SANAA, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi rebels said they seized a Saudi ship along with two other vessels in the Yemeni waters, 3 miles (about 4.83 km) off Uqban Island on the Red Sea, Houthi TV al-Masirah reported on Monday.
"The ships, including the Saudi ship named Rabigh 3, were moved to Salif port for taking legal procedures," the television cited a statement by the Houthi-run coast guards as saying, without identifying the other vessels.
The statement comes hours after a senior Houthi official said his group was checking the seized ships.
"Our forces are inspecting the seized ship to make sure if it belongs to the Saudi-led coalition or to South Korea ... we will release the ship along with its crew if it belongs to South Korea," Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthi revolutionary committee, said earlier on Twitter.
Earlier on Monday, the Saudi-led coalition involved in a war in Yemen accused the Houthi militia of hijacking a vessel south the Red Sea.
"The incident was reported on Sunday evening and targeted Rabigh 3 vessel that was towing a drilling rig owned by a South Korean company," the Saudi Press Agency quoted Turki Al Maliki, spokesman for the coalition, as saying in a statement.
Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 after the Houthi rebels overran the capital Sanaa and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.
