A Navy warship in the Red Sea on Wednesday again shot down a threatening drone when it got too close and forced the crew to take defensive actions, according to the Pentagon.
The drone came from Yemen and was heading in the direction of the USS Thomas Hudner destroyer, which was in international waters, when the shoot-down occurred, the Pentagon said in a released statement.
It was the latest in a series of confrontations in the region as the U.S. military deployed forces to deter a regional conflict amid the Israel-Hamas war. Another destroyer fired on drones and missiles from Yemen last month, and there have been near daily drone and rocket attacks by Iran-backed groups on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria that have caused traumatic brain injuries.
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“Our assessment right now is that the intended target was not the Hudner, but that the drone got so close to the crew that the commander did feel it necessary to engage and shoot down the drone,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters Thursday.
Singh said she could not confirm whether the drone belonged to the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that has waged civil war in Yemen for years and more recently waged strikes on Israel as it wages war on Hamas.
“We're still doing an assessment of the ownership,” she said.
Singh said she didn't know how close the drone actually got…
