Houthis Claim Missile Strike on Saudi Tanker Amzan
A Houthi missile claim set fire to the Saudi VLCC Amzan off Yanbu, the latest hit in a blockade targeting Saudi Arabia's alternate oil-export route.
U.S. Navy photo, DVIDS, public domain
A ballistic missile set fire to the Saudi-flagged supertanker Amzan roughly 63 nautical miles off the Red Sea port of Yanbu on August 24, according to a Houthi military spokesperson’s claim that has not been independently verified. Bahri, the Saudi state shipping company that operates the vessel, confirmed a maritime incident occurred and said all crew members are safe with no injuries, but has not confirmed the weapon type or the Houthi characterization of the strike as precise.
What happened, and who says so
The Amzan is a very large crude carrier, a class of tanker able to move roughly two million barrels of oil in a single voyage, sailing under the Saudi flag and identified by its IMO number, 9693745, according to gCaptain’s reporting. It was en route from Ain Sukhna, Egypt, to Yanbu when it was struck. Yahya Saree, the Houthi movement’s military spokesperson, said the group’s forces hit the tanker with a ballistic missile, calling the strike “precise and direct” and describing a fire that broke out on the ship’s main deck.
That characterization, both the weapon type and the description of accuracy, comes solely from Saree’s statement. Bahri’s own confirmation goes only as far as acknowledging a maritime incident and confirming crew safety; it does not corroborate a ballistic missile specifically, and no independent forensic assessment of the strike has been published. Readers should treat the Houthi account of what hit the Amzan, and how precisely it struck, as an unverified claim from a party to the conflict, not an established fact.
A campaign, not a single incident
The Amzan strike did not happen in isolation. Yemen’s Houthi movement declared a maritime blockade against Saudi-linked shipping on July 20, framing it as an act of solidarity with Iran amid the broader war between the United States, Israel and Iran. Earlier in August, Houthi forces struck the cargo ship Tihamah in a double-tap attack, firing an initial round of missiles and then a follow-up strike as rescuers responded, killing roughly six people. The Amzan attack extends that same campaign to a different target class, a Saudi-flagged VLCC rather than a general cargo vessel, with no sign the underlying blockade is winding down a month after it was announced.
Why Yanbu, and why now
Yanbu is not an incidental target. It is Saudi Arabia’s primary alternate route for exporting crude while the Strait of Hormuz, the kingdom’s main artery for Gulf shipping, remains contested amid the ongoing Iran conflict. Striking tankers approaching or leaving Yanbu puts pressure on the one export corridor Riyadh has been relying on precisely because its usual route is compromised, which is why the campaign reads as deliberate economic pressure on Saudi Arabia’s oil trade rather than opportunistic targeting of whatever ship happens to be in range. Saudi Arabia is not a direct party to the US-Israel-Iran war, but its Red Sea coastline and its alignment with Washington make its shipping an available pressure point for a group that has explicitly framed its blockade as solidarity with Tehran, which is why a strike far from any active front line still fits inside a wartime logic.
The blockade’s effect on shipping is measurable even without resolving what exactly hit the Amzan. Traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the chokepoint every vessel bound for the Red Sea and the Suez Canal has to pass, has fallen to an average of 32 ships a day since the blockade was declared, down from roughly 50 a day beforehand. That is a real reduction in traffic through one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors, driven by owners and insurers deciding the risk of routing near Yemen’s coast has become too high to accept routinely, not by any single strike.
Sources
- Yemen's Houthis report attack on Saudi oil tanker in Red Sea (Al Jazeera, Aug 24, 2026)
- Houthis Escalate Saudi Shipping Campaign With VLCC Strike (gCaptain, Aug 24, 2026)
- Fire Breaks Out On Saudi Oil Tanker Near Red Sea Port Of Yanbu After Houthi Attack (Marine Insight, Aug 24, 2026)
Frequently asked questions
Was anyone hurt in the strike on the Amzan? +
No. Bahri, the Saudi shipping company that operates the vessel, confirmed all crew members are safe and reported no injuries after the fire broke out on the main deck.
Is this the first Saudi tanker hit in the Houthi campaign? +
No. Houthi forces struck the cargo ship Tihamah earlier in August in a double-tap attack that killed roughly six people, and other Saudi-linked vessels have been targeted since the blockade was declared July 20.
How reliable is the Houthi account of what weapon hit the Amzan? +
It should be treated cautiously. The description of the weapon as a ballistic missile, and the characterization of the strike as precise, come solely from a Houthi military spokesperson's statement. Bahri's own confirmation covers only that an incident occurred and that the crew is safe, not the weapon type or accuracy.
Why does Yanbu matter strategically? +
Yanbu is Saudi Arabia's primary alternate route for exporting crude while the Strait of Hormuz remains contested amid the broader Iran conflict, making it a deliberate economic-pressure target rather than an incidental one.
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