The US military announced that a US warship shot down three drones after three commercial ships were attacked in the Red Sea.
The newspaper said the aircraft carrier Carney was assisting ships with ties to 14 countries, including Britain, after they were targeted on Sunday from areas of Yemen held by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
Two of the ships were hit by missiles, but there were no casualties.
A Houthi spokesman said the group’s navy attacked two Israeli ships.
The Israeli military said the vessels had no connection to Israel.
The Iran-backed Houthis have controlled parts of Yemen since they overthrew the Yemeni government in 2014, sparking an ongoing civil war.
It recently began targeting Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea over Israel’s war with Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the part of the U.S. military that oversees operations in the Middle East, detected an anti-ship ballistic missile explosion on the USS Kearny near the Bahamian-flagged, British-owned Unity Explorer on Sunday morning. announced. and operated a cargo ship.
It then shot down a drone that was heading toward the Kearney itself, but Centcom said it was unclear whether the drone was aimed at the Kearney.
That afternoon, the Unity Explorer was hit by a missile fired from Houthi-held territory, sustaining minor damage.
While responding to a distress call from the ship, the US ship spotted and shot down another incoming drone.
Two more ships, one British-owned and both Panamanian-flagged, subsequently reported being hit by missiles. While en route to support her second ship, USS Carney shot down a third drone.
Centcom said the attack “endangered the lives” of the vessel’s multinational crew and was a “direct threat to international commerce and maritime security.”
“There is also good reason to believe that although these attacks were initiated by Yemen’s Houthis, they were carried out entirely by Iran,” the spokesperson said.
“The United States will work fully with our international allies and partners to consider all appropriate responses.”
Earlier this week, the United States announced that its warships had captured an armed group that had seized an Israeli-linked tanker off the coast of Yemen.
Centcom later reported that two missiles were fired at the warship from areas controlled by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The Houthis have declared themselves part of the “Axis of Resistance” of Iran-linked groups working against Israel, the United States, and the West.