FACT CHECK: No, the Houthis Did Not Sink 4 US Ships In Recent Attack

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FACT CHECK: No, the Houthis Did Not Sink 4 US Ships In Recent Attack
A video shared on Face­book claimed Iran­ian-backed Houthi rebels sunk four Unit­ed States ships in a recent attack.

Ver­dict: Mis­lead­ing

While the Houthis did attack these four ships, there is no evi­dence that they were sunk. U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand (CENTCOM) denied that the Houthis dam­aged any of the ships and the Houthis did not claim they sunk any ships, though they did claim strikes were “accu­rate and direct.”

Fact Check:

The Houthis launched an attack on the U.S. Navy and oth­er ves­sels from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1, accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press. The attack was repelled by the U.S. Navy, per the out­let.

The Times of India claimed that the Houthis hit these ships with 17 mis­siles and sunk them. The Face­book post reads, “17 Mis­siles Sink 4 Ships: Houthis Strike U.S. War­ship, Oil Tanker, Con­tain­er Ships In Ara­bi­an Sea.”

This claim is false. There is no evi­dence that the ships were sunk in the attack. CENTCOM denied that any ships were dam­aged in a Dec. 1 state­ment.

“U.S. Navy destroy­ers USS Stock­dale (DDG 106) and the USS O’Kane (DDG 77) suc­cess­ful­ly defeat­ed a range of Houthi-launched weapons while tran­sit­ing the Gulf of Aden, Nov. 30 – Dec. 1.  The destroy­ers were escort­ing three U.S. owned, oper­at­ed, flagged mer­chant ves­sels and the reck­less attacks result­ed in no injuries and no dam­age to any ves­sels, civil­ian or U.S. Naval,” reads part of the state­ment.

The state­ment con­tin­ues, “The destroy­ers suc­cess­ful­ly engaged and defeat­ed three anti-ship bal­lis­tic mis­siles (ASBMs), three one-way attack uncrewed aer­i­al sys­tems (OWA UAS), and one anti-ship cruise mis­sile (ASCM), ensur­ing the safe­ty of the ships and their per­son­nel, as well as civil­ian ves­sels and their crews.”

The Houthis claimed to have tar­get­ed a destroy­er and three oth­er ships. They claimed to have tar­get­ed the ships and that these strikes were “accu­rate and direct.” (RELATED: Will Trump Return To The White House Before Jan­u­ary 20, 2025?)

They did not claim to have sunk all four ships. There­fore, we rate this claim mis­lead­ing.