Foreign Affairs

Pentagon Warns It Will Continue To Blow Up Iranian-Backed Rebels If They Attack US Ships

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The U.S. military will continue to take action against Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen if U.S. ships are harassed, warned the Pentagon Thursday.

“We will not tolerate threats to our people,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters, referring to a Sunday missile attack by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on two U.S. destroyers operating in international waters off the coast of Yemen. The ships were forced to take “defensive maneuvers,” allowing the missiles to fall into the sea.

U.S. naval forces responded to the attack by destroying several Houthi radar stations with cruise missiles Thursday. The Pentaon believes the stations may have been involved in the attack.

“This was a response to direct threats to our people, to our ships,” said Cook, noting that U.S. forces will take action again if ships continue to be threatened.

Cook was not able to confirm the nature of Iran’s involvement in the Sunday attack, but he did note that “Iran has played a role” in supporting the Houthi rebels. Some U.S. military officials speculated after Sunday’s attack that the Houthis used the Chinese-made Silkworm missile in the attack, a mainstay weapon in the Iranian arsenal.

The Houthis are a Zaidi Shiite rebel group from the mountains of Yemen. They have been heavily supplied by Iran since they began their rebellion against Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in early 2015. The conflict has caused the poor, but strategically important, country to collapse into civil war. Terrorist groups like al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Islamic State have taken advantage of the deplorable security situation in Yemen, establishing themselves predominantly in the southeast portion of the country.

Yemen is crucial to the U.S. due the Bab el Mandeb, a narrow waterway between Yemen and Djibouti which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. U.S. Navy vessels regularly travel through the waterway, in addition to a significant portion of the world’s oil exports.

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