A recent maritime suicide bombing off the coast of the Yemen may have been a “dress rehearsal” for a comparable attack on US destroyers patrolling waterways in the Middle East, APA reports quoting sputniknews.
Defense analysts believe that not only might the attack have been a practice round for bigger fish, like the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Cole, but also that the attack was from a manned suicide vessel, as opposed to a missile or rocket strike. Multiple suicide ships may have caused the strike.
The Houthis are experimenting with tactics to reduce the power of the US naval fleet in the region, Pentagon analysts told Fox News, which corroborates with the chorus of a man promulgating "Allahu Akbar (God is great)! death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews and victory for Islam!" in the following video.
A Saudi-led coalition of nine Middle East nations has been engaged in a conflict with the armed Houthi political opposition faction, which has been seeking to create an autonomous state since 2004. Washington has supported the Saudi-led coalition by supplying weapons and military equipment. In December 2016, the Department of Defense announced the sale of $3.5 billion worth of Chinook helicopters to Riyadh, in addition to some 600 Lockheed Martin PAC-3 missiles, worth some $5 billion.
The three biggest buyers of US weapons in 2015 were, in descending order, Qatar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, writes national security specialist Catherine Theohary. Each nation is fighting against the Iranian-backed Houthis. Qatar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia accounted for 94.5 percent of the US’ $40 billion revenues from the global weapons market, according to Theohary’s data.
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