US shoots down several missiles and drones launched from Yemen

A US Navy warship in the northern Red Sea on Thursday shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said could be heading towards Israel.

“We cannot say for sure what these missiles and drones were aimed at, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the sea Red, potentially towards targets in Israel,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

The missiles and drones were launched by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen, amid a wave of drone attacks against American troops. in Iraq and Syria over the past three days, General Ryder said. The incidents highlighted the risks that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas could escalate into a wider war.

Military analysts were trying to determine who carried out the attacks of drones," General Ryder said, but Iranian-backed militias have in the past carried out drone and rocket attacks against the 2,500 U.S. troops based in Iraq and the 900 troops in Syria.

From Hamas After the terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, the Biden administration dispatched two aircraft carriers and additional troops to the Eastern Mediterranean, near Israel, to deter the 'Iran and its proxies in the region from engaging in regional war. Gaza, which the group controls.

Senior Biden administration officials and U.S. commanders have expressed fears that the United States could be drawn into the conflict if militias were attacking U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.

General Ryder sought to stay on that theme Thursday, despite what he acknowledged was "a slight increase » in drone attacks in Iraq and Syria in recent days.

“Currently, this conflict is contained between Israel and Hamas. , and we are going to do everything we can to provide deterrence in the region, so that this does not become a broader conflict,” General Ryder said.

Officials Iranians, however, have publicly warned that new fronts against Israel could open in the region if its offensive on Gaza continues.

A deputy commander of the Guards Corps of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, Gholamhossein Gheybparvar. , said in a speech Thursday that Iran-backed militias in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon – known as an “axis of resistance” – were ready to strike Israel if their ground forces invaded Gaza.

On Wednesday, Iranian state television broadcast a segment detailing how such attacks could unfold.

The report opened with the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. , saying that if the war continued, "no one could stop the resistance forces", referring to a network of militias across the region supported by Iran.

The Houthis in Yemen. from the south, Syrian and Iraqi militias from the east and Hezbollah in northern Lebanon would coordinate to attack Israel with missiles and drones to create “a siege on all sides,” the report claims. The segment said the Houthis had missiles with a range of more than 1,200 miles.

The report said Iraqi militias took up positions alongside Syrian militias near the Golan Heights, an area that Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and later annexed.

Iranian state television regularly broadcasts propaganda and hyperbole, and military threats could be part of a strategy to fuel growing anxiety in the country. the region.

Thursday at the Pentagon, General Ryder said that any US armed response to this week's attacks "if it occurs, it will come at some point and in a way of our choosing. »

In March, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that a self-destructive drone of “Iranian origin” had killed a U.S. contractor and injured another contractor and five service members Americans. in an attack on a maintenance facility at a coalition base in northeast Syria.

President Biden responded by ordering the Pentagon to carrying out airstrikes against facilities in eastern Syria used by affiliated groups. with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The latest wave of attacks continued Wednesday morning when U.S. and coalition forces stationed at the Al Tanf, in southern Syria, fired on two drones, destroying one while the other hit the base, causing "minor injuries", General Ry...