The U.S. military’s Central Command said Sunday that it shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired from a Houthi-controlled part of Yemen toward the American warship USS Laboon as it operated in the Red Sea. It was the first acknowledged attack by the Houthis on a U.S. warship since the U.S. and U.K. militaries started striking the Houthis after weeks of attacks by the Iran-backed group on cargo ships in the crucial shipping corridor.
Those attacks appeared to continue Monday despite the U.S. and U.K. counterstrikes, however, with the British military’s Maritime Trade Operations agency saying a commercial vessel was struck by a missile in the Red Sea.
The Houthis have been targeting international commercial vessels in the Red Sea with missiles and explosives-laden drones for weeks, claiming it as a legitimate response to Israel’s ongoing war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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The missile that had been fired toward the USS Laboon “was shot down in vicinity of the coast of Hudaydah (a port on Yemen’s west coast) by U.S. fighter aircraft. There were no injuries or damage reported,” CENTCOM said in a statement late Sunday.
President Biden announced U.S. and allied strikes on the Houthis in a statement Thursday night and, on Friday alone, 28 Houthi locations were targeted with bombs and missiles launched from air and sea. The strikes continued over the weekend, with U.S. forces hitting a Houthi radar site on Saturday, the AP reported.
It appeared on Monday that the U.S. and allied strikes had not dissuaded the Houthis from targeting cargo ships in the vital shipping corridor, however.
“Attacks to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of the occupied Palestine will continue,” Mohammed Abdulsalam, a chief political negotiator for the Houthi movement, told the Reuters news agency.
Later, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations agency said a “vessel was hit from above by a missile” in Yemeni waters. The agency did not provide any further details, but it urged any vessels transiting the area to exercise “extreme caution,” CBS News partner network BBC News reported. The U.K.’s Sky News, meanwhile, cited private maritime security company Ambrey as saying a missile had caused a fire in the hold of commercial vessel with no link to Israel, but that the ship remained seaworthy with no casualties reported.
The U.K. participated in the strikes against the Houthis, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said they had been a “last resort” after “exhaustive diplomatic activity” and warnings from Washington and London for the militants to stop attacking ships.
“We of course will not hesitate to protect our security where required,” Sunak said.
