Journalist Ashraf Helmy, who resides in Australia, condemned in a statement this morning, Friday, July 31, the targeting of two United States–owned vessels by a drone. The ships—used for processing and storing liquefied natural gas—were at the Port of Damietta on the Mediterranean, north of Cairo. The attack caused fires aboard both vessels.

Helmy stressed that international ships present in Egyptian territorial waters and ports in the Red and Mediterranean Seas are under the protection of the Egyptian state, and that any attack on such vessels constitutes a direct attack on Egypt and its territory. He also warned that the delay in announcing the principal cause of the fires—information that, he says, was known by Egyptian media from the outset even as international press had already reported it—risks eroding Egyptian citizens’ trust in their country’s media.

Finally, Helmy announced his support for the Egyptian government and armed forces under the leadership of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in taking appropriate measures to respond to those responsible for the attack and to safeguard Egypt’s borders and national security. He cautioned that there may be a malicious external plan to draw the Egyptian military into a regional war—an objective he said had been pursued in previous failed attempts aimed at weakening the Egyptian armed forces, the last remaining strong army in the Middle East.