The ‘USS Abraham Lincoln’ arriving in the Middle East. Photo: Juan A. Cuban/US Navy.
Pentagon officials revealed on the 19th of November that the USS Abraham Lincoln left the Red Sea “over the weekend,” ending a three-month deployment and leaving West Asia without a US carrier strike group for just the second time in over a year.
According to US officials, the USS Harry S. Truman strike group will reportedly move to the Mediterranean Sea from its current area of operations in the Atlantic near Portugal’s Azores islands.
The USS Lincoln’s withdrawal was announced seven days after Sanaa launched two major military operations against US warships in the Red Sea, reportedly thwarting a “large-scale aggression” being prepared by the US and UK navies against Yemen.
“We targeted the US aircraft carrier Lincoln located in the Arabian Sea with several cruise missiles and drones while it was preparing to launch operations against our country. The operation successfully achieved its objectives,” armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahyaa Saree said on 12 November.
Two days later, Ansarallah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi revealed that the aircraft carrier was forced to retreat “hundreds of miles” away from the Yemeni coast as a result of the retaliatory attacks. “In some instances, the [US] aircraft carrier navigates close to certain African coastlines out of fear of being targeted,” the Yemeni resistance leader said.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) officials last week said there were no injuries, and no warships were damaged following the Yemeni attack, adding that US forces intercepted eight attack drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles, and four anti-ship cruise missiles.
US Warships Pull Back From Yemeni Waters After ‘Shocking’ Ansarallah Attacks
Washington and London have been leading an illegal war against Yemen since January in support of the “Israeli” genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. However, despite months of heavy airstrikes, Yemeni forces have remained undeterred and continue to target “Israeli-linked” vessels in regional waters.
“[Yemeni missiles] can do things that are just amazing,” the US Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante said last week, expressing that Sanaa’s operations “are getting scary.”
“I’m an engineer and a physicist, and I’ve been around missiles my whole career. What I’ve seen of what the Houthis have done in the last six months is something that – I’m just shocked,” LaPlante stressed.
