US Ships Move Away From Yemen Coast

Pentagon: Iran Turned Ships Back First

Deployed last week to the Yemeni coast on the pretext of the proximity of a convoy of Iranian cargo ships, whose destination was never known, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and a series of other US warships have begun to leave Yemeni waters, returning to their long-standing position parked off the Iranian coast.

The Pentagon insisted that during the deployment there was no communication with the Iranian cargo ships, and bragged that the Iranian convoy turned away from Yemen before the US warships did.

The move away suggests US ships won’t be engaged any further in the naval blockade of Yemen, though so far they were only confirmed to have carried out a single boarding, of a Panamanian cargo ship they falsely accused of having Iranian weapons on board.

The Iranian cargo convoy remains shrouded in mystery, however, as it never went to Yemen, and no one has ever publicly said where it was actually going. Though the US is trying to present the ships not going to Yemen as some sort of military achievement, it was never more than US conjecture that the ships were headed there anyhow.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.