The Pentagon says an American warship and multiple US commercial vessels have come under attack in the Red Sea, in what is viewed as a major escalation in the strategic waterway over the Israeli regime’s brutal onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.
“We’re aware of reports regarding attacks on the USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available,” the Pentagon said on Sunday.
The Pentagon added that the USS Carney, which is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, had shot down missiles and drones aimed at it last week while escorting a commercial vessel in the Red Sea.
The American destroyer had been sailing near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which separates East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula, at the time of last week’s attack, but no damage was inflicted on the Carney or its crew.
The Pentagon fell short of clarifying whether the American warship was struck on Sunday, and did not identify where it believed the fire came from.
The latest attack against the US destroyer and other commercial ships operating in the Red Sea came as Britain’s Royal Navy said a suspected drone attack and explosion had been carried out in the area.
Ambrey, a UK-based maritime security group, also announced on Sunday that a Bahamas-flagged cargo vessel was “struck by a rocket” while sailing off western coast of Yemen.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the spokesman of the Yemeni armed forces, said two Israeli ships named Unity Explorer and Number Nine had been targeted in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait earlier in the day.
Yemen’s Armed Forces have launched a series of ballistic missiles at various sensitive targets lying across the southern part of the occupied territories in support of Palestinians since the Israeli regime waged a brutal war in Gaza in October.
Yemen’s Armed Forces and the popular Ansarullah resistance movement also warned of targeting any of the occupying regime’s ships crossing the Arab country’s territorial waters.
The Yemeni Armed Forces seized on November 19 an Israeli cargo vessel, named Galaxy Leader, in the Red Sea, in what they said was a response to the regime’s massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. The entire 52 crew members onboard were also detained by Yemen’s naval forces in the south of the Red Sea.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
According to the Gaza-based health ministry, over 15,500 Palestinians, including more than 6,500 children and 4,000 women, were killed in Israeli strikes. Many more dead are feared to be under the rubble.
Tel Aviv has also imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
