A chemical tanker was hit by a drone launched from Iran in the Indian Ocean on Saturday, the US military says.

The Pentagon said the Chem Pluto vessel was struck “200 nautical miles (370km) from the coast of India” at 10:00 local time (06:00 GMT).

A fire on board the ship was extinguished. There were no casualties.

Iran has not commented. There has recently been a series of drone and rocket attacks on ships in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In a separate development, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that on Saturday “two Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired into international shipping lanes in the Southern Red Sea from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. No ships reported being impacted by the ballistic missiles”.

    • roguetrick@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      11 months ago

      Iran is more than happy to have a proxy war with the US in the meat grinder of Yemen, considering there is zero end strategy there for the US.

      • Rinox@feddit.it
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        I don’t know about that. This could reinforce the alliance between the US and the Saudis, which we all know are against Iran.

        The end game here could look like a US sanctioned and supported invasion of Yemen by the Saudis, maybe in exchange for support to Israel by Saudi Arabia. This in the end would just increase US power in the middle east.

          • APassenger@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            11 months ago

            Not enough people have read The Prince.

            Im not saying it’s a glowingly perfect ethical work. I am saying it is horribly plain spoken on what works.

      • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        This isn’t going to be a proxy war. This is going to be Praying Mantis 2.0 — a week or so of surgical and quick dismantling of Iranian assets in the region removing their ability to project power outside of their borders and airspace.