US-led coalition shoots down 15 Houthi drones
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: The forces of the United States and its allies shot down 15 oneway attack drones fired by Iranbacked Houthi rebels into the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on Saturday, the US military said.
The rebels claimed the attack shortly afterward, saying they had fired missiles at an “American” commercial ship and launched drones at US warships in “the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.”
It was one of the Houthis’ largest attacks since they began in November a campaign of drone and missile strikes against vessels in the vital Red Sea area in professed solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war against Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The US Central Command (Centcom) said the “largescale” Houthi attack occurred before dawn.
Centcom and coalition forces determined that the drones “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels, US Navy and coalition ships in the region.”
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the command said “US Navy vessels and aircraft, along with multiple coalition navy ships and aircraft, shot down 15” of the drones.
“These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure,” it added.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, also on X, said the rebels had carried out two separate attacks.
The first targeted the commercial vessel Propel Fortune in the Gulf of Aden, he said, calling it an “American” ship.
Vessel tracking websites describe the bulk carrier as Singapore-flagged but did not report its current position.
A second operation fired “37 drones” at “a number of American” warships, Saree said.
The US announced in December a maritime security initiative to protect Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks, which have forced commercial vessels to divert from the route that normally carries 12 percent of global trade.
The rebel strikes this week caused their first reported fatalities.
The Philippine government said two Filipino crew members were among those killed in a missile strike on the bulk carrier True Confidence.
On March 2, the first known vessel sinking from the strikes occurred when the Belize-flagged, Lebanese-operated Rubymar went down in the Red Sea days after a rebel missile strike.
Since January, the US and United Kingdom have also launched repeated strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the ship attacks, but rebels continue to attack merchant vessels and have also targeted American and British ships.
Yemen’s rebels control the capital Sanaa and much of the Red Sea coast, despite an earlier bombing campaign that a Saudi Arabia-led coalition began in 2015 and which continued for years.
On January 9, US and British forces shot down 18 drones and three missiles fired by the rebels toward ships in the Red Sea, the US military said at the time.
The UK said it was the Houthis’ largest attack at the time.