Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militias said on Saturday that they had fired missiles at oil tanker Pollux, which US officials said the previous day had been hit by a missile.
The US State Department said on Friday that the Pollux, a Panamanian-flagged tanker carrying crude oil bound for India, was hit by a missile on its port side.
The Houthi forces “carried out a targeting operation against a British oil ship (Pollux) in the Red Sea with a large number of appropriate naval missiles, and the strikes were accurate and direct", Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement.
The Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile attacks against international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel wages war on Hamas.