NEW YORK, January 19. /TASS/. The United States confirms that Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement has delivered a missile strike on a US-owned tanker ship, Chem Ranger, in the Gulf of Aden, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.

"On Jan. 18 <…> [Houthis] launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles at M/V Chem Ranger," CENTCOM said on the X social network, formerly known as Twitter.

No damage or casualties have been reported.

According to the statement, "the crew observed the missiles impact the water near the ship."

It was the third Houthi attack on a commercial ship over the past three days, CENTCOM added.

Yahya Saria, a spokesman for Yemen's Ansar Allah (Houthi) rebel movement, said the attack occurred on Thursday, adding that one of the missiles directly hit the vessel. In his words, the attack came in response to US and UK strikes on Ansar Allah facilities in Yemen.

Following the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip last year, the Houthis warned that they would launch strikes on Israeli territory while barring ships associated with the Jewish state from passing through the waters of the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until Tel Aviv ceased its military operation against Palestinian radical group Hamas in the embattled enclave. According to the US Defense Department’s Central Command’s (CENTCOM) estimates, the Yemeni rebel group has attacked more than 20 vessels and civilian ships in the Red Sea since mid-November 2023.