Houthi militants mistakenly targeted a tanker carrying Russian oil in a missile attack on Friday evening off Yemen, a British maritime security firm has said.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organisation said it had received a report of a missile being fired 90 nautical miles southeast of Yemen’s port city of Aden.

“The master reported a missile landing in the water 400-500 metres away, and being followed by three small craft,” the UKMTO advisory note said, adding that there were no injuries or damage.

Maritime security experts Ambrey said: “This was the second tanker mistakenly targeted by the Houthis whilst carrying Russian oil.”

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militants, who control much of Yemen, have launched wave after wave of exploding drones and missiles at Western commercial vessels in the Red Sea since mid-November.

The US military early today struck another Houthi-controlled site in Yemen that they determined was putting commercial vessels in the Red Sea at risk.

That is according to two US officials who spoke anonymously to the Associated Press to discuss an operation that had not yet been publicly announced.

Yesterday, the first day of strikes hit 28 locations and struck more than 60 targets.

However, the US determined the additional location, a radar site, still presented a threat to maritime traffic, one official said.

The fear is that the strikes will do little to minimise the capabilities of the Houthis, who have successfully fought for decades against the Yemeni government, writes Bel Trew:

Second wave of strikes carried out by US unilaterally say officials.

Italy, Spain and France stood out by not taking part in US and British strikes against the Houthi group in Yemen and not even signing up to a statement put out by 10 countries justifying the attack.

The divergence highlighted divisions in the West over how to deal with the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have been targeting civilian ships in the Red Sea for weeks in what they say is a protest against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

The Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Bahrain provided logistical and intelligence support for the operation, US officials have said.

Germany, Denmark, New Zealand and South Korea signed a joint statement with these six nations defending the overnight attacks and warning of further action to protect the free flow of Red Sea trade if the Houthis did not back down.

A source in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said Italy had declined to sign the statement, and as a result was not asked to participate in the attack.

US military officials on Friday said that strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen had come from an aircraft carrier, two destroyers, a cruiser and a submarine.

In total, the strikes targeted 30 Houthi-controlled locations in Yemen, with more than 150 bombs and missiles, according to The New York Times.

Fighter jets launched raids from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower, with other attacks coming from the USS Gravely, the USS Mason and the USS Philippine Sea, according to Lt Gen Douglas Sims of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

An Ohio class submarine also took part in the strikes, according to Lt Gen Sims.

The spectre of recent Western wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, is still very much present – and the question is just how much appetite there will be for prolonged military engagement by the US and UK. Kim Sengupta considers the prospects for global war or peace:

Russia has condemned the allies’ strikes as "illegitimate from the point of view of international law".

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “The US airstrikes on Yemen are another example of the Anglo-Saxons’ perversion of UN Security Council resolutions.”

Ms Zakharova said the strikes showed a "complete disregard for international law" and were "escalating the situation in the region". 

Russia also called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday to discuss the issue.

There should be no question about the sound legal basis for what the US and UK did, with minimal casualties. But this latest conflict cannot be allowed to develop a momentum of its own: