Despite the Carney being directly targeted, a statement by the US military’s Central Command said the Houthis fired “toward” the Carney.
Acknowledging the assault as a direct attack on a US warship is important, said Brad Bowman, a senior director at the Foundation for the Defence 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 and response, while aimed at preventing a wider war, has had the opposite effect of further emboldening the Houthis, Bowman said.
In the 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 to stop the Houthi campaign since November, Central Command said.
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“The missile was successfully shot down by USS Carney,” it said. “There were no injuries or damage reported.”
The attacks were the latest assaults by the rebels in their campaign against ships travelling through the Red Sea and surrounding waters, which has disrupted global trade amid Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The US and Britain have launched multiple rounds of airstrikes since the Houthi attacks began targeting Houthi missile depots and launcher sites in Yemen, a country that’s been wracked by conflict since the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea, saying they were avenging Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperilling shipping in a key route for global trade between Asia, the Mideast and Europe.
Since the airstrike campaign began, the rebels now say they’ll target American and British ships as well. On Wednesday, two American-flagged ships carrying cargo for the US Defence and State departments came under attack by the Houthis, forcing an escorting US Navy warship to shoot some of the projectiles down.
The US Navy’s top Mideast commander this week said that the Houthi attacks were the worst since the so-called Tanker War of the 1980s. It culminated in a one-day naval battle between Washington and Tehran, and also saw the US Navy accidentally shoot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people in 1988.
AP
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