Despite threating to expand their ongoing campaign of attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, a senior Pentagon official this week said the US has seen no sign the Iran-armed rebels have attempted to do so yet, but admitted to being worried about the possibility.
The US defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity told reporters during a diplomatic visit to the region on Monday that ““The Houthis have an advanced array of weaponry,”.
“They have weapons that could reach the Mediterranean,” the senior official said. “It definitely is of concern that they have that capability.”
“There's really no precedent for the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles, the way they are doing it," the senior US defense official said, adding, "It's a kind of maritime terrorism that the entire world has an interest in seeing brought to a close."
Behind the scenes: Pentagon officials met with military officials from Gulf Cooperation Council countries in Riyadh on Wednesday to press for more support for US and allied efforts to interdict smuggled Iranian missile components to the Houthis.
"We'll discuss the multilateral efforts to bolster information sharing, counter proliferation, ways to increase the effectiveness of combined interdictions and technologies to increase maritime domain awareness," the senior US defense official said on Monday.
"Part of what we're working on in these working groups is how to ensure that everybody has the information and … awareness and that we pool the knowledge, technology and intelligence," the official said.
"There's work to do, by all parties — obviously including those in the region who are very much affected by this violence — to try to diminish its impact and bring it to an end," the senior defense official said.