A Houthi drone boat packed with explosives detonated in the Red Sea on Thursday but failed to cause any damage or casualties, the U.S. Navy said, as the Yemen-based group continued its attacks in defiance of international calls to stop.

The latest attack came one day after 12 countries including the U.S, Britain and Japan issued a joint statement cautioning the Houthis of unspecified “consequences” unless it halts its attacks, in what one U.S. official on Wednesday suggested was a final warning.

The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of Yemen, have launched wave after wave of exploding drones and missiles at commercial vessels since Nov. 19, trying to inflict a cost in what they say is a protest against Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

The Houthi campaign has been extraordinarily disruptive to international shipping, causing some companies to suspend transits through the Red Sea and instead take the much longer, costlier journey around Africa.

Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads U.S. Naval forces in the Middle East, told reporters on Thursday that the Houthi exploding boat drove out about 50 miles (80 km) into the Red Sea and then detonated in dense shipping lanes.

“It came within a couple of miles of ships operating in the area – merchant ships and U.S. Navy ships – and we all watched as it exploded,” Cooper told reporters, adding the target of the attack was not clear.

Cooper said there have now been 25 attacks by the Houthis against merchant vessels transiting the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and added “there are no signs that their irresponsible behavior is abating.”

The repeated Houthi attacks have increased pressure on President Joe Biden to respond militarily, something his administration has been reluctant to do out of fear of escalating already soaring regional tensions.

Retired four-star Marine general Frank McKenzie, who led U.S. forces in the Middle East until retiring in 2022, said the Biden administration’s response to attacks in the Red Sea and against U.S. troops at bases in Iraq and Syria has been too “tentative” and “unfocused.”

“To reset deterrence, we must apply violence that Tehran understands,” McKenzie wrote in an Op-Ed published on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.

The United States and other countries last month launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect civilian vessels, which Cooper said now included contributions from 22 countries. So far, Cooper said U.S. warships and U.S. partners have shot down two cruise missiles, six anti-ship ballistic missiles and 11 drones.

On Sunday, U.S. warships sank three Houthi speed boats to protect a commercial vessel from being hijacked.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters on Wednesday “if that happened again, we would probably do the exact same thing.” The same official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 12-nation statement to the Houthis was very clear.

“I would not anticipate another warning,” the official said.

At the United Nations, a U.S. representative told the U.N. Security Council the United States believed the situation in the Red Sea had reached an “inflection point.”

Asked whether Operation Prosperity Guardian might target Houthi positions with strikes to prevent them from attacking ships, Cooper said that the 22-nation coalition was purely defensive in nature.

“Anything that happens outside of the defensive aspect of this operation is a completely different operation,” he said.

The Houthis have said their attacks on commercial shipping target vessels with Israeli links or were sailing to Israel.

But many vessels have had no Israeli connection and were not bound for Israeli ports, and major shipping lines have suspended their operations through the Red Sea.

Cooper said the ships that have been attacked have direct connections to 55 countries.

“So regardless of the vessel’s company ownership or its destination, these Houthi attacks are for sure destabilizing and contrary to international law and clearly … must stop immediately,” Cooper said.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

North Korea fired more than 200 artillery shells near two South Korean islands on Friday, Seoul’s defence ministry said, warning the actions threatened peace and it would respond.

Residents on the two islands were ordered to evacuate, in one of the most serious military escalations between the two Koreas since the North fired a barrage of shells at one of the islands in 2010.

Friday’s live firing followed repeated warnings from Kim Jong Un’s regime in Pyongyang that it was prepared for war against South Korea and its US ally.

“The North Korean military conducted over 200 rounds of firing today from around 09:00 to 11:00 (1200 to 0200 GMT) in the areas of Jangsan-got in the northern part of Baengnyeong Island and the northern areas… of Yeonpyeong Island,” a defence ministry official said at a briefing.

The ministry released a statement shortly after stating: “This is a provocative act that threatens the peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

“We sternly warn that North Korea bears full responsibility for this escalating crisis and strongly urge them to immediately cease these actions,” it added.

“Our military closely tracks and monitors the situation in close coordination with the United States, and will take appropriate measures in response to North Korea’s provocations.”

Evacuation orders

Local officials on Yeonpyeong island told AFP that civilians had been told to evacuate, describing the order as a “preventative measure”.

South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island is situated in the Yellow Sea. It is located approximately 80 kilometres west of Incheon and 12 kilometres south of the coastline of Hwanghae Province, North Korea.

Authorities on Baengnyeong Island also reported an evacuation order there.

“We are making the evacuation announcements at the moment,” a local district official at Baengnyeong island told AFP, adding that he had been told the South Korean military would conduct a naval drill shortly.

“At first I thought it was the shells fired by our own military… but was told later it was by North Korea,” Kim Jin-soo, a Baengnyeong island resident told local broadcaster YTN. 

Pyongyang fired a barrage of 170 artillery shells onto Yeonpyeong island in November 2010, killing four people including two civilians in the first North Korean attack on a civilian area since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades, after Kim enshrined the country’s status as a nuclear power into the constitution while test-firing several advanced ICBMs.

At Pyongyang’s key year-end policy meetings, Kim warned of a nuclear attack on the South and called for a build-up of the country’s military arsenal ahead of armed conflict that he warned could “break out any time”.

Kim accused the United States of posing “various forms of military threat” and ordered his armed forces to maintain the “overwhelming war response capability”, according to KCNA’s account of the meeting that ended on Saturday.

The meeting concluded that it is a “fait accompli that a war may break out on the Korean peninsula any time due to the enemies’ reckless moves for invading the DPRK”, KCNA said, using the acronym of the North’s official name.

In an effort to deter Pyongyang, Washington deployed a nuclear-powered submarine in the South Korean port city of Busan late last year and flew its long-range bombers in drills with Seoul and Tokyo.

The North has described the deployment of Washington’s strategic weapons, such as B-52 bombers, in joint drills on the Korean peninsula as “intentional nuclear war provocative moves”.

The military “should rapidly respond to any possible nuclear crisis and put continuous spurs to the preparations for a great event to suppress the whole territory of south Korea by mobilizing all physical means and forces including nuclear forces in contingency”, Kim said.

In 2023, the North successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite, after receiving what Seoul claimed was help from Russia in exchange for arms transfers for Ukraine.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A cargo ship, ‘MV LILA NORFOLK’ has been hijacked late last evening near the coast of Somalia and is being closely watched by the Indian Navy which has rushed a warship towards it, military officials said on Friday.

The hijacked ship has 15 Indians on board and communication has been established with the crew.

As per military officials, the information about the ship being hijacked off Somalia coast was received on Thursday evening. Moreover, the Indian Navy aircraft have been keeping a watch on the ship.

Additionally, the Indian Navy warship INS Chennai is moving towards the hijacked vessel to tackle the situation.

Further details are awaited.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)