanker off Yemen

DUBAI: Armed assailants seized and later let go of a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen on Sunday before being apprehended by the US navy, officials said. Two ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen then landed near USS Mason, a US warship aiding the tanker in the Gulf of Aden, raising the stakes amid a series of ship attacks linked to the Israel-Hamas war.Pentagon press secretary Brig. General Pat Ryder said Monday that the militants were likely Somali and not Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. However, Pentagon hasn’t ruled out Houthis were somehow linked to the attack. Yemen’s government in Aden has said this was a Houthi attack on a Liberian-flagged ship managed by Zodiac Maritime. Earlier in the day, Zodiac said that the vessel and its crew of 22 sailors from Bulgaria, Georgia, India, the Philippines, Russia, Turkiye, Vietnam were unharmed.