The US military on Sunday said that its forces shot down a cruise missile fired at a US destroyer warship from Houthi controlled areas of Yemen.
The attack appears to be the first against a US destroyer amid a growing number of missile and drone strikes or attempted strikes by the Houthis on what they deem Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea.
“On January 14 at approximately 4:45pm [Sana’a time] an anti-ship cruise missile was fired from Iranian-backed Huthi militant areas of Yemen toward USS Laboon, which was operating in the Southern Red Sea,” US Central Command said.
Photo: AFP / US Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeffrey M. Richardson
“The missile was shot down in vicinity of the coast of Hodeida by US fighter aircraft. There were no injuries or damage reported,” it said.
The Houthis have said they are acting in solidarity with Gaza, where Hamas militants have been battling Israel for more than three months.
ALLEGED STRIKES
Earlier, the US denied Yemeni rebel reports that it carried out new attacks on targets in Yemen.
Houthi media said that the US and British strikes had hit rebel-held Hodeida, but a US defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said: “No US or coalition strike occurred today.”
US and British forces on Friday last week said that they hit scores of rebel targets across Yemen, heightening fears that Israel’s war with Hamas could engulf the region.
Late on Friday, the US military said it had conducted a “follow-on” strike against a Houthi radar site, following an initial barrage earlier against rebel military facilities.
About 12 percent of global trade normally passes through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea entrance between southwest Yemen and Djibouti, but the rebel attacks have affected trade flows.
Washington last month announced a maritime security initiative, Operation Prosperity Guardian, to protect maritime traffic in the area, but the Houthis have kept up attacks despite several warnings.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver