Social media accounts posted a photo showing a burning ship, claiming that it was an American aircraft carrier targeted by the Houthis. The photo was accompanied by the following description: “We have just received information from Yemen that the Houthis are engaged in a violent naval battle with the American aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman. The group was able to target it with precision missiles, huge explosions were heard in the Red Sea.”
Kashif verified the image via “Google Images” and found that it is old and the claim is misleading. The image shows the oil tanker “Marilyn Luanda” catching fire in the Red Sea in January 2024.
Sky News published the photo on 27/1/2024, in a report titled: “Oil tanker ‘Marilyn Luanda’ catches fire in the Red Sea after missile attack by Houthi fighters in Yemen.” The website stated that the source of the photo is the “FFEAUALINDIEN” account on “X”.
The report quoted the ship’s owner, Trafigura, as saying that the “Marlin Luanda” was hit by a missile while crossing the Red Sea on Friday, 60 nautical miles southeast of Aden.
While looking into account of the French forces stationed in the Emirates and deployed in the Indian Ocean “FFEAAU.ALINDIEN” on “X”, Kashif found that it published the circulated image within a group of images on 27/1/2024, with the following description: “Attack on oil tanker Marlin Luanda in the Gulf of Aden. The ship “FREMM-DA Alsace”, along with “USS Carney” and “INS Visakhapatnam”, assisted the tanker and its crew who were hit by a Houthi missile. After 20 hours of fighting, the fire was controlled and the crew survived.”
The US Central Command stated that the aircraft carrier group “USS Harry S. Truman” had arrived in the Middle East, as it announced via its account on “X” on 16/12/2024 that the carrier group had arrived on 14 December in the area of responsibility of the US Central Command (CENTCOM). The US Department of Defense “Pentagon” had announced last September that the aircraft carrier “USS Harry S. Truman” had sailed to the eastern Mediterranean.
The Houthis have not announced, until the moment of publishing this verification, that they targeted aircraft carrier “USS Harry Truman”, meanwhile the spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, stated in his last statement on “X” on 19/12/2024, that the Jaffa area was targeted with two hypersonic ballistic missiles of the Palestine 2 type.
