ATHENS: A Greek oil tanker crippled by Yemen’s Houthi militants and towed to avert an environmental disaster began transferring its cargo of over a million barrels on Thursday, the state-run ANA news agency said.
The Sounion caught fire and lost power after being attacked on August 21 off the coast of Hodeidah, a Houthi-held port city.
The following day its 25-strong crew was rescued. The rebels claimed to have detonated charges on the ship’s deck, sparking new fires.
ANA said the Sounion had begun transferring its cargo of 150,000 tons of crude to another tanker, Delta Blue, at a “safe anchorage” in the port of Suez.
“The vessel is at Suez, and as it’s at a safe anchorage, we are no longer monitoring it,” a source at Greece’s merchant marine ministry told AFP.
Citing ministry sources, ANA said the operation began on Thursday and will last between three and four weeks.
In September, EU maritime safety body Aspides said the Sounion was not under its protection at the time of the attack.
The ship’s original course “was a bit of a mystery,” the ministry source told AFP. “We were told it was heading from Iraq to Singapore. If that were the case, how did it end up in the Red Sea?“
The operation to tow the vessel to safety in September required a tugboat escorted by three frigates, helicopters and a special forces team, ANA said.
Had the vessel broken up or exploded, it could have caused an oil spill four times larger than that caused by the Exxon Valdez in 1989 off Alaska, experts had warned.
The EU naval force was formed in February to protect merchant vessels in the Red Sea from attacks by Houthis.
The Houthis have waged a campaign against international shipping to show solidarity with Hamas in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
They have been firing drones and missiles at ships in the vital commercial route, saying they are targeting vessels linked to Israel, the US and Britain.
The United States, with the support of allies led by Britain, has carried out repeated air strikes on rebel bases in Yemen.
Greek tanker crippled by Houthi militants starts oil transfer
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Greek tanker crippled by Houthi militants starts oil transfer
Hezbollah chief says supports state diplomacy to stop Israeli aggression
- The state has chosen “diplomacy to end the aggression and implement” a November 2024 ceasefire deal “and we support it continuing in this direction,” Qassem said
- “They want to eliminate our existence,” Qassem said, but “we will defend ourselves”
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday said his group supported the Lebanese state’s pursuit of diplomacy to end Israeli attacks, while also criticizing the inclusion of a civilian representative in recent talks with Israel.
The state has chosen “diplomacy to end the aggression and implement” a November 2024 ceasefire deal “and we support it continuing in this direction,” Qassem said in a televised address.
Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives held their first direct talks in decades on Wednesday under the auspices of the year-old ceasefire monitoring mechanism, a move Lebanon’s president said was to avoid prospects of another war in Lebanon.
Qassem criticized the move and urged authorities to reconsider.
“We consider this measure an additional misstep on top of the sin” of the government’s decision in August to task the army with disarming Hezbollah, he said.
“Have you made a gratuitous concession? This concession will not change the enemy’s position, nor its aggression or occupation,” Qassem said, accusing Israel and the United States of wanting Lebanese authorities to be negotiating “under fire.”
“They want to eliminate our existence,” Qassem said, but “we will defend ourselves, our people, our country. We are prepared to sacrifice everything, and we will not surrender.”
He accused Israel of violating the year-old ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and his Iran-backed group, which emerged heavily weakened with its arsenal pummelled and senior commanders killed including former chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Qassem said his group was cooperating with the Lebanese authorities, and that America and Israel should have “no say in how we manage our domestic affairs,” calling their imposition of conditions on Lebanon as “unacceptable.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said the new talks were strictly limited to fully implementing last year’s truce and did not amount to broader peace discussions.
