© Eric S. Garst/AFPThe Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mason departs Naval Station Norfolk
Two missiles fired from the Yemeni shore targeted a US Navy guided missile destroyer, a Pentagon spokesman has said. The rockets, which failed to hit the ship, allegedly came from territory controlled by Houthi rebels.
"USS
Mason detected two inbound missiles over a 60-minute period while in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. Both missiles impacted the water before reaching the ship," Reuters quoted Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis as saying.
Duff told Reuters that there were "no injuries to our sailors and no damage to the ship."
He reportedly said the failed attack originated in an area controlled by Houthi rebels, who are being targeted in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition. The Saudis have been supporting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was ousted in a Houthi rebellion in November 2014.
Comment: One of these days the US Navy is going to start taking direct hits in the Middle East. After all the firing of missiles it has done on Yemen in the last decade - plus the fact that this vessel is clearly there now as support for the Saudi/Gulf States' invasion of the country - the Houthis or whichever rebel group are going to be fully justified in hitting US targets.
The Houthis have already successfully targeted and hit a former US vessel (now operated by Qatar, Inc), so was this 'miss' not even theirs? The Houthis have
denied targeting the Mason...
Update (Oct. 11):Like clockwork:
Pentagon threatens reprisal over missile attack on ship off Yemen
The US is considering retaliatory strikes against whoever is responsible for the recent missile attack on the USS Mason off the coast of Yemen, the Pentagon said, while declining to point fingers or name names.
The Mason, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer deployed in the Red Sea, was reportedly targeted by missiles off the southern coast of Yemen on Sunday. The destroyer reportedly fired defense missiles and employed countermeasures. There was no damage to the ship or injuries to the crew.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters on Tuesday that the US was "looking very hard right now" at who was responsible for the attack, which he described as involving "a shore-launched cruise missile."
"We will get to the bottom of this and we will make sure that anybody who interferes with freedom of navigation or anybody who puts US Navy ships at risk does so at their own peril," said Davis. Asked if that meant retaliation against those responsible, Davis said, "Those things are things that we're looking at."
...
Davis declined to confirm whether the Pentagon was developing any targets for retaliatory strikes, and stopped short of blaming the Houthi rebels for the attack. "The Houthis have said publicly before that they would target any ships in that area that were supporting the coalition against them," Davis said, according to Reuters. "So the facts certainly seem to point to it, but we are still assessing and we will have more for you."
The Houthis denied targeting any ship off Yemeni waters, a spokesman for the group told Reuters on Monday.
The Mason fired two SM-2 counter-missiles and one Enhanced Sea Sparrow missile in response to the attack, the US Naval Institute reported on Tuesday, citing two anonymous Pentagon officials. The destroyer also used the Nulka anti-ship missile decoy. Davis declined to confirm the details of the engagement.
The incoming missiles may have been intended for the USS Ponce, the Navy's forward staging vessel deployed alongside the Mason off the coast of Yemen. The Ponce carries US Army attack helicopters and carries an experimental laser weapon (LAWS).
Update (Oct. 12):The Pentagon
claims the Mason (and another vessel, the USS Ponce) have come under fire again, and that it retaliated with 'defensive salvos'.
© US NavyAfloat Forward Staging Base (Interim) USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15), on April 11, 2016.
Meanwhile there's talk of
breaking up Yemen (again). As Russia forces them out of the region, is the US so desperate to retain whatever it can in the Middle East that it's willing to use whatever dirty tricks to justify its military presence there?
A likely reason why the US is so blatantly 'involving' itself in the Yemen conflict is that the Houthis
did successfully hit a UAE vessel last week (and they admitted that they carried out the attack).
The UAE has no real military of its own. Like the Saudis' and the other Gulf royals, their military is entirely US, UK and French equipped, run, fuelled and organized. The 'UAE vessel' the Houthis hit is the
Swift, a US-made vessel that is on lease to the UAE from the US. Here it is after being hit by the rebels last week:
© US Navy Capt. Chris Carlson (ret.)Analysis of damage on HSV Swift
So the Houthis basically hit the US military, but the US military can't respond as if they did because it hides behind the Gulf monarchies, so it must fabricate 'Red Sea incidents', à la Gulf of Tonkin, in order to 'get back at' the rebels and keep the war against Yemen going in the direction it and its Gulf vassals would like.
Update (Oct. 13): Just as with the previous alleged Houthi "attack" on the
Mason (for which the Americans provided no evidence), the Houthis
deny the latest one too.
"These allegations are unfounded and the army as well popular forces have nothing to do with this action. The U.S. allegations just came in the context of creating false justifications to pave the way for Saudi-led coalition to escalate their aggression attacks against Yemen and to cover for crimes continually committed by the aggression coalition against the Yemeni people," the [Houthi] official told Yemeni News Agency Saba.
The U.S. has carried out a series of three "
limited self-defense strikes" against Houthi "radar sites" in Yemen, in response to the fictional attack on the
Mason. The U.S. Department of War says "initial assessments show the sites were destroyed." The also provided a video of the Mason's volley of cruise missiles:
This is the first
direct American attack on the Houthis, who have previously used the Saudis (with American "advisers") to do the dirty work.
"Coincidentally", Iran has
deployed two fleets of warships to Yemen's Gulf of Aden "to protect trade vessels from piracy."
Update (Oct. 14): Predictably, the U.S. is now charging that the fictional missiles that were allegedly fired in the general direction of a U.S. ship were
supplied by Iran to Yemeni rebels. This comes from John "Send Me Back to 'Nam" McCain, who endorsed the retaliation against the non-existent threat, no doubt conjuring up images of the Tonkin Gulf within his warped and shellshocked psyche. Funny, because the U.S. admits it still
doesn't know precisely who "fired" the "missiles". There truly is a clown epidemic...
Comment: Further reading: Gulf of Tonkin redux? Pentagon sez: 'US Navy destroyer AGAIN targeted by missiles from Yemen' - Houthi rebels deny involvement - UPDATES