Pentagon acknowledges Yemeni forces deploy underwater drones in Red Sea for first time
The US military has acknowledged that Yemeni forces have deployed underwater drones for the first time in their pro-Palestine operations amid tensions in the Red Sea.
The US Central Command said the drones presented an “imminent threat” to US Navy ships in the area and that it was the first time US forces have seen a underwater drone deployed by Yemen.
CENTCOM claimed a submersible drone was destroyed in an American attack over the weekend.
According to the announcement, the US Navy carried out five strikes, hitting three cruise missiles, an unmanned surface vessel (USV), and one unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) on Saturday.
“This is the first observed [Yemen’s] employment of a UUV since attacks began on October 23,” the US military wrote, claiming it presented an “imminent threat” to US Navy ships in the area.
The spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces says the country’s naval units have targeted with a number of missiles a British oil tanker in the Red Sea.
The US and the UK have also been carrying out numerous such attacks against Yemen as a means of trying to pressure the country into stopping a series of reprisal operations that it has been conducting in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In solidarity with the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip which is subjected to a genocidal war that killed nearly 29,000, the Yemeni armed forces have targeted ships in the Red Sea with owners linked to Israel or those going to and from ports in the occupied territories.
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement has said the rising aggression by the “evil trio” of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel would not affect the determination of the Yemeni people to support Palestinians in the besieged strip.
Yemen has been conducting operations against the British and American warships that have been dispatched to the Red Sea to confront the Yemeni strikes.
