For the First Time, US Navy Shoots Down Iranian Drones Over Gulf of Aden
[Breaking] On Wednesday night, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney shot down one Houthi ballistic missile and "three Iranian UAVs" at a position off Yemen, according to U.S. Central Command. It is the first time that the U.S. military has announced an action against an explicitly Iranian asset since the beginning of the Houthis' campaign in November.
At about 2030 hours, Houthi militants launched an anti-ship ballistic missile towards the Gulf of Aden, the latest in a long string of Houthi attacks on the sea lanes to and from the Suez Canal. Carney shot down the ballistic missile.
At about 2110, Carney's crew took the additional step of engaging and shooting down three Iranian UAVs. Central Command did not provide further information.
Yemen's Houthi rebels control the northwestern corner of the country, and for years they have received support from Iran for their fight against Yemen's internationally-recognized government and its Saudi and Emirati backers. The nation's civil war is currently at an ebb, but Iranian arms have fueled the Houthis' new mandate to attack Western shipping and naval assets.
Western analysts and government officials have concluded that Iranian forces are deeply involved in supporting the Houthi strikes, providing intelligence, guidance and technology (and possibly making decisions on the ground). Up-to-date intelligence is required to operate an anti-ship ballistic missile with sufficient accuracy to reach its ever-moving target. Iran maintains a covert surveillance vessel off Yemen, and it is a prolific builder and operator of unmanned aerial vehicles, both for attack and for surveillance roles.
The USS Carney's decision to engage Iranian drones marks a rare kinetic action against Iranian forces themselves, rather than their foreign proxies. Carney's action may be the most substantial published encounter between American and Iranian military units since 2020, when the U.S. assassinated Iranian covert operations commander Qassem Suleimani.
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. military have been building since November. The U.S. Navy has bombarded Houthi positions multiple times in an attempt to suppress attacks on shipping; two U.S. Navy SEALs were killed in a boarding accident while attempting to intercept a covert shipment of Iranian weapons earlier this month; and Iranian-backed proxies killed three U.S. Army servicemembers in Jordan in a drone attack on Sunday.
U.S. retaliation for Sunday's fatal attack is expected, a U.S. government official told AP late Wednesday, and will likely take the form of a rolling multiday campaign of airstrikes. It is unclear whether those strikes will include Iranian targets, or will hit Iran's foreign proxy groups only.
Report: Houthi Missile Got Within a Mile of a U.S. Navy Destroyer
U.S. officials say that a Houthi cruise missile got so close to a U.S. Navy warship that it had to be shot down with the ship's Close-In Weapons System (CIWS), according to CBS and CNN. The high-speed gun system is used to knock down threats that make it past the vessel's air-defense missiles.
On Tuesday, U.S. Central Command confirmed that the destroyer USS Gravely shot down a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile in the Red Sea. The command did not specify whether Gravely had been targeted herself, but on Wednesday, four officials told CNN that the missile got to within one nautical mile of the destroyer before it was shot down. The ship's CIWS cannon eliminated the threat, and there were no injuries or damage reported.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree confirmed the attempted attack on the Gravely in a statement Tuesday. "All American and British warships in the Red and Arab Seas . . . are within the target bank of our forces," he said.
It represents the second time that Houthi forces have targeted an American warship, following an attempted attack on USS Carney last week. It is also the second time that a Houthi munition has gotten close enough to a coalition warship to be targeted with the ship's guns.
On January 9, in responding to a large-scale Houthi attack, the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Diamond took down seven drones in a day, including one with her 30mm gun. (It was the Royal Navy's first confirmed aerial kill with antiaircraft guns since the Korean War.)
Houthi rebels have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for months, and the U.S. Navy has attempted to tamp down the threat with air-defense escorts and a series of counterstrikes. The latest counterattack occurred Wednesday afternoon: Central Command authorized a strike on a Houthi air defense missile that was prepared for launch against an American aircraft in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
Yemen's Houthi Rebels Claim "Direct Hit" on an "American" Ship
But early assessments suggest that the vessel was neither hit, nor American
Yemen's Houthi rebels have claimed an attack on another "American merchant ship" and asserted that the munitions "directly hit the vessel." The group made the claim after U.S. Central Command reported shooting down a Houthi antiship missile over the Red Sea.
According to Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree, the group targeted a vessel named Koi. There are several vessels of that name in international databases; only one of them, a Liberian-flagged container ship, is currently located near Yemen.
Saree's claim could not be immediately confirmed, and Houthi forces have made inaccurate assertions about their success rate in the past. One shipping intelligence source told TME that the claim does not appear to be true.
The vessel does not have any clear ties to the United States, though she is connected to the UK by virtue of her commercial manager, London-based Oceonix Services. Oceonix is also the manager of the Marlin Luanda, the product tanker that was hit by a Houthi missile and caught fire last week.
Western analysts and governments believe that Iran is closely involved in Houthi attacks, from target selection to the supply of missile components. While the Houthis' approach may be scattershot, Iranian operatives understand how to discern a ship's underlying commercial ties, according to Dr. Ian Ralby of IR Consilium.
"They've proven themselves over the years to be very competent in identifying a specific entity attached to a vessel and targeting that entity," said Ralby in congressional testimony earlier this week.
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