A Navy sailor assigned to the 5th Fleet died this week in what the Department of Defense said was a non-combat-related injury. Aviation Machinist Mate 2nd Class Oriola Michael Aregbesola died on Wednesday, March 20, the Pentagon announced today. Aregbesola was serving aboard the destroyer the USS Mason, part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which is deployed to the waters off Yemen. The incident is currently under investigation, and the Department of Defense did not share any additional details surrounding the cause of Aregbesola's death. Officials said Aregbesola joined the Navy in July 2020.
Civilians were reported killed in fresh US-UK airstrikes in Yemen early Sunday, according to the Houthi group. The Houthi-run Human Rights Ministry said that more than 15 strikes targeted several provinces, including the capital Sanaa. A number of civilians were killed and injured in the attacks, the ministry said, without giving an exact figure. There was no immediate comment from Washington or London on the Houthi claim.
U.S. forces engaged six Houthi unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) over the southern Red Sea after the group launched four anti-ship ballistic missiles toward a Chinese-owned oil tanker, the U.S. Central Command said on Saturday. Iranian-backed Houthis launched the missiles in the vicinity of M/V Huang Pu, a Chinese-owned oil tanker, the Central Command said in a post on X. U.S. forces then engaged six UAVs, five of which crashed into the Red Sea, and one flew inland into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the Central Command said.
The Indian navy handed over 35 Somali pirates to the police in Mumbai on Saturday, after 100 days of anti-piracy operations east of the Red Sea, where piracy has resurfaced for the first time in nearly a decade. India, the largest national force in the Gulf of Aden and northern Arabian Sea region, captured the pirates from the cargo ship Ruen last week, three months after it was hijacked off the Somali coast. Taking advantage of Western forces' focus on protecting shipping from attacks in the Red Sea by Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthis, pirates have made or attempted more than 20 hijackings since November, driving up insurance and security costs and adding to a crisis for global shipping companies.
