Hapag-Lloyd Container Ship Set Ablaze in Red Sea After Yemen Missile Strike

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Greger Ravik
Oliver JJ Lane

A 15,000-container ship was struck by a projectile fired from Yemen, causing some cargo to fall overboard and setting a fire on the ship, again underlining the vulnerability of the global shipping system which passes through a handful of narrow waters where ships are vulnerable to attack.

Container ship the Al Jasrah was struck by a missile or drone launched from Yemen on Friday and is burning in the Red Sea. The ship [illustrated above by an file photo of her sister ship the Al Dhail] which can carry 14,500 standard-size 20-foot shipping containers is Liberian-flagged but operated by German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd which was sailing from Greece to Singapore.

Britain’s Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO) has issued a notice to mariners advising captains an attack had taken place in the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb strait and that ships transiting the area should transit with caution. The UKMTO is a Royal Navy body that monitors the “high risk area” off the coast of Somalia, Yemen, and Eritrea through the Red Sea, and Gulf of Aden into the Indian Ocean and passes information between the military forces in the area and merchant ships carrying the world’s trade through the crucial, but at-risk waterway.

The Associated Press

This is a locator map for Yemen with its capital, Sanaa. (AP Photo)

The Associated Press cites an unnamed U.S. Navy official who said “The projectile reportedly hit the port side of the vessel and one container fell overboard due to the impact” and this caused a fire onboard. Hapag-Lloyd said there are no injuries, per Die Welt.

The successful strike against the German-operated freighter follows weeks of attempted missile attacks against ships in the waters around Yemen, which have generally been claimed by or attributed to Iran-supplied Houthi rebels, who are Shiite jihadists. This attack has not yet been claimed, it is stated, but the projectile was launched from a “Houthi controlled” area.

The sudden surge in attacks against Western shipping, which has seen NATO and allied warships fending off attacks near-daily for weeks was originally said to be part of the war against Israel by the Islamic world, with ships doing business with Israel particularly targeted. Yet as time has gone on the attacks have devolved into general attempts against merchant shipping in an attempt to deny the Bab-el-Mandeb to global trade.

This is a major concern for the Western economy, given significant amount of freight trade and oil that flows through the strategic chokepoint that offers a considerable time saving for ships sailing from the Gulf and Asian ports to Europe over sailing all around the Horn of Africa. Some ten per cent of all global trade flows through the Bab-al-Mandeb daily, and over six million barrels of oil and oil products.

Sucessful attacks on merchant ships will send the already-high cost of shipping spiraling even higher, as costs like embarking security teams and paying insurance premiums take their toll. Given the dependence of Western nations on limitless cheap imports from Asian states after decades of deindustrialization and offshoring, the consequences of a surge in shipping costs could be significant.

A United States warship USS Mason shot down a Houthi drone attempting to attack a tanker carrying jet fuel through the Gulf of Aden on the approach to the Bab-el-Mandeb yesterday, Breitbart News reported. The tanker Ardmore Encounter also came under attack from several small boats loaded with gunmen who fired rockets at the ship, but who were repulsed by security officers onboard. The incident appears to have been an attempted hijacking.

That incident also followed by just days a successful missile strike against a Norwegian tanker in the same area, and last month Houthis even successfully seized a car transporter ship, parading their pirating on social media.

The United Kingdom has recently deployed an extra warship to the area to assist the international effort to keep the sea lanes open. Australia has been requested by the United States to send a warship, but Canberra said it had yet to reach a decision, saying its present focus was on protecting itself closer to home.

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