US fighter aircraft shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen at one of its warships in the Red Sea, the US military said on Sunday night.
The missile was fired towards the USS Laboon which was operating in the Southern Red Sea, US Central Command said in a statement, in what appears to be the first such attempt on a US destroyer. No injuries or damage were reported, Central Command said.
The incident follows warnings from Houthis and their allies of possible further military action in the aftermath of Friday’s US-UK bombing of rebel-held areas in Yemen. Initial briefings from the US suggested that only about a quarter of the Houthis’ missile and drone attack capability had been destroyed in that attack.
The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, told the BBC the west was “prepared to back our words with actions” should Houthi attacks continue, while the US and UK warships remained on high alert in the region.
Earlier, Britain’s Maritime Trade Operations (MTO), a monitoring body, said there had been a report of two small boats approaching a merchant vessel and seeking to persuade it to change course 23 nautical miles north-west of the Eritrean port of Assab in the southern Red Sea, an area where previous Houthi raids have taken place.
The incident, which took place at 12.15pm UK time, appeared to have been relatively minor, according to the MTO’s initial report. The vessel received reassurance it would be protected and decided to maintain course, prompting the unidentified small craft to abandon their harassment and sail away.
British and US warships and jets fired 150 missiles at what the Pentagon described as military targets in 28 locations, killing five people and injuring six. The bombing was intended to halt a spate of 26 Houthi attacks since mid-October by targeted radar stations and missile and drone launch sites.
Western leaders and sources suggested the bombing had only partly reduced the Houthi’s ability to launch attacks. US officials briefed late on Friday to the New York Times that the strikes had affected 20 to 30% of the Houthis’ offensive capability, partly because drone launchers are highly mobile.
China said it was deeply concerned about the military escalation in the Red Sea. The country’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said Beijing “calls for a halt to the harassment and attacks on civilian ships” but also indirectly accused the US and the UK of inflaming the situation with their bombing.