Thursday, October 13, 2016 5:39:06 AM
U.S. Ship Fires Missiles at Yemeni Rebel Sites
"Iran and Saudi Arabia's great rivalry explained"
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and MARK MAZZETTI OCT. 12, 2016
The United States destroyer Mason in the Gulf of Oman in September. Pentagon officials say Yemeni rebels have fired on the ship twice in four days. Credit Blake Midnight/U.S. Navy
WASHINGTON — An American warship stationed off the coast of Yemen .. http://www.nytimes.com/topic/destination/yemen?8qa .. fired cruise missiles on Thursday at radar installations that the Pentagon said had been used by Yemeni insurgents to target another American warship in two missile attacks in the last four days.
The strikes against the Houthi rebels ..
“These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic.”
Until Thursday, the Obama administration had tried to navigate a treacherous course in Yemen, publicly pushing for a peace deal while quietly providing military support to a Saudi Arabia-led bombing campaign against the rebels since last year. Yet the main goal of the administration has often appeared to be keeping the United States from being dragged too deeply into a conflict that has shown little signs of abating, and instead continues to grow deadlier.
That changed in the past four days with two separate missile attacks on an American destroyer, the Mason, that was sailing off the coast of Yemen in the southern end of the Red Sea. In both the first attack, which took place on Sunday, and the second one on Wednesday evening, missiles were fired from areas under Houthi control.
The missiles fell well short of the ship in both attacks. But American commanders believed that the attack posed a real threat.
The retaliatory strikes on Thursday targeted three radar installations that were “involved in the recent missile launches threatening U.S.S. Mason and other vessels operating in international waters in the Red Sea” and the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked waterways, the Pentagon said.
“Initial assessments show the sites were destroyed,” it said.
Up to now, the Obama administration put limits on its support for the Saudi-led coalition, providing intelligence and Air Force tankers to refuel the coalition’s jets and bombers. The American military has refueled more than 5,700 aircraft involved in the bombing campaign since it began, according to statistics provided by United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East.
This American role has drawn criticism from human rights groups who condemn the campaign as reckless. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed since the bombing began, according to the United Nations’ top human rights official .. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/world/middleeast/us-navy-ship-attacked-near-yemen.html , Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.
That number includes at least 140 people who were killed in an airstrike on a funeral ceremony last weekend in the Yemeni capital, Sana. The strike prompted the administration to promise a review of the American military assistance to the Saudis “so as to better align with U.S. principles, values and interests.”
After the strikes by the United States on Thursday, a senior American military official stressed that the three radar installations were in remote areas. There was little risk of civilians being caught in the attacks, the official said, though there was no definitive declaration that civilians were unharmed in the strikes.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to provide details not included in the formal Pentagon statement, said the attack was carried out by the Nitze, also a destroyer, which fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at the radar sites.
The radar sites, which are in Houthi-controlled territory, had been active during the failed missile attacks against the Mason and other ships. They were also active on Oct. 1 when Houthi forces are believed to have fired a missile that disabled a United Arab Emirates military logistics ship, the Swift, the American official said.
Before Thursday’s attack, Secretary of State John Kerry pushed for a peace deal in Yemen, arguing that the United States could be an honest broker because it was not directly involved in the Saudi-led bombing campaign.
The military response could now make that a more difficult position to take.
Peter Salisbury, a Yemen expert at Chatham House, a London policy institute, said in an interview conducted hours before the American strikes that “if they do intervene, it deepens the case that the Americans are party to the conflict.”
The Mason was sailing in the Bab el Mandeb, at the southern end of the Red Sea, when it was fired upon Wednesday. The ship responded with defensive fire before the missile fell into the water, according to the Pentagon.
A second American ship nearby, the Ponce, used to transport amphibious assault forces, was also untouched in the attack.
Mr. Cook, in a statement on Wednesday, said that the Mason was “conducting routine operations” when it was fired upon, and that it would continue to sail in the strait.
The senior American military official described the weapon used in the attack on Wednesday on the Mason as a coastal defense cruise missile, designed to be used against ships. The official said the missile came from an area under rebel control. The situation was similar to one that unfolded on Sunday, when a pair of coastal defense missiles were fired at the Mason but failed to hit the ship.
How the rebels might have obtained the missiles was not clear. The Houthis, who are from northern Yemen, have seized ample amounts of military hardware in their two-year campaign to seize control of the country, and they are also believed to have received substantial aid from Iran, possibly including advanced weaponry.
American intelligence officials believe that the Houthis receive significantly less support from Iran than the Saudis and other Persian Gulf nations have charged.
The Saudi-led campaign began in March 2015, about a year after the Houthis and army units loyal to Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, began battling to oust the country’s current president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Despite skepticism in Washington about the wisdom of the campaign, the Obama administration threw its support behind the Saudis, in part because it needed support in Riyadh .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-saudi-arabia.html .. for the nuclear deal it was then negotiating with Iran .. http://www.nytimes.com/topic/destination/iran?8qa , a bitter enemy of Saudi Arabia.
Besides providing intelligence and refueling help, the Pentagon sent a team of military personnel to Saudi Arabia to assist the planners of the air campaign.
Yet the Saudi campaign has failed to dislodge the Houthis from Sana. Much of Yemen is now on the brink of famine, and reports of civilians’ being killed in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition have become routine. In August, the aid organization Doctors Without Borders said it was withdrawing .. http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000004611511/doctors-without-borders-exits-north-yemen.html .. its personnel from the country after the coalition bombed several of its medical facilities.
Despite international condemnation of the campaign, the White House pushed ahead this year with a $1.15 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia that includes tanks and other heavy military equipment. A Senate resolution in September to block the sale failed, but 26 senators voted for it, signaling growing congressional concern about the Saudi alliance.
“We are complicit and actively involved with war in Yemen,” Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who worked to block the arms deal, said at the time.“There’s been no debate in Congress, really no debate in the public sphere over whether or not we should be at war in Yemen.”
Related Coverage
‘We Sleep Afraid, We Wake Up Afraid’: A Child’s Life in Yemen OCT. 11, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/middleeast/yemen-children-in-a-war-zone.html
Opinion Editorial
America’s Moral Duty in Yemen OCT. 11, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/opinion/americas-moral-duty-in-yemen.html
Saudi-Led Airstrikes Blamed for Massacre at Funeral in Yemen OCT. 8, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/world/middleeast/yemen-saudi-arabia-houthis-rebels.html
A Roar at a Funeral, and Yemen’s War Is Altered OCT. 9, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/world/middleeast/yemen-saudi-arabia-military.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/world/middleeast/yemen-rebels-missile-warship.html?_r=0
"Iran and Saudi Arabia's great rivalry explained"
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and MARK MAZZETTI OCT. 12, 2016
The United States destroyer Mason in the Gulf of Oman in September. Pentagon officials say Yemeni rebels have fired on the ship twice in four days. Credit Blake Midnight/U.S. Navy
WASHINGTON — An American warship stationed off the coast of Yemen .. http://www.nytimes.com/topic/destination/yemen?8qa .. fired cruise missiles on Thursday at radar installations that the Pentagon said had been used by Yemeni insurgents to target another American warship in two missile attacks in the last four days.
The strikes against the Houthi rebels ..
.. marked the first time the United States has become involved militarily in the civil war between the Houthis, an indigenous Shiite group with loose connections to Iran, and the Yememi government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations. The strikes were approved by President Obama, said Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, who warned of more to come if American ships were fired upon again.
“These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic.”
Until Thursday, the Obama administration had tried to navigate a treacherous course in Yemen, publicly pushing for a peace deal while quietly providing military support to a Saudi Arabia-led bombing campaign against the rebels since last year. Yet the main goal of the administration has often appeared to be keeping the United States from being dragged too deeply into a conflict that has shown little signs of abating, and instead continues to grow deadlier.
That changed in the past four days with two separate missile attacks on an American destroyer, the Mason, that was sailing off the coast of Yemen in the southern end of the Red Sea. In both the first attack, which took place on Sunday, and the second one on Wednesday evening, missiles were fired from areas under Houthi control.
The missiles fell well short of the ship in both attacks. But American commanders believed that the attack posed a real threat.
The retaliatory strikes on Thursday targeted three radar installations that were “involved in the recent missile launches threatening U.S.S. Mason and other vessels operating in international waters in the Red Sea” and the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked waterways, the Pentagon said.
“Initial assessments show the sites were destroyed,” it said.
Up to now, the Obama administration put limits on its support for the Saudi-led coalition, providing intelligence and Air Force tankers to refuel the coalition’s jets and bombers. The American military has refueled more than 5,700 aircraft involved in the bombing campaign since it began, according to statistics provided by United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East.
This American role has drawn criticism from human rights groups who condemn the campaign as reckless. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed since the bombing began, according to the United Nations’ top human rights official .. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/world/middleeast/us-navy-ship-attacked-near-yemen.html , Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.
That number includes at least 140 people who were killed in an airstrike on a funeral ceremony last weekend in the Yemeni capital, Sana. The strike prompted the administration to promise a review of the American military assistance to the Saudis “so as to better align with U.S. principles, values and interests.”
After the strikes by the United States on Thursday, a senior American military official stressed that the three radar installations were in remote areas. There was little risk of civilians being caught in the attacks, the official said, though there was no definitive declaration that civilians were unharmed in the strikes.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to provide details not included in the formal Pentagon statement, said the attack was carried out by the Nitze, also a destroyer, which fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at the radar sites.
The radar sites, which are in Houthi-controlled territory, had been active during the failed missile attacks against the Mason and other ships. They were also active on Oct. 1 when Houthi forces are believed to have fired a missile that disabled a United Arab Emirates military logistics ship, the Swift, the American official said.
Before Thursday’s attack, Secretary of State John Kerry pushed for a peace deal in Yemen, arguing that the United States could be an honest broker because it was not directly involved in the Saudi-led bombing campaign.
The military response could now make that a more difficult position to take.
Peter Salisbury, a Yemen expert at Chatham House, a London policy institute, said in an interview conducted hours before the American strikes that “if they do intervene, it deepens the case that the Americans are party to the conflict.”
The Mason was sailing in the Bab el Mandeb, at the southern end of the Red Sea, when it was fired upon Wednesday. The ship responded with defensive fire before the missile fell into the water, according to the Pentagon.
A second American ship nearby, the Ponce, used to transport amphibious assault forces, was also untouched in the attack.
Mr. Cook, in a statement on Wednesday, said that the Mason was “conducting routine operations” when it was fired upon, and that it would continue to sail in the strait.
The senior American military official described the weapon used in the attack on Wednesday on the Mason as a coastal defense cruise missile, designed to be used against ships. The official said the missile came from an area under rebel control. The situation was similar to one that unfolded on Sunday, when a pair of coastal defense missiles were fired at the Mason but failed to hit the ship.
How the rebels might have obtained the missiles was not clear. The Houthis, who are from northern Yemen, have seized ample amounts of military hardware in their two-year campaign to seize control of the country, and they are also believed to have received substantial aid from Iran, possibly including advanced weaponry.
American intelligence officials believe that the Houthis receive significantly less support from Iran than the Saudis and other Persian Gulf nations have charged.
The Saudi-led campaign began in March 2015, about a year after the Houthis and army units loyal to Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, began battling to oust the country’s current president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Despite skepticism in Washington about the wisdom of the campaign, the Obama administration threw its support behind the Saudis, in part because it needed support in Riyadh .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-saudi-arabia.html .. for the nuclear deal it was then negotiating with Iran .. http://www.nytimes.com/topic/destination/iran?8qa , a bitter enemy of Saudi Arabia.
Besides providing intelligence and refueling help, the Pentagon sent a team of military personnel to Saudi Arabia to assist the planners of the air campaign.
Yet the Saudi campaign has failed to dislodge the Houthis from Sana. Much of Yemen is now on the brink of famine, and reports of civilians’ being killed in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition have become routine. In August, the aid organization Doctors Without Borders said it was withdrawing .. http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000004611511/doctors-without-borders-exits-north-yemen.html .. its personnel from the country after the coalition bombed several of its medical facilities.
Despite international condemnation of the campaign, the White House pushed ahead this year with a $1.15 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia that includes tanks and other heavy military equipment. A Senate resolution in September to block the sale failed, but 26 senators voted for it, signaling growing congressional concern about the Saudi alliance.
“We are complicit and actively involved with war in Yemen,” Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who worked to block the arms deal, said at the time.“There’s been no debate in Congress, really no debate in the public sphere over whether or not we should be at war in Yemen.”
Related Coverage
‘We Sleep Afraid, We Wake Up Afraid’: A Child’s Life in Yemen OCT. 11, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/middleeast/yemen-children-in-a-war-zone.html
Opinion Editorial
America’s Moral Duty in Yemen OCT. 11, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/opinion/americas-moral-duty-in-yemen.html
Saudi-Led Airstrikes Blamed for Massacre at Funeral in Yemen OCT. 8, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/world/middleeast/yemen-saudi-arabia-houthis-rebels.html
A Roar at a Funeral, and Yemen’s War Is Altered OCT. 9, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/world/middleeast/yemen-saudi-arabia-military.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/world/middleeast/yemen-rebels-missile-warship.html?_r=0
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