On 23 March, another emergency broke out in the waters of the Red Sea! The US military command openly revealed that an oil tanker "Whampoa" operated by a Chinese company had been attacked by anti-ship missiles in the waters of the Red Sea. Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Central Command said Yemen's Houthi rebel groups fired missiles at a Chinese-operated oil tanker on Saturday (March 23). The U.S. military said the Houthis fired four anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) in the Red Sea near the Huangpu, a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker that China has the right to operate. By 4:25 p.m. (local time), a fifth ballistic missile launch was detected at the Whampoa.
The U.S. military report said that after the missile attack, the "Whampoa" was lightly injured, and the fire caused by the explosion was extinguished within 30 minutes. To the surprise of the US military, the "Whampoa" immediately sent out a distress signal after it was attacked, but it did not ask for help from nearby US warships. Therefore, the so-called distress signal of the "Whampoa" is an alarm message sent to its own side. What's more, the self-rescue ability of the tanker of the Chinese company surprised the US military. The U.S. military said that there were no casualties reported on the Whampoa, and after extinguishing the explosion and fire, the ship chose to continue sailing.
According to foreign media's previous statements, the Houthis only attacked foreign ships related to Israel, and later expanded to target all American and British ships. But the Houthis granted "immunity" to Chinese and Russian ships passing through the Red Sea route. This has made the United States, Britain and other Western countries very unhappy, and has repeatedly asked China to use its influence on Iran to put pressure on the Houthis to force them to end their ship raids on the Red Sea. But none of them received a response. Therefore, this time the "Whampoa" oil tanker was attacked by five Houthi anti-ship missiles in succession, and the US military could not rule out the idea of gloating.
In fact, experts in the British maritime sector have different analytical views, and in the opinion of British maritime experts, the Houthi missile attack on the "Whampoa" oil tanker should only be a "false hit" caused by an information lag. Ambrey, a British maritime risk management firm, said the registration information for the Whampoa, including its name and operator, had recently changed in February. Ambre said the tanker was registered in 2019 by the British company Union Maritime Ltd, which also had another ship that had previously been attacked by the Houthis.
What is the concept? That is, the right to operate the "Whampoa" was "transferred" to the Chinese company only two months ago, and before that, the oil tanker belonged to the British company Union Maritime Ltd. And the British shipping company's ships have been repeatedly attacked by Houthi missiles in the Red Sea. Therefore, it is highly likely that the Houthis still mistook the Chinese company "Whampoa" for a British vessel and carried out missile attacks on it because of the lag in understanding the change of ship registration information. Regardless of the truth, fortunately, the "Whampoa" was only slightly injured and was not in danger.