Blake Hall
On Monday we reported that the U.S. aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt was moving to block Iranian arms shipments to Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Nimitz-class warship — otherwise known as “The Big Stick” — was joined by the guided-missile cruiser the USS Normandy off the coast of Yemen to deter the Iranian vessels from making the ill-advised delivery.
Well, it looks like the tactic worked, according to the Fox News sources within the Pentagon.
The nine ships from the mercurial Middle Eastern country are south of Salalah, Oman, in the Arabian Sea headed northeast, in other words, retreating to home sweet home.
An undisclosed Pentagon source described the two Iranian Navy ships as slightly smaller than destroyers. They escorted seven freighters carrying weapons and munitions that are “bigger than small arms”.
The U.S. operation “shadowed” the convoy all this week, using fighters jets stationed on the 100,000-ton nuclear-powered carrier to relay their position back to command.
Before the Roosevelt and Normandy got there, the Iranian ships had sailed southwest along the coast of Yemen heading in the direction of Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea. They appeared to drop anchor in the north Arabian Sea when they were first intercepted.
While this turn of events is positive for both the U.S. and the Yemeni government, the Pentagon sources are cautioning that it’s not over just yet.