Red Sea. Houthis Launch Two Anti-Ship Missiles. USA Responds with Six Raids

Tensions are still rising in the Red Sea region, where missile attacks and airstrikes were exchanged from Monday till Tuesday (March 11-12) between the Houthis and US warships. Pro-Iranian militants in Yemen fired two missiles at a merchant ship, and the US immediately responded with six “defensive” raids.

“Houthi terrorists fired two anti-ship missiles at the cargo ship Pinocchio, a Singapore-owned ship flying the Liberian flag. Thanks to defensive actions, they did not hit the vessel, and no injuries or damage were reported,” said the US Middle East Command, according to which, in order to avoid “immediate threats” posed by the Houthis to US merchant and military vessels present in the region, US military fighter jets conducted six defensive operations, in which “a submarine and 18 launch pads with an equal number of anti-ship missiles were destroyed in areas of the Red Sea facing Yemen.”

And after the Italian ship Duilio shot down two drones in the Red Sea as part of the European Union’s Operation Aspides, Abdennaser Mahamed, a spokesman for the press office of the administration of the President of the (Houthis) Republic Sanaa, strongly criticized and threatened Italy.

“The shooting down of our drones by the Italian navy,” Mahamed said, “represents a new confirmation that Italy wanted to side with our enemies and defend Israel.” Italy is currently not a direct target for the Houthis, but that could change at any moment. “Italy and other countries in the pro-Israel coalition are demonstrating that they do not want to calm the situation or contain the scale of the conflict. Instead, they want to expand it throughout the Red Sea. But the theater of war will be determined by the Yemeni forces,” the Yemeni representative emphasized in the end.