The Pentagon is preparing to retaliate against anyone involved in a Sunday Iranian rebel missile launch on a U.S. destroyer.
“Anybody who takes action, fires against U.S. Navy ships operating in international waters, does so at their own peril,” Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters Tuesday. “We’re going to find out who did this and we will take action accordingly.”
The missiles were fired by the Houthis, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia in Yemen. The Pentagon confirmed the destroyer employed “defensive measures,” but did not specify the severity of the attack. U.S. military officials speculated the missile may have been a Chinese made Silkworm cruise-missile, a well-known part of Iran’s military arsenal.
“It’s not a secret that Iran has been actively supplying them and giving them the tools of war,” Davis continued. The U.S. intercepted an Iranian shipping vessel sending vast shipments of arms to the Houthis in April 2016. The weapons included 1,500 Ak-47’s, 200 RPGs, multiple 50 caliber machine guns.
The White House acknowledged it believes Iran is actively arming the Houthi insurgency, perpetuating the Yemeni civil war. The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital in 2015, prompting concern by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab nations that Yemen would become an Iranian proxy state.
Iranian-backed militia fire on a U.S. warship in international waters is a significant escalation of the ongoing civil war in Yemen. The U.S. is supporting a Saudi-led air coalition against the Houthi insurgency, which struck a high profile funeral procession Saturday sparking widespread international condemnation. The Houthi’s attack may have been in retaliation for the funeral strike.
The attack is the first time in decades a U.S. destroyer employed onboard defensive maneuvers while at sea. The ship’s anti-missile defense system reportedly uses onboard missiles to divert incoming fire into the sea. The military did not specify whether the missile’s were forced into the sea by defensive measures, or were misfired by attackers.
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