US fighter aircraft shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired from a Houthi-controlled area of
Yemen at one of its warships in the Red Sea, the US military said on Sunday night.
The missile was fired towards the USS Laboon which was operating in the Southern Red Sea, US Central Command said in a statement, in what appears to be the first such attempt on a US destroyer. No injuries or damage were reported, Central Command said.
The incident follows warnings from
Houthis and their allies of possible further military action in the aftermath of Friday’s US-UK bombing of rebel-held areas in Yemen. Initial briefings from the US suggested that only about a quarter of the Houthis’ missile and drone attack capability had been destroyed in that attack.
A Houthi supporter said on Sunday that the group’s attacks on merchant shipping travelling the busy waterway south of the Suez Canal would continue “because they are at war with Israel”.
Hussain al-Bukhaiti said that if the US and UK continued to bomb Yemen, Houthi forces would attack western warships “maybe using hundreds of drones and missiles,” which would represent a significant escalation.