US military vows to retaliate for attack on US warships off Yemen

The guided-missile destroyer USS Mason conducts formation exercises with Cyclone-class patrol crafts on September 10, 2016. (Photo by the US Navy)

The US military vows to retaliate for a missile attack that barely missed American warships in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen on Sunday.

“Counterstrike, retaliatory strike: I can tell you that those things are things that we are looking at,” Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Tuesday.

According to the Pentagon, the USS Mason, a guided-missile destroyer, and the USS Ponce, an amphibious warfare ship, were targeted in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen, but neither of the two missiles hit the warships.

“We want very much to get to the bottom of what happened,” said Davis. “We're going to find out who did this and we will take action accordingly.”

“We will make sure that anybody who interferes with freedom of navigation and puts US Navy ship at risk understands they do so at their own peril,” he stated.

The news comes days after Yemeni forces successfully targeted and destroyed an Emirati military vessel near the Red Sea port city of Mokha.

The US-made HSV-2 Swift was a high-speed logistical ship capable of locating mines, controlling military operations and transporting troops and equipment. Over 20 sailors were reportedly killed on board the warship.

The Pentagon has been providing logistic and surveillance support to Saudi Arabia in its military aggression against Yemen, the kingdom’s impoverished southern neighbor, which has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis since its onset in March 2015.

The unprovoked war started by a coalition of Saudi-allies in an attempt to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.

Washington has on several occasions criticized the Saudi regime for its crimes against humanity in Yemen, but has shown no sign of ending its support for Riyadh.

According to a report published by The Intercept on Monday, the United States and Britain are fully aware of the civilian nature of Saudi Arabia’s targets in Yemen and yet continue to provide the regime in Riyadh with weapons and intelligence required to hit them.

London and Washington “have indiscriminately and at times deliberately” led Saudi warplanes to strike civilian targets in Yemen during the kingdom’s months-long military aggression against its southern neighbor.