Tanker hit by Houthi rebels that threatened a Red Sea oil spill has been salvaged

An oil tanker that burned for weeks in the Red Sea after being attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels and threatened with a major oil spill has been rescued, a security company announced Friday.

The Sounion was a disaster-in-waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil on board that was attacked and later sabotaged by explosives by the Iran-backed Houthis as part of their campaign around the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. It took months for rescuers to tow the ship, put out the fires and offload the remaining crude oil.

“During three challenging weeks, the fires were extinguished, the cargo tanks patched and pressurized with inert gas, and the ship was declared safe,” said private security firm Ambrey, which helped in the response alongside European navies and rescuers. “In early October she was towed north to Suez for cargo removal, which has now been successfully completed.”

The US State Department warned that the spill from Sounion it would be “four times larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster” in 1989 off Alaska.

There was no immediate comment from the Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, for more than a decade and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition backing the country’s government-in-exile for nearly as long.

At first, the Houthis attacked Greek-flagged ships Sounion tanker on August 21 by fire from infantry weapons, missiles and drones. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Aspides rescued its crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security guards, after they abandoned ship and took them to nearby Djibouti.

The Houthis later released a video showing them planting explosives on the ship Sounion and set them on fire in a propaganda video, something the rebels have already done in their campaign.

The Houthis have targeted some 100 merchant ships with missiles and drones since the Gaza war began in October 2023. They seized one ship and sank two in a campaign that also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones were intercepted by the US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, including Western military vessels.

The rebels claim they are targeting ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some that were bound for Iran.

The pace of Houthi attacks has slowed in recent weeks, particularly when it comes to ships at sea. However, they continued to launch drones and missiles targeting Israel.