In the third such successful strike on warships belonging to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen since the beginning of 2017, Houthi rebel recently attacked an unknown vessel of the United Arab Emirates’ Navy. Beyond this most basic detail, however, both sides have released wildly different and equally unconfirmed statements regarding the incident. On July 29, 2017, pro-Houthi forces, referring themselves as the “Yemeni Navy,” released a statement taking responsibility for the attack, which they said occurred in the Red Sea off the coast of the port city of Mocha, Yemen. According to an English-language report from the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency the next day, the insurgents killed 12 UAE personnel, wounded another 23, and damaged a nearby minesweeper at the same time. There was no information about the method of attack.

“The targeted warship was heavily loaded with weapons and ammunitions and that the ship went into a series of explosions … after [which] aircrafts helped extinguished the flames,” an unnamed Houthi-aligned official told SABA. “The injured were airlifted to the Eritrean port city of Assab for treatment.” On July 30, 2017, Iran’s PressTV carried another report, citing an unnamed Yemeni military source, that said “dozens” of Emirati troops had died and two dozen had suffered injuries in what it described as a “missile attack” on an unspecified “frigate.” The other details from the Iranian outlet were the same as those in the Houthi statement. Chinese state media outlet Xinhua’s English story on the incident said “rockets” were responsible for the damage, though this could have been a simply translation error.

Mztourist via Wikimedia A UAE Navy Baynunah-class corvette.

The UAE’s Navy operates a number of corvette-type ships, a category that some refer to as frigates. The largest of these are Italian-made Abu Dhabi-class, which displace 1,650 tons and are armed with Exocet anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, a 76mm main gun, and other smaller weapons. The Emiratis also have six Baynunah-class and two Muray Jib-class types, both of which are smaller and displace less than 1,000 tons. All three types have space for a single light helicopter on their rear deck. This could help explain other reports that the ship was “carrying helicopters” during the attack. It would also support descriptions of helicopter activity after the incident, though it wouldn’t confirm the exact reasons they were airborne. If the reports about a accompanying mine hunter receiving damage are true, this may have been one of the UAE’s two ex-German Frankenthal-class ships. This vessel could have belonged to another coalition member, such as Saudi Arabia, as well. The presence of a mine-hunting ship points to the increasing importance of these weapons in the Houthi arsenal, an recently emerging threat that The War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway has previously examined in detail. Whatever ships were involved in the attack, the Saudi-led coalition’s official description of the attack is almost completely at odds with the statements from Houthi-aligned sources. Al Jazeera, citing a Saudi Press Agency report, said that the rebels had actually employed a remote-control boat laden with explosives to strike a group of ships sitting pier side in Mocha’s port. According to Saudi officials there were no casualties or significant damage at all on the ships.

Thomas Glapa vi Wikimedia A Frankenthal-class mine hunter in German service.