[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The UAE said on Wednesday Yemeni Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the
Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews...
forces had attacked a UAE civilian vessel in a strategic Red Sea shipping lane off the coast of Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
at the weekend and called the incident an act of terrorism.
The UAE foreign ministry, in a statement carried by state news agency WAM, said the civilian ship was targeted by Houthi militia near the Bab al-Mandab strait off Yemen's southern coast on Saturday.
"The targeting of the civilian ship in an international channel has serious implications for freedom of navigation, and is an act of terror...," it said, without elaborating.
In a statement on Saturday, the Houthis said their forces had fired a missile that had destroyed a UAE military vessel that was advancing towards the Red Sea port of al-Mokha.
Vessel damaged
The UAE military said on Saturday that one of its vessels was damaged in an incident, on which it gave no details, near the strait but there were no injuries to its crew.
Hundreds of Emirati soldiers in a Saudi-led coalition have been fighting Yemen's Iran-allied Houthis who control the capital and training Yemeni troops in the port of Aden to help rebuild a state loyal to exiled president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
In 2013, more than 3.4 million barrels of oil per day passed through the 20-km (12 mile) wide Bab al-Mandab, according to the US Energy Information Administration.