Yemen’s Houthis launch ballistic missiles at US aircraft carrier Eisenhower in Red Sea

Sanaa, June 23 (IANS) Yemen’s armed Houthi group has said in a statement that it had launched ballistic missiles at the US aircraft carrier Eisenhower in northern Red Sea.

“The missile force in our armed forces carried out an operation targeting the American aircraft carrier Eisenhower in the northern Red Sea with several ballistic and cruise missiles, and the operation achieved its goals successfully,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Saturday in a statement aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.

However, there is currently no evidence to confirm that the aircraft carrier was indeed attacked, Xinhua news agency reported.

This is the second claimed attack by Houthis targeting the US aircraft carrier Eisenhower in the Red Sea in less than a month. The first attack against the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was on May 31, in which the US military didn’t comment.

Sarea said that the militant group also attacked the merchant vessel TRANSWORLD NAVIGATOR in the Arabian Sea with ballistic missiles, as a response to what Houthis called the vessel owner’s violation of their entry ban to Israeli ports.

The statement threatened more such strikes “until the (Israeli) aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted”.

Earlier on Saturday, fighter jets of the US-British coalition conducted four airstrikes against Houthi targets northwest of Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, according to the Houthi al-Masirah television.

Hours before the coalition airstrikes, the UK Maritime Trade Operations reported explosions in the vicinity of a merchant vessel 126 nautical miles east of Yemen’s southern port city of Aden. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, began in November last year to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said were Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea, to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In response, the US-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi targets to deter the group, but this only led to an expansion of Houthi attacks to include US and British commercial vessels and naval ships.

–IANS

int/khz