Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched a missile at a U.S. warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile
Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a missile Friday at a U.S. warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile, the U.S. military said Friday.
The attack on the destroyer USS Carney marks a further escalation in the biggest confrontation at sea the U.S. Navy has seen in the Middle East in decades. It represents the first time the Houthis directly targeted a U.S. warship since the rebels began their attacks on shipping in October, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident.
That contradicted a statement by the U.S. military’s Central Command, which said the Houthis fired “toward” the Carney. As it has in previous strikes, the Pentagon has said it was difficult to determine what exactly the Houthis were trying to hit.
Ever since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the U.S. has tried to temper its descriptions of the strikes targeting its bases and warships to try to prevent the conflict from becoming a wider regional war.
I’d assume we’ve lost more ships to Al Qaeda (see USS Cole) than anything the Houthis could do.
Still, this is an escalation. Last week, we were pretending that the missiles flying at our ships “might have not been aimed at us”. This week, we’re officially saying that the Houthis are shooting at us. That’s an escalation for sure. But we shouldn’t have been pretending that the 25+ missiles launched at us last week were… like… what? I don’t even know what we were trying to argue.
We’ve absolutely expended far more resources navally in Sadam, Sadam 2, Iran, Afghan and Isis then we’ve done with the Houthis… to my knowledge each of those conflicts involved some carrier born air support.
We shot like 700 cruise missiles the first day of Iraq 2003 IIRC.
I do wonder what the Houthis are thinking of here. We’re obviously holding back right now.