US destroyer famous for ‘self-defense strikes’ on Yemen redeploys to Saudi coast as Pentagon prepares more purely defensive assets
RT.com
22 Sep, 2019
The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Nitze, armed with surface-to-air and Tomahawk cruise missiles, was redeployed off the northeast coast of Saudi Arabia, as part of the US effort to “plug the holes” in its ally’s air defenses.
Under the pretext of the “dramatic escalation of Iranian aggression,” the Pentagon announced the deployment of additional troops and other military assets to the Persian Gulf. Exact details are still being worked out, but the deployment will be “limited” and purely “defensive” in nature, US military brass promised.
In the meantime, one guided missile destroyer has already been redeployed to the northern Persian Gulf to “plug the holes” in Saudi Arabia’s air defenses, according to US media reports. Equipped with Aegis radar and surface-to-air missiles, the USS Nitze is better known, not for its air defense capabilities, but for a ‘self-defense’ Tomahawk strike on Yemen.
In a rare act of direct US military involvement in the Saudi-led Yemen war, in 2016, the USS Nitze carried out a series of strikes supposedly targeting “radar sites” – in the name of protecting the “freedom of navigation.” Back then, Washington accused the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of launching several missiles at an American warship (causing no casualties or damage). Of course, all the targets of the ‘self-defense’ attack were located “in remote areas, where there was little risk of civilian casualties or collateral damage,” the Obama-era Pentagon claimed at the time.
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