Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a missile Friday at a U.S. warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile, and struck a British vessel as their aggressive attacks on maritime traffic continue.

The attack on the U.S. warship, the destroyer USS Carney, marked a further escalation in the biggest confrontation at sea the U.S. Navy has seen in the Middle East in decades, as Houthi missile fire set another commercial vessel ablaze Friday night.

The Carney attack represents the first time the Houthis directly targeted a U.S. warship since the rebels began their assaults on shipping in October, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident.

Later Friday, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Operations, which oversees Mideast waterways, acknowledged a vessel had been struck by a missile and was on fire in the Gulf of Aden.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree did not acknowledge the Carney attack, but claimed the missile attack on the commercial vessel that set it ablaze. He identified the vessel as the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Marlin Luanda.

A U.S. military official confirmed the vessel was struck by a single anti-ship ballistic missile fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen. The Carney was sailing toward the stricken ship to provide assistance but had not reached it as of Friday evening.

The Houthi's now direct attacks on U.S. warships are the most aggressive escalation of it's campaign in the Red Sea since the Israel-Hamas war broke out. The U.S. has tried to temper its descriptions of the Houthi's strikes, and said it is difficult to determine what exactly the Houthis are trying to hit in part try to prevent the conflict from becoming a wider regional war.

The U.S. and allies had also held off for weeks on striking Houthi weapons sites in Yemen, but they are now taking regular action, often destroying launch sites that are armed but have not fired, and are deemed an imminent threat.

Despite the Carney being directly targeted, a statement by the U.S. military's Central Command Friday said the Houthis fired “toward” the Carney.

Acknowledging Friday’s assault as a direct attack on a U.S. warship is important, said Brad Bowman, a senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

“They’re now finally calling a spade a spade, and saying that, yeah, they’re trying to attack our forces, they’re trying to kill us,” he said.

Tempering the language and response, while aimed at preventing a wider war, has had the opposite effect of further emboldening the Houthis, Bowman said.

In Friday’s attack, an anti-ship ballistic missile came near the USS Carney, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer that’s been involved in American operations to try to stop the Houthi campaign since November, Central Command said.

“The missile was successfully shot down by USS Carney,” it said. “There were no injuries or damage reported.”

The attacks were the latest assaults by the rebels in their campaign against ships traveling through the Red Sea and surrounding waters, which has disrupted global trade amid Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. and Britain have launched multiple rounds of airstrikes since the Houthi attacks began targeting Houthi missile depots and launcher sites in Yemen, a country that's been wracked by conflict since the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea, saying they were avenging Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade between Asia, the Mideast and Europe.

Since the airstrike campaign began, the rebels now say they’ll target American and British ships as well. On Wednesday, two American-flagged ships carrying cargo for the U.S. Defense and State departments came under attack by the Houthis, forcing an escorting U.S. Navy warship to shoot some of the projectiles down.

The U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told the AP on Monday that the Houthi attacks were the worst since the so-called Tanker War of the 1980s. It culminated in a one-day naval battle between Washington and Tehran, and also saw the U.S. Navy accidentally shoot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people in 1988.

USS Carney shoots down missile in first attack on Navy since October

 Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a missile Friday at the Navy destroyer Carney as it patrolled the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile, the U.S. military said Friday.

The attack on the warship marks a further escalation in the biggest confrontation at sea the Navy has seen in the Middle East in decades.

It also represents the first time the Houthis directly targeted a U.S. warship since the rebels began their attacks on shipping in October, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident.

That contradicted a statement by the U.S. Central Command, which said the Houthis fired “toward” the Carney. As it has in previous strikes, the Pentagon said it was difficult to determine what exactly the Houthis were trying to hit.

Ever since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the U.S. has tried to temper its descriptions of the strikes targeting its bases and warships to try to prevent the conflict from becoming a wider regional war.

Acknowledging Friday’s assault as a direct attack on a U.S. warship is important, said Brad Bowman, a senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

“They’re now finally calling a spade a spade, and saying that, yeah, they’re trying to attack our forces, they’re trying to kill us,” Bowman said.

Tempering the language, while aimed at preventing a wider war, has had the opposite effect of further enabling the Houthis, he said.

In Friday’s attack, an anti-ship ballistic missile came near the Carney, which has been involved in American operations to try and stop the Houthi campaign since November, Central Command said.

“The missile was successfully shot down by USS Carney,” Central Command said. “There were no injuries or damage reported.”

The attack was the latest assault by the rebels in their campaign against ships traveling through the Red Sea and surrounding waters, which has disrupted global trade amid Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Houthi rebels did not immediately acknowledge the attack, though they typically take several hours afterward to claim their assaults.

The U.S. and Britain have launched multiple rounds of airstrikes in the time since targeting Houthi missile depots and launcher sites in Yemen, a country that’s been wracked by conflict since the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea, saying they were avenging Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade between Asia, the Mideast and Europe.

Since the airstrike campaign began, the rebels now say they’ll target American and British ships as well. On Wednesday, two American-flagged ships carrying cargo for the U.S. Defense and State departments came under attack by the Houthis, forcing an escorting U.S. Navy warship to shoot some of the projectiles down.

The U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told the AP on Monday that the Houthi attacks were the worst since the so-called Tanker War of the 1980s. It culminated in a one-day naval battle between Washington and Tehran, and also saw the U.S. Navy accidentally shoot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people in 1988.

Oil tanker on fire in Gulf of Aden after Houthi missile attack

An oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden is on fire after a missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi militants, in the latest incident linked to the Iran-backed group in the key shipping route.

The operator of the Marlin Luanda oil tanker, the commodities group Trafigura, said Friday the vessel had been “struck by a missile in the Gulf of Aden after transiting the Red Sea,” and that “firefighting equipment on board is being deployed to suppress and control the fire caused in one cargo tank on the starboard side.”

The Iran-backed militants claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that they had fired on the tanker in response to the “American-British aggression against our country [Yemen]” and in support of the Palestinian people.

Trafigura, which has offices in Britain, said it is monitoring the situation and that military ships in the region are on the way “to provide assistance.”

The British government has yet to comment on the attack.

A US destroyer in the Gulf of Aden is responding to a distress call from the burning tanker, according to a US official.

Earlier in the day, the USS Carney, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, shot down a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile that targeted the US warship, according to US Central Command. There were no injuries as a result of the attack on the USS Carney.

The US and UK have been carrying out strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen after the Biden administration and its allies warned that the group would bear the consequences of its attacks in the international shipping lane.

The Houthis have said that they won’t stop their attacks until the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza comes to an end. Houthi leader Abdul Malek al-Houthi said in a speech that it is “a great honor and blessing to be confronting America directly.”

The attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes. Tankers are instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal.

CNN previously reported that US intelligence officials believe Iran is carefully calibrating its response to Israel’s war in Gaza, allowing and even encouraging its proxy groups to exact costs against Israeli and American interests in the region – while stopping short of activities that would spark a direct confrontation with Iran itself.

Within Yemen, a yearslong conflict between Houthi forces and a Saudi-backed coalition has plunged the population into a devastating humanitarian crisis marked by famine, economic turmoil and extreme poverty.

Houthi forces stormed the capital Sanaa in 2014, and toppled the internationally recognized and Saudi-backed government, triggering a civil war. The conflict spiraled into a wider war in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened in an attempt to beat back the Houthis.

The conflict has killed up to 377,000 people, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported in 2021. More than half of those died from indirect causes associated with the conflict, such as lack of food, water and healthcare.

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Peace expert says U.S. strikes on Houthis in Yemen mark 'very dangerous moment in the Middle East'

One day after the U.S. and U.K. launched retaliatory strikes against Houthi militant locations in Yemen, President Biden said the U.S. is prepared to take action again if the Iran-backed rebels continue to attack ships in the Red Sea.

“We will make sure that we respond to the Houthis if they continue with this outrageous behavior along with our allies,” Biden told reporters traveling with him in Pennsylvania on Friday.

The strikes, which were carried out with support from various allies following several warnings from the U.S., were in response to the Houthis’ repeated attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea, which are causing major disruptions to global maritime trade. They struck more than 60 targets in more than a dozen locations in Yemen.

“I think the hope was there would be other ways to deter Houthi attacks on Red Sea targets,” Mona Yacoubian, vice president of the Middle East and North Africa Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told Yahoo News. “It was the significant barrage of missiles and drones on January 9 that finally gave the U.S. — from its perspective — no option but to respond directly by attacking Houthi targets in Yemen.”

Yacoubian spoke to Yahoo News about what these strikes mean for rising tensions in the Middle East amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. (Some answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

What was the objective of the U.S. and U.K. strikes?

Yacoubian: The objective is deterrence, and to put an end to the Houthi strikes on targets in the Red Sea. Whether or not that objective is achieved is a whole other question.

Why are the Houthis in Yemen attacking various ships in the Red Sea?

Yacoubian: The Houthis are claiming that the strikes are part of their opposition to Israel and the U.S., with respect to the conflict in Gaza. The Houthi reaction in the Red Sea comes as part of the reverberations of the conflict in Gaza, where the Houthis really have sought an opportunity to exploit that conflict, to insert themselves and put themselves on the international stage.

What is the significance of the Red Sea in all of this?

Yacoubian: The Red Sea is a critical byway to keep the international economy functioning, and functioning well.

As a result of these Houthi attacks, we've seen shipping companies now opt to avoid the Red Sea and use a much longer route that takes them around the horn of Africa.

This is creating significant disruptions for customers and is adding to the cost of shipping.

Do you think the U.S. and U.K. strikes will lead to an escalation of a wider war in the Middle East?

Yacoubian: I believe we are in the throes of a much broader region-wide conflict that has directly drawn in the United States. The Houthis are now vowing revenge on Americans. Honestly, [the Houthis are] in a position where they can sort of control a bit of the pace of escalation. They simply need to say, ‘Hey, we're here, still standing’ and undertake additional strikes.

This will once again put the United States in the difficult position of having to then escalate its own military intervention as a way of seeking to deter Houthi military action. And before you know it, I think we're off on a whole new escalatory cycle that very much encumbers the United States.

What is Iran’s role in all of this?

Yacoubian: Iran has been providing support to a variety of proxies in the region for years. Hezbollah is perhaps the most developed relationship. Some would refer to Hezbollah as the ‘crown jewel’ of Iran's proxies.

The Houthis, by contrast, are a newer relationship, but one that's proving, I think as we are seeing, to be rather potent. It’s clear that the Iranians, according to [Biden] administration sources, have been providing support to the Houthis for the strikes that they’ve been undertaking in the Red Sea.

In some ways, to date, Iran has benefited from a degree of plausible deniability by having proxies, like the Houthis, to undertake strikes against the U.S. and other targets, by creating conundrums and problems for the United States, but not drawing a direct U.S. response on Iran, which I think would be cataclysmic for the region. Then we would be in a region-wide war and in a very dangerous place.

(President Biden was asked by the press traveling with him in Pennsylvania on Friday if the U.S. is in a proxy war with Iran. “No,” he responded. “Iran does not want a war with us.)

What happens now?

Yacoubian: We’re at a very dangerous moment in the Middle East. Unfortunately, I think the kind of rising tensions at this flashpoint in the Red Sea have now tipped the region into the broader conflict that many fear could happen.

I think the big question at this point is going to be how to move from a situation of escalating tensions and violence, to one in which the United States can restore deterrence and deescalate very, very dangerous tensions before others end up joining the fight.

U.S. re-designates Houthis as 'terrorist' group after 3rd strike on Yemen's militants. Here's the latest on the unfolding conflict.

The Biden administration announced on Wednesday it has decided to reclassify the Houthis in Yemen as a “specially designated global terrorist." News of the decision to add the financial penalties comes as the U.S. continues to launch strikes against the Houthis in response to the Iran-backed militant group’s attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

"These attacks fit the textbook definition of terrorism," national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

Restoring the terrorist designation

The re-designation will take effect on Feb. 16, "to ensure robust humanitarian carve outs are in place so our action targets the Houthis and not the people of Yemen," the statement said.

"This designation is an important tool to impede terrorist funding to the Houthis, further restrict their access to financial markets, and hold them accountable for their actions," Sullivan said in the statement. "If the Houthis cease their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the United States will immediately reevaluate this designation."

In 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken de-listed the Houthis as both a “foreign terrorist organization” and as “specially designated global terrorists,” undoing a Trump administration move in an effort to make it easier to get humanitarian aid into Yemen.

In an interview with The Hill, Dave Harden, a former senior State Department official who served in both the Trump and Obama administrations, said before the announcement it’s not clear what impact reinstating the SDGT label to the Houthis would have on the current conflict.

“It doesn’t matter to the Houthis that they’re a foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law, they probably like it,” Harden said. “They don’t bank and shop and travel and engage in the Western economy. They’re not like [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov]. These guys, it doesn’t affect them, and if anything, it’s a badge of honor.”

Here’s what else is happening in the ongoing Red Sea conflict as fears of a wider war in the Middle East continue to grow.

U.S. strikes

The U.S. launched new strikes against the Houthis on Tuesday, targeting four missiles that appeared to be prepared for attacks on commercial ships, military officials said. It was the third strike against the militant group since the U.S. first took military action last week in response to the Houthis’ repeated attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea that are causing major disruptions to global maritime trade. The U.S. and U.K. militaries struck more than 60 targets in more than a dozen Houthi locations in Yemen.

The latest U.S. strikes came after Houthis attempted to hit a U.S. warship on Sunday and damaged a U.S.-owned and operated container ship on Monday.

Hours after Tuesday’s strikes , Houthi militants hit a Greek bulk carrier, but no injuries were reported, according to military officials.

“Just because there hasn't been a catastrophically successful one yet, thanks to a lot of great work by the U.S. Navy and allied and partner navies, doesn't mean that we can just turn a blind eye and sit back and do nothing,” John Kirby, National Security Council spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday. “We want these attacks to stop. ... We’re not going to hesitate to take further action if needed.”

Two U.S. Navy sailors are missing following Yemen-bound ship raid

Search and rescue operations are currently underway for two U.S. Navy sailors who went missing while conducting a raid of a Yemen-bound ship off the coast of Somalia last Thursday, according to U.S. Central Command.

The U.S. military also announced on Tuesday that, during the raid, Navy SEALs seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with those two sailors and their families, who are waiting anxiously for word. And obviously, we’ll monitor as closely as we can,” Kirby told reporters on Tuesday.