U.S. Navy Ship Comes Under Fire Near Yemen

By Eric Schmitt & Thomas Erdbrink–

A United States Navy guided-missile destroyer came under fire on Sunday from coastal areas of Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels, but the two missiles that were launched toward the ship fell harmlessly into the sea, the Pentagon said.

While a Houthi military official on Monday denied reports that the rebel group had targeted the destroyer, the episode seemed to represent the first known instance in which the Houthis had fired on an American vessel sinceYemen’s civil war began in 2014.

The attack occurred a day after airstrikes on a funeral in Sana, the capital, killed more than 100 people, prompting the United States to say it would conduct “an immediate review” of its support for the Saudi-led coalition battling the rebels.

In response to the attack on the funeral, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, widely seen as the main backers of the Houthis, issued an angry statement saying the rebel group, which Iran refers to as the Ansarullah movement, would “avenge” the bombing, which the statement called “a U.S., Saudi, Israeli joint conspiracy.”

The statement concluded: “The glorious and sublime nation of Iran will continue to support the resistance of Muslim nations, especially the innocent people of Yemen, against the Zionist wrongdoing of House of Saud and calls all divisions of the Islamic nation to condemn the great and brutal crime in Sana and unveil the face of hypocrites who claim to be servants of the holy shrines.”

The Houthis are known to have a stockpile of various Soviet-era rockets and missiles. Saudi Arabia nevertheless accuses Iran of sending missiles to the rebels, as it does to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and to the Islamic Jihad group in Gaza. Iran denies it has provided weapons to the Houthi rebels.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps views the United States Navy as its main opponent in the region. In August, there were multiple incidents in the Persian Gulf involving Guards Corps ships challenging American ships.

On Sunday evening, the destroyer Mason, while conducting routine operations in international waters, detected two missiles fired at the ship within a one-hour period, according to a statement from Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

Captain Davis said both missiles had fallen well shy of the ship — he would not say by how much — and caused no damage or injuries. The ship was operating in the southern end of the Red Sea, north of Bab el Mandeb, a strait.

“We assess the missiles were launched from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen,” Captain Davis said.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition has been fighting Shiite rebels in Yemen since March 2015. The United States has provided refueling planes and some intelligence to the coalition, but it has not been directly involved in picking targets for coalition airstrikes, many of which have killed civilians.