Two U.S. Navy destroyers escorting three U.S. owned, operated, and flagged merchant vessels through the Gulf of Aden defeated an attack by Iran-backed Houthis.
The U.S. Central Command said on Tuesday that its forces successfully defeated a range of Houthi-launched weapons while transiting the Gulf of Aden on December 9 and 10.
“The reckless attacks resulted in no injuries and no damage to any vessels, civilians or U.S. Naval,” Centcom added.
Neither U.S. Centcom nor the Houthis identified the three civilian vessels.
The destroyers, USS Stockdale and USS O’Kane, successfully engaged and defeated multiple one-way attack uncrewed aerial systems (OWA UAS), Centcom said, and one anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM).
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree confirmed the attack mentioning that the Yemeni armed forces carried out a specific military operation by targeting “three American supply ships after they left the port of Djibouti”.
He also said that it targeted “two American destroyers in the Gulf of Aden that were accompanying supply ships”.
“This targeting of these ships and destroyers is the second within 10 days,” Saree noted on Tuesday.
Few days ago, Yemen’s Houthi group targeted a US destroyer and three US-flagged merchant ships with 16 ballistic and winged missiles as well as a drone in a joint military operation in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree named the three ships as the Stena Impeccable, the Maersk Saratoga, and the Liberty Grace.
There was no damage to the ships involved, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. There were no injuries, the statement noted.
