Houthis Claim Downing of US F-18 Fighter Jet and Targeting of US Aircraft Carrier
Yemen Monitor/Newsroom:
The military spokesman for the Houthi group claimed that they had shot down an F-18 fighter jet while attempting to intercept US and British aircraft that had launched raids on Houthi positions late last night, Saturday.
Spokesman Yahya Saree added that they had also targeted the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and a number of its destroyers, and had succeeded in thwarting a US-British attack on Yemen.
Early Sunday morning, the US military announced that it had accidentally shot down an F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet over the Red Sea, forcing the pilots to eject.
The US said the incident occurred during a mission by the fighter jet, which was flying over the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. It explained that one of the accompanying ships, the guided-missile cruiser Gettysburg, mistakenly fired on the jet, resulting in its destruction.
Earlier, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the execution of “precise” airstrikes late last night, Saturday, on a missile storage facility and a command and control facility operated by the Ansar Allah group in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a.
CENTCOM said the strikes aimed to “disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, including attacks on US warships and commercial shipping in the southern Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Aden.”
This comes amid talk by Israeli security officials yesterday, Saturday, about Tel Aviv’s readiness to launch another attack in Yemen, involving other countries, after its defense system failed yesterday, Saturday, to intercept another ballistic missile launched from Yemen that fell in Tel Aviv, injuring 30 people and damaging dozens of apartments in the area.