First Attack Outside the Red Sea
The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that a cargo ship loaded with chemicals traveling through the Indian Ocean on the 23rd was attacked by a drone fired directly from Iran, resulting in a fire, but fortunately the fire was quickly extinguished and did not result in casualties, this is the first time that a cargo ship has been attacked outside of the Red Sea, which is an indication of the Yemeni rebel attack on the ships in the Red Sea has been expanded.
In the aftermath of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iranian-inspired youth movement organizations have frequently attacked merchant ships in Bab el-Mandeb, the strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, claiming that their purpose is to put pressure on Israel to protest Israel's military action against Gaza, which poses a serious threat to the global supply chain.
The U.S. Department of Defense statement noted that the incident was the seventh Iranian attack on commercial shipping since 2021. The Iranian delegation to the United Nations did not issue a response to the incident. U.S. authorities said on 22 February that Iran was providing the YPG with weapons, funding, training, and tactical intelligence to enable it to launch attacks against Israeli and maritime targets, but Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani refuted the allegations on 23 February, saying that the YPG was acting on its own.
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