“The threat to the Red Sea shipping was pretty obvious when you saw the tanker get hit by an Iranian-supplied missile to the Houthis. So the implications of this are not insignificant if we don't get this under control,” Mattis said a press briefing late on Tuesday.
On April 2, the Houthis said that the attempted attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil tanker came in response to the Saudi-led coalition’s strike on the city of Hodeida which killed a dozen civilians.
Yemen has been engulfed in a violent conflict between the government headed by Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi movement. Since March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf countries has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request. Millions of Yemenis remain in need of immediate humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.