Tehran, IRNA – Yemen says it has targeted the U.S. aircraft carrier, USS Harry S. Truman, in the northern Red Sea for the second time in 24 hours, in response to deadly American airstrikes that targeted several Yemeni provinces.
The Yemeni armed forces, in a statement early on Monday, said they had targeted the American aircraft carrier with a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, in an engagement that lasted several hours.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces successfully thwarted a hostile attack that the enemy was preparing to launch against our country,” the statement read. “Enemy warplanes were forced to return to their launch points after a series of missile and drone strikes targeted the aircraft carrier and several of its accompanying warships.”
The Yemeni armed forces also vowed to continue to confront the United States’ “criminal aggression” and “meet escalation with escalation.”
On Sunday evening, the Yemeni forces said they had targeted the USS Harry S. Truman with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as a drone, in response to the “blatant aggression against our country.”
At least 53 people, including five children and two women, were killed and 98 more injured on Saturday night after the U.S. conducted 47 airstrikes against the Arab country, targeting multiple locations in the provinces of Sana’a, Sa’ada, Al-Bayda, Hajjah, Dhamar, Ma’rib, and Al-Jawf.
US strikes hit confiscated Israel-linked ship in Yemen
Meanwhile, Yemeni news outlets reported early on Monday that American warplanes had hit the command tower of the confiscated Israeli ship Galaxy Leader off Yemen’s coast.
The official Saba news agency, citing a military official, reported that the U.S. military hit “the command post of the detained Israeli ship Galaxy Leader” on the Red Sea port of Hudaydah with two air strikes.
The Yemeni army confiscated the Galaxy Leader in November 2023, right after it began to carry out military operations in the Red Sea against Israeli-linked ships in retaliation for the occupying regime’s devastating war on Gaza, which had begun a month earlier.
The ship, owned by a British company that is partially owned by Israeli tycoon Abraham Ungar, has remained in the Hudaydah port, while its crew members were released in January after the Gaza ceasefire came into effect.
Last week, with the Gaza ceasefire coming to an end, Yemen set a four-day ultimatum for Israel to lift its siege on Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory or face a ban on its vessels passing through the Red and Arabian seas. With the deadline expiring on Tuesday, Yemen pledged to go ahead with what it called a naval blockade on Israel.
IRNA