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Yemen Houthi rebels fire a missile at a US warship, escalating worst Mideast sea
Updated On: 27 January, 2024 08:29 AM IST | Jerusalem | AP
Acknowledging Friday`s assault as a direct attack on a US warship is important, said Brad Bowman, a senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
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Houthi fighters stage a rally against the U.S. government designating Houthis as a terror group and against the U.S.-led sustained airstrikes on Yemen, near Sanaa, Yemen. Pic/AP, PTI
Yemen`s Houthi rebels launched a missile Friday at a US warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile, the US military said Friday. The attack on the destroyer USS Carney marked a further escalation in the biggest confrontation at sea the US Navy has seen in the Middle East in decades, as Houthi missile fire set another commercial vessel ablaze Friday night. The Carney attack represents the first time the Houthis directly targeted a U.S. warship since the rebels began their assaults on shipping in October, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident. That contradicted a statement by the US military`s Central Command, which said the Houthis fired "toward" the Carney. As it has in previous strikes, the Pentagon 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.
Acknowledging Friday`s assault as a direct attack on a US warship is important, said Brad Bowman, a senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "They`re now finally calling a spade a spade, and saying that, yeah, they`re trying to attack our forces, they`re trying to kill us," he said. Tempering the language, while aimed at preventing a wider war, has had the opposite effect of further enabling the Houthis, he said. In Friday`s attack, an anti-ship ballistic missile came near the USS Carney, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer that`s been involved in American operations to try and stop the Houthi campaign since November, Central Command said. "The missile was successfully shot down by USS Carney," it said.
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