US Aircraft Carrier’s Near Miss With Missile Fired by Middle East Rebels

Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which are supported by Iran, reportedly nearly hit a United States aircraft carrier in the Red Sea with a missile earlier this year.

The incident was reported in the October issue of CTC Sentinel, a monthly publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, officially known as the United States Military Academy. The center is an academic institution that was created after the 9/11 attacks.

In the article, Michael Knights, the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow with the Military and Security Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote about how the Houthis achieved some “impressive feats of marksmanship” against ships with weapons.

“By some accounts, an ASBM [anti-ship ballistic missile] or other missile arrived at a very shallow trajectory, with minimal warning, without a chance for interception, and splashing down around 200 meters [656 feet] from” the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, for comment by email. The author said the details of the incident were gathered from interviews with Yemen-focused American and British intelligence officers.

In May, the Houthi rebels claimed to have conducted a missile attack on the Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea. The aircraft carrier and its strike group, which returned home in July, engaged in combat in the Middle East from November last year to June.

“There is no truth to those rumors,” a duty officer from the Defense Press Operations of the Pentagon told Newsweek at the time. Following the news, images appeared online that were said to show strike damage to the aircraft carrier, but they were proved to be false.

The Iran-backed rebels began attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden after the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October last year. The U.S. and its European allies sent warships to protect civilian ships.

The Houthis used a wide range of weapons to carry out attacks, such as unmanned aerial, surface and underwater vehicles, as well as ballistic and cruise missiles. They employed the ship-based Automatic Identification System to “find, fix, and finish” the target.

According to the U.S. Navy, the Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group expended 155 surface-to-air missiles, 135 land-attack cruise missiles, nearly 60 air-to-air missiles and 420 air-to-surface weapons during what it called a “historic” combat deployment.

Besides the Dwight D. Eisenhower, the carrier strike group was composed of cruiser USS Philippine Sea, destroyers USS Gravely and USS Mason, as well as nine carrier-based aircraft squadrons. They were augmented by destroyers USS Laboon and USS Carney.

The cruiser and destroyers, which were armed with missiles for air defense, formed a defensive layer to protect the aircraft carrier. Meanwhile, fighter jets aboard the aircraft carrier, equipped with air-to-air missiles, can shoot down slow-flying drones and missiles.

The aircraft carrier itself is also armed with weapons for self-defense, including surface-to-air missiles and gun-based close-in weapon systems. They are considered the last line of defense against incoming missiles and drones as they have a relatively short range.

The U.S. Navy currently deploys one aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Middle East. It was previously on station with sister ship USS Theodore Roosevelt, which had left the region last month and returned to its home port of San Diego in California on Tuesday.

Another aircraft carrier, USS Harry S. Truman, was deployed to the North Sea in Northern Europe on Monday, raising concerns about the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. However, the Pentagon said the U.S. already has a significant amount of capability in the region.