The Pentagon said Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a coordinated attack on two US warships in the Red Sea area, but the vessels intercepted the incoming projectiles and were not damaged.
According to the report, at least eight drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles were aimed at the USS Stockdale and USS Spruance. Pentagon press secretary Air Force Major Gen Pat Ryder said the destroyers shot down the weapons and that no personnel were hurt. The ships were operating while moving through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a strategic waterway linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The attack came after a series of US Central Command airstrikes on Houthi weapons storage bases in Yemen. That sequence suggests a cycle of strike and counterstrike that has become increasingly familiar in the region. The Houthis, backed by Iran, have repeatedly targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2023, sinking two vessels, seizing a third and killing crew members, according to the BBC report.
The group’s media apparatus offered its own version of events. Al-Masirah TV said airstrikes targeted two US warships and a third vessel in the Arabian Sea, while Houthi military spokesman Yahya al-Sarea claimed the rebels had successfully bombarded the USS Abraham Lincoln with cruise missiles. Ryder said he was not aware of any attacks on that ship. The contradictory claims underline how information warfare has become part of the conflict at sea.
The wider backdrop is a campaign the Houthis say is meant to support Palestinians in the Gaza war, but which has threatened one of the world’s most important shipping corridors. The United States, the United Kingdom and 12 other nations created Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect Red Sea shipping lanes, and the US has also repeatedly struck Houthi targets in Yemen in an effort to degrade the group’s ability to attack ships.
The Pentagon’s account matters because it shows both the scale of the challenge and the limits of the current deterrent. The Houthis appear willing to fire large mixed salvos of drones and missiles at military and commercial targets alike, while US defenses have so far stopped the direct damage from this episode. But the confrontation is not static; each exchange reinforces the possibility of a wider maritime security crisis.
The incident also highlights how much the Red Sea conflict has spread beyond merchant shipping. The group’s attacks now reach US warships, and American responses increasingly target launch capacity inside Yemen. That creates a high-risk pattern in which sea lanes, regional politics and the broader Israel-Hamas war are all tightly intertwined.
For now, the most concrete fact is the simplest one: the Pentagon says the USS Spruance and USS Stockdale survived a multi-missile, multi-drone attack without damage or injuries. In a region where every engagement carries broader strategic consequences, even an unsuccessful strike can still move the conflict forward.
