Houthi Drones were likely the cause of the explosions of three oil tankers in Abu Dhabi Monday morning. A drone is also blamed for a fire at the UAE main airport.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Monday claimed they had launched a drone attack on the UAE. The Houthis said they plan to announce a “qualitative military operation in the UAE in the coming hours,” according to a tweet from the terror group’s spokesman Yahya Saree.
The UAE was part of an Arab coalition that intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015, but it has kept away from the fighting since 2019. On January 1, a UAE cargo ship, the Rwabee, was hijacked by Houthi forces.
Abu Dhabi police said preliminary investigations revealed small flying objects that fell in the Abu Dhabi harbor and airport and may have caused the explosion and fire. According to the police, there was no significant damage from the attacks, calling the damage “minor.” The explosions on three petroleum tankers took place near a storage facility belonging to Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil company ADNOC.
Subsequently, the Abu Dhabi Police announced the incidents led to the deaths of one Pakistani and two Indians, while another six people sustained mild and moderate injuries, according to a WAM report.
A Houthi military source in Yemen told the Iranian Al-Alam channel: “We have used military drones to attack military and strategic targets in the Emirates in response to the escalation by the Emirates in Yemen and the continuation of the siege on Yemen.”