houthi rebels

An attack by Houthi rebels set off explosions ahead of a Singapore-flagged vessel in the Gulf of Aden, the latest in a campaign of assaults by the Iranian-backed group over Israel's war on Hamas.

An escalation of violence in the Middle East over the last 24 hours, including a drone attack that killed three U.S. service members, has raised concerns about the possibility of a regional war.

The tanker carried Russian-produced naphtha, a flammable oil, drawing Moscow further into a conflict that so far it had blamed on the U.S.

Hours before the attack on the container ship, the U.S. military said it had shot down two missiles fired toward the same ship

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, as well as launching drones and missiles targeting Israel as it wages war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The load — enough for a dozen medium-range ballistic missiles — was hidden among bags of fertilizer on a wooden ship called a dhow. It likely was bound for Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The missile fire further escalates tensions across the Persian Gulf, which previously had seen a series of assaults near Emirati soil.

The images by Planet Labs PBC show smoke rising over an Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot in the Mussafah neighborhood of Abu Dhabi on Monday.

While Abu Dhabi police did not immediately offer any suspects, Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for an attack targeting the United Arab Emirates.