YEMEN — United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), the Royal Navy-run reporting cell for merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean, said at 9:00 a.m. UTC on September 10 that the company security officer of a cargo vessel reported an unidentified skiff approaching the ship 98 nautical miles, about 113 miles (181 kilometers), southwest of Al Mukalla on Yemen’s Gulf of Aden coast.
UKMTO classified the event as suspicious activity under warning 132-26, advised other vessels to transit with caution, and said authorities were investigating.
The warning did not name the ship, flag, closest point of approach, or whether weapons were seen. No later UKMTO warning on the same contact was posted on the recent-incidents ledger as of late September 10.
Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa (MSCIO) document folders listed UKMTO warnings only through early September and did not carry a 132-26 file.
In a separate land action the same day, Houthi forces, the U.S.-designated Ansar Allah movement that holds Sanaa, entered the Red Sea port city of Mocha in Taiz governorate after days of fighting with units aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
Lieutenant General Tareq Saleh, vice chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council and commander of the National Resistance on the western coast, said National Resistance, Giants Brigades, Nation’s Shield, and Taiz Axis units had taken deaths and injuries and that he had ordered an alternative command center in a secure location in consultation with the Arab coalition and the council.
He said those forces had paid a heavy price in dead and wounded confronting a Houthi attack he described as planned and supported by Iran.
