A U.S. Navy warship in the northern Red Sea on Thursday shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said might have been headed toward Israel.
“We cannot say for certain what these missiles and drones were targeting, but they were launched from Yemen heading north along the Red Sea, potentially towards targets in Israel,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.
The missiles and drones were launched by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen amid a flurry of drone attacks against American troops in Iraq and Syria over the past two days, General Ryder said. The incidents underscored the heightened risks to the United States that the conflict in the Gaza Strip could spiral into a wider war in the Middle East.
One American civilian contractor died during a drone-attack alert on Wednesday, suffering a heart attack while rushing to take shelter at Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq, General Ryder said.
Military analysts are trying to determine who carried out the drone attacks, General Ryder said, but Iran-backed militias have in the past conducted drone and rocket attacks against the 2,500 American troops based in Iraq and the 900 troops in Syria.
Since Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, the Biden administration has rushed two aircraft carriers and additional troops to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel to deter Iran and its proxies in the region from engaging in a wider regional war.
Israel has responded to the Hamas attacks with airstrikes and a “complete siege” of Gaza, which the Palestinian group controls.
Senior American commanders have expressed fears that the United States could get dragged into the conflict if the militias attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
General Ryder sought to stay on that theme on Thursday despite what he acknowledged was “an uptick” in drone attacks in Iraq and Syria in the past few days.
“Right now, this conflict is contained between Israel and Hamas, and we’re going to do everything we can to ensure deterrence in the region, so that this does not become a broader” conflict, General Ryder said.
Any armed American military response “should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing,” he said.
