US navy's battle against Yemen 'largest since WWII'

News Desk - The Cradle 

The US Navy continues to battle Yemeni forces in the Red Sea to support Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza

US aircraft carriers Gerald R. Ford and Dwight D. Eisenhower and ships in their Strike Groups sail in formation in the Mediterranean Sea. (Photo credit: AFP)

The US Navy's current conflict with Yemen's Ansarallah-led armed forces in the Red Sea is one of the most significant battles the US Navy has fought in decades, a US admiral said on 18 February.

"I think you'd have to go back to World War II where you have ships who are engaged in combat," Vice Adm. Brad Cooper told the CBS News' 60 Minutes program in an interview broadcast Sunday.

"When I say engaged in combat, where they're getting shot at, we're getting shot at, and we're shooting back," he continued.
Cooper, the deputy commander of the US Central Command, said the Navy had committed about 7,000 sailors to the Red Sea. CBS reported that the Navy had fired about 100 standard surface-to-air missiles against Yemeni missiles and drones.
Since mid-November, Yemen's armed forces have been attacking shipping vessels linked to Israel sailing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea. Ansarallah is committed to halting Israel's ongoing military assault on Gaza, which many view as genocide.

The US has supplied Israel with thousands of bombs and other weapons to allow the slaughter in Gaza to continue. Without US support, Israel would quickly be forced to end the campaign.

Rather than asking Israel to agree to a ceasefire and negotiate an end to the Gaza conflict, in which Israel has killed over 12,000 Palestinian children, the US and UK sent warships to the Red Sea to attack Yemeni forces.

Cooper claimed it was "crystal clear" that Yemeni forces could not do battle against the US and UK, viewed as world powers, without Iranian support.

"For a decade, the Iranians have been supplying the Houthis [Ansarallah]. They've been resupplying them. They're resupplying them as we sit here right now, at sea," Cooper told O'Donnell. “We know this is happening. They're advising them, and they're providing targeting information.”

In response to the US effort to rally allied countries for war on Yemen in December, Ansarallah politburo Mohammed al-Bukhaiti vowed that Yemen's armed forces would not back down. 

He stated that “Yemen awaits the creation of the filthiest coalition in history to engage in the holiest battle in history. How will the countries that rushed to form an international coalition against Yemen to protect the perpetrators of Israeli genocide be perceived?”

The Yemeni armed forces announced on 19 February a new attack on a British commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden, adding that the ship was nearly destroyed.

"The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces … carried out an effective military operation, targeting a British ship in the Gulf of Aden, RUBYMAR, with several naval missiles," Yemeni army spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement.