US Downs 17 Houthi Weapons in Lengthy, Ten Hour Attack

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan24) –  On Tuesday, the Houthis in Yemen launched 17 weapons in the Red Sea over a ten hour period, CENTCOM reported. However, all of those weapons were downed by U.S. planes or ships.

The attack was the latest event in an Iranian-orchestrated game of cat-and-mouse, in which Iran is exploiting the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to undermine the U.S. position in the broader Middle East.

The Biden administration has been wary of taking any but defensive measures, for fear of expanding the conflict into the broader Middle East beyond the Israeli-Palestinian theater. 

Tehran, thus, sees it has a free hand, as long as the proxy attacks that it supports stay below a certain level.

Tuesday’s Assault

Starting early on Tuesday, beginning at 6:30 AM, local time, roughly 30 minutes after dawn, the Houthis began an extended, ten-hour attack.

As CENTCOM announced later that day, its forces shot down three kinds of weapons fired by the Houthis: explosive drones; anti-ship ballistic missiles; and land-attack cruise missiles.

It was not obvious why this variety of weapons were used. After all, why use a land-attack cruise missile against a target at sea? Perhaps, it was a way to test if any one of those weapons was better than the others in penetrating U.S. defenses. 

Or, perhaps, it was a way of demonstrating to the U.S., and others, just what weapons the Houthis possess. 

In announcing news of the attack, CENTCOM tweeted, “U.S. assets, to include the USS LABOON,” a Navy destroyer, and “F/A-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, shot down twelve one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack cruise missiles in the Southern Red Sea.”

U.S. assets, to include the USS LABOON (DDG 58) and F/A-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, shot down twelve one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack cruise missiles in the Southern Red Sea that were fired by the… pic.twitter.com/vRQ5e6Au6d

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) December 26, 2023

“There was no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries,” CENTCOM said.

That was not the case on Monday, however, when another pro-Iranian militia targeted U.S. forces at Erbil Air Base in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Three U.S. service members were injured, one of them critically.

Read More: US attacks militias in Iraq, retaliating for earlier strikes, including at Erbil Airport

Three days before that, on Friday, the U.S. charged, for the first time, that Iran was “deeply involved” in the Houthis’ attacks on Red Sea shipping. 

“Iranian-provided tactical intelligence has been critical in enabling Houthi targeting of maritime vessels,” the White House explained. 

Read More: White House: Iran is ‘Deeply involved’ in Houthi Attacks on Red Sea Shipping

Iran’s immediate reaction was a show of defiance. On Saturday, for the first time, a ship was attacked in the Arabian Sea. It was sailing from Saudi Arabia to India and was far from the area where the Houthis had been carrying out their attacks.

The chemical tanker, the Chem Pluto was hit by an explosive drone some 200 nautical miles from the coast of India, the Pentagon said.

It attributed the attack directly to Iran—the first time the Pentagon charged Iran with direct involvement in an attack on shipping since October, when this crisis began.

International Naval Force to Protect Shipping

The major thrust of the U.S. response to the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping has been to announce the formation of a multinational naval force to protect shipping in the region, as it did last week.

Read More: US Sec Def Announces Coalition to Defend Shipping Against Houthi Attacks

Initially, the effort, called Operation Prosperity Guardian, received a tepid response from international shipping companies, which had stopped using the Red Sea. They either halted their ships to wait on developments or began rerouting them around Africa.

However, that may be changing, and it could be that Tuesday's barrage was an effort to halt, or at least slow down, that change.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that “some major shippers” are “resuming passage through the area, despite continued attacks and broader Middle East tensions.”

Will This Secure Deterrence and Stop the Attacks?

The administration’s cautious position—above all, its fear that too strong a response to these attacks will cause the conflict to widen beyond Israel and Hamas—has been strongly criticized.

“Bolstering deterrence requires the political will to impose a cost that far outweighs any gain the Houthis could hope to attain” through their attacks, William Luti, Senior Director for Defense Policy and Strategy in George W. Bush’s National Security Council, wrote  in The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, expressed a similar view to Kurdistan 24.

“So long as the administration opts to respond sporadically, selectively, and in a limited fashion” to these attacks, “nothing will change,” Ben Taleblu said. 

“If anything, the increased, but limited, use of force seems to have signaled weakness, with more multidirectional Houthi and Shiite militia attacks.”