Defence Secretary Grant Shapps announced that a Royal Navy warship shot down a suspected attack drone in the Red Sea, marking the first time in decades that the Royal Navy has shot down an aerial target in anger. Shapps stated that they believed merchant shipping in the Red Sea to be the intended target of the incident, which has become a growing concern in that key global shipping route.
Serving as the link between north Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the Red Sea connects the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal. The HMS Diamond, a Type 45 destroyer, was dispatched to the region a mere two weeks prior to the suspected drone being destroyed, a move precipitated by heightened international apprehension about the threat to shipping. According to Shapps, a Sea Viper missile was deployed to successfully take down the target.
Additionally, shipments passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea were advised to “pause their journey until further notice” after a missile attack on the Liberian-flagged cargo ship, and Maersk, the world’s biggest shipping company, confirmed having told its vessels to take a similar course of action.
According to Shapps, recent spates of illegal attacks pose a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security in the Red Sea. The U.S. military had earlier identified the Bahamas-flagged Unity Explorer, which is owned by a UK company, as one of three commercial vessels targeted in an attack believed to have been carried out by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
This marks the first time Royal Navy has shot down an aerial target in anger since the First Gulf War in 1991. The Ministry of Defence has refrained from attributing the suspect behind the attack, although it is known that Yemen’s Houthis have been responsible for a series of assaults on vessels in the Red Sea, along with launching drones and missiles targeting Israel as a response to its war against Hamas in Gaza.