Yemeni rebels free 2 United States citizens
- by Leah Brady
- in Worldwide
- — Oct 19, 2016
For the second time this week two missiles were fired at the USS Mason in the Red Sea, and officials believe they were launched by the same Yemen-based Houthi rebels involved in the earlier attack, a USA military official said Wednesday.
Initial reports on the latest incident, according to another U.S. defence official, said the crew detected multiple missiles being fired towards the Mason, which responded with onboard countermeasures to defend itself.
Three US warships in the Red Sea detected what may have been missiles fired at them on Saturday but none hit, the US military said, amid rising tensions with Yemen's Houthi rebels.
In response to the repeated barrages, USA destroyed three radar sites along Yemen's western coast using Tomahawk missiles fired from the destroyer Nitze, significantly deepening American involvement in the conflict.
A USA official said that additional radars could have been used in the Saturday attack.
Destroyer USS Mason, which was targeted by missiles fired from rebel-held territory while patrolling the Red Sea off the Yemeni coast.
"Their names are not being released at this point in time, but we were very pleased with that and we continue to work on other hostage situations here and elsewhere".
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The attempted missile strikes is the most serious escalation yet of United States involvement in Yemen's civil war.
"Certain individuals" in the operations centre had insisted on the strike, Mansour Ahmed Mansour, a spokesman for the investigators, said on Saturday.
Saturday's strike against USS Mason is the third that the ship suffered in a week.
The Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) accused "a party affiliated to the Yemeni Presidency of the General Chief of Staff" of passing wrong information that the hall was packed with Houthi leaders, whom the coalition has been targeting since their militias swept the capital previous year and forced Yemen's internationally-recognized government into exile in Riyadh. On Friday, senior administration officials said there was "no doubt" that Houthi rebels had been responsible for the failed missile attacks.
The bombardment was the first known to have been carried out by the United States against Houthi targets in Yemen since Washington's ally, Saudi Arabia, started an air campaign against the Iran-allied rebels in March 2015. The U.N. and rights groups estimate the conflict has killed at least 9,000 people and displaced almost 3 million more.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting rebels in Yemen said it will investigate an air raid that killed more than 140 people at a funeral, after the USA said it was reviewing support for the alliance.
