US warship responds to an attack on commercial ship in Red Sea

The USS Carney responded Monday to a distress call from a commercial vessel after it was attacked by “multiple projectiles” in the southern Red Sea, a US military official said.

The merchant vessel Swan Atlantic was attacked at roughly 9 a.m. Sanaa time, the official said. More information regarding what kind of projectiles were launched and from where was not immediately available, though the attack follows a string of others in recent days by Houthi forces, who are funded and trained by Iran, on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

The attack came as US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is in the region for meetings with senior Israeli officials in Tel Aviv amid ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi forces have been targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea, claiming the attacks as revenge against Israel. Oil giant BP announced Monday that it would pause all shipments through the Red Sea due to the “deteriorating security situation,” marking the latest shipping firm pausing routes through the channel.

CNN has reported that the US is considering beefing up protections for commercial ships around the vital shipping route, according to military officials, with members of the Combined Maritime Forces – a multi-national naval task force charged with protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The discussions about bolstering the task force reflect growing concern in the region over the Iran-backed Houthis’ interference in the Red Sea through which millions of barrels of oil passes daily. US officials have said publicly that discussions have centered on the possibility of escorting ships operating in the Red Sea and through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait into the Gulf of Aden — the narrow channel that separates Yemen and the Horn of Africa.

On Saturday, the USS Carney shot down 14 drones launched from “Houthi-controlled areas” of Yemen, according to US Central Command. The unmanned aircraft systems “were assessed to be one-way attack drones and were shot down with no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries,” CENTCOM posted on X on Saturday.

Last month, the USS Thomas Hudner shot down multiple one-way attack drones launched from Yemen. And in another instance, two ballistic missiles were fired from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen toward the USS Mason in the Gulf of Aden after it responded to a distress call from another commercial tanker that had come under attack by five armed individuals believed to be Somali.

The US has responded to attacks in recent months by launching strikes in eastern Syria and Iraq, targeting weapons depots and storage facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxy militia groups.

This story has been updated with additional information.