A ship sailing south through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait was attacked on Wednesday, the British military’s naval monitoring center said in a statement that stopped short of accusing any party specifically.
The United States-flagged vessel was reportedly sailing south of the Yemeni city of Mocha when the captain alerted the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center to explosions off the ship’s side.
The attack failed to cause any major damage or injure any crewmembers, and the ship remains operational, according to the UKMTO statement.
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No group has claimed the assault directly as of Wednesday morning, but the incident comes only a day after Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for three separate assaults in recent days.
While the Iran-aligned Houthis have targeted over 70 ships in the Red Sea since November as part of a military campaign supporting ally Hamas in its war against Israel, US and British authorities alluded to an unexplained pause in attacks over the last week.
However, on Tuesday, the Iran-aligned Houthis confirmed that they had launched multiple missiles at a US-flagged container ship in the Gulf of Aden.
The US Navy identified the ship as the Maersk Sentosa, which is owned and operated by the Danish firm Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company.
The latest surge in Houthi aggression comes after the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier departs from the region after months of deployment there. The carrier is slated to be replaced by the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Western military officials also expressed concerns surrounding a potential escalation in hostilities and highlighted that Wednesday was the longest-range attack on a US ship since the conflict began.