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 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:

Peter Ricketts, former government national security adviser, has said he does not think the UK and US strikes will escalate into a regional war with Iran.

Lord Ricketts told the BBC that the allies had calculated that action could be limited to dealing with the Houthis.

He added: “I don’t believe that Iran is looking to get involved in this. I think it suits Iran fine to have their proxies doing this to show that they are leading in the anti-Israel, anti-West stakes as far as the Muslim world is concerned.”

But Lord Ricketts warned that greatest risk of spillover is “extremist pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and in Syria who may well launch attacks on US bases there”.

The Pentagon appears cautiously optimistic that Iran-backed Houthis will be unable to replicate the type of complex attacks they recently carried out in the Red Sea.

US Lieutenant General Douglas Sims, director of the Joint Staff, said 28 locations had been hit, using more than 150 munitions.

“I know we have degraded (their) capability,” Sims said.

“I don’t believe that they would be able to execute the same way they did the other day. But we will see,” he added.

Lord West, the former Royal Navy chief, backed the military action – but said Mr Sunak will have to be prepared to strike again if necessary.

The peer told The Independent: “What do we do if they [the Houthis] do the next attacks? Do we up the ante? That’s the next difficult decision. If they keep acting innocent merchant ships and our warships, then I think we will have to do something.”

Lord West, chief of UK naval staff from 2002 to 2006, played down the chances of a wider escalation with Iran.

“One of the reasons the Iranians boarded that oil tanker off Oman was because we had done nothing to the Houthis,” he said.

“I think the strikes will make Iran think, ‘Oh hang on – they do take it seriously’.

“I don’t believe it will escalate,” he added. “Opinion in the Arab street might be unfavourable. But there are terrorist groups who spend their time trying to kill us anyway, so it won’t change the threat picture that much.”

The Houthis are part of what Tehran labels an “axis of resistance” – which includes Hamas and Hezbollah from Lebanon – against Israel, the US and the wider West. All you need to know about what’s happening and why:

Former British Army chief Richard Dannatt backed Rishi Sunak’s “necessary” action against the Houthis, and said pressure should be put on Iran.

“If it wants to prevent escalation into the Red Sea, it’s up to Iran to rein back the Houthis,” he told the BBC.

Lord Dannatt said the UN Security Council’s permanent members – including China, France and Russia – had a responsibility to “take action to protect world interests”, adding: “The fragility of world chain supplies are being exposed in the Red Sea.”

Former Tory Middle East minister Alistair Burt has suggested that some groups in the Middle East will accuse the UK and US of trying to escalate conflict in the region along with Israel.

“We say we have dealt with the threat to shipping in the Red Sea, and that is correct. But that does not mean other people will believe us and will not have their own narrative. The Houthis will certainly link it to Israel and what’s happening in Gaza,” he told Sky News.

Mr Burt said it was “quite separate issue in my mind”, but he added: “So quite separately, the UK and US should now make very clear to Israel that its ground offensive in Gaza has got to come to an end.”