Eisenhower aircraft carrier heads home
U.S. officials ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading America’s response to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, to return home after a twice-extended tour.
The Eisenhower, based in Norfolk, Virginia, is returning home after an over eight-month deployment in combat that the Navy says is its most intense since World War II. The San Diego-based USS Theodore Roosevelt will take the Eisenhower’s place after a scheduled exercise in the Indo-Pacific, according to the Pentagon’s press secretary, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.
The Roosevelt anchored Saturday in Busan, South Korea, amid Seoul’s ongoing tensions with North Korea.
The Eisenhower had already reached the Mediterranean Sea, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ship movements.
Flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed a Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopter associated with the Eisenhower flying above the Mediterranean just off the coast of Port Said, Egypt, on Saturday night.
The Eisenhower had repeatedly been targeted by false attack claims by the Houthis during its time in the Red Sea. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, on Saturday night claimed another attack on the carrier — but provided no evidence to support it as the ship already had left the area.
Meanwhile, an attack by Yemen’s Houthi terrorists targeted a commercial ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden but apparently caused no damage, authorities said Saturday, in the latest strike on the shipping lane by the group.
The Houthi attack comes after the sinking this week of the ship Tutor, which marked what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign of strikes on ships in the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
The captain of the ship targeted late Friday saw “explosions in the vicinity of the vessel,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. A later briefing by the U.S.-overseen Joint Maritime Information Center said the vessel initially reported two explosions off its port side and a third one later.
“The vessel was not hit and sustained no damage,” the center said. “The vessel and crew are reported to be safe and are proceeding to their next port of call.”