Washington:

Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeted two US destroyers with drones and missiles as they transited the Bab al-Mandab Strait, but the warships beat off the attacks, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

The Houthis began striking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, part of the region-wide fallout from Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, which groups in several countries have cited as justification for the attacks.

US warships “were attacked by at least eight unmanned one-way attack systems, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles, which were successfully engaged and defeated,” said Pentagon spokesman Gen. Major Pat Ryder.

“The ships were not damaged, no personnel were injured,” Ryder said of Monday’s attacks.

The Houthis’ claim that they also attacked the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is not accurate, he said.

“Based on the information that I have, it was not attacked, contrary to some of the allegations … by the Houthis,” Ryder said, declining to specify the carrier’s location.

Yemeni rebels say their attacks — a significant international security challenge that threatens a major shipping lane — are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Anger over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in the tiny coastal territory, which began after an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, has fueled violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

The United States and other countries have deployed warships to help protect ships from Houthi attacks, but attacks directly targeting American warships are relatively rare.

Washington’s forces have also carried out frequent airstrikes on the Houthis in an attempt to degrade their ability to target shipping and have sought to seize weapons before they reach the rebels, but their attacks have persisted.

Ryder said Tuesday that U.S. forces conducted several airstrikes over the weekend against Houthi weapons caches.

“These facilities housed a variety of advanced conventional weapons used by the Iran-backed Houthis to target US and international military and civilian vessels sailing in international waters,” he said, noting that both US Air Force assets and and those of the Navy.

US forces also targeted Iran-backed groups in Syria on Monday in response to drone and missile attacks on US troops in that country the previous day.

The attacks resulted in no American casualties, according to Ryder, who said he had no information to provide on whether subsequent U.S. attacks killed or wounded agents.

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