In a bid to expand the theatre of war beyond Gaza, several missiles and drones were fired by the Iran-backed Houthi forces which were downed by the US. The Pentagon on Thursday confirmed that USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea, shot down three missiles and several drones that had been fired by Houthi forces in Yemen. He said they were shot down over the water.
"We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel," Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters in a briefing.
The attacks could draw America into the conflict
Pentagon officials warned that the cruise-missile and drone attacks could augur an escalation of violence, which could endanger American forces in the region and potentially draw them into a conflict. Analysts here said that Houthi forces and Hezbollah are keen to draw the US deeper into the Gaza war and may have the backing of Russia, China and Iran. Russia is keen to see that the US gets more involved in Gaza and the neighbouring region so that its focus on Ukraine gets derailed.
Right now, this conflict is contained between Israel and Hamas, and we're going to do everything we can to ensure deterrence in the region, so that this does not become broader, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Thursday. He added that any armed American response to this weeks attacks, should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing.
US prepared to do whatever to protect partners and interests
He said the missiles were shot down because they posed a potential threat based on their flight profile, adding that the US is prepared to do whatever is needed to protect our partners and our interests in this important region. He said the US is still assessing what the target was.
While Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the rebel groups leader, warned the US against intervening in the ongoing conflict, threatening that his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles.
Iran-backed militia ready to strike if Israel doesn't back off
A deputy commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Gholamhossein Gheybparvar, said in a speech on Thursday and reported in the US that Iran-backed militia in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon known as an axis of resistance were ready to strike Israel if its ground forces invaded Gaza.
Iran's state television aired a segment detailing how such attacks could unfold. The report opened with the countrys supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that if the war continued nobody could stop the forces of the resistance, referring to a network of militia groups across the region supported by Iran. Houthis in Yemen from the south, Syrian and Iraqi militias from the east, and Hezbollah in Lebanon from the north would coordinate to attack Israel with missiles and drones to create a siege from every side, the report claimed.
The segment said that the Houthis had missiles with a range of more than 1900 km. The report said Iraqi militia groups had taken positions alongside Syrian militias near the Golan Heights.
