Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the oh-shoot dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Saudi military base also targeted by missile fired deep inside the kingdom near holy city of Mecca.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/navy-ship-targeted-missile-attack-yemen-161010034052132.html

A US Navy destroyer has been targeted in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels, a US military spokesman says.

In another attack, a ballistic missile launched from Yemen targeted a Saudi airbase near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi and rebel media reported Monday, the deepest strike yet into the kingdom by the rebels and their allies.

Two missiles failed to hit the US Navy ship after being launched on Sunday, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told Reuters news agency.

"USS Mason detected two inbound missiles over a 60-minute period while in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. Both missiles impacted the water before reaching the ship," he said. "There were no injuries to our sailors and no damage to the ship."

Lieutenant Ian McConnaughey, a Navy spokesman, said on Monday that it was unclear if the Mason was specifically targeted, though the missiles were fired in its direction.

The destroyer at the time of the missile fire was north of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which serves as a gateway for oil tankers headed to Europe through the Suez Canal, a defence official said.

[...] On Monday, Saudi state television broadcast a brief clip of what appeared to be a projectile landing in Taif and the flash of an explosion, followed by images of emergency vehicles.

Taif is home to Saudi Arabia's King Fahad Air Base, which hosts US military personnel training the kingdom's armed forces.

The Saudi military said the missile fired late on Saturday caused no damage. The US military's Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Al-Masirah, a satellite news channel run by the Houthis, identified the missile as a local variant of a Soviet-era Scud missile. It said the Volcano-1 missile targeted the airbase.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:51AM

    by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:51AM (#412772) Journal
    The Yemenis are apparently claiming the missile attack on the Saudi Base - and also another strike against a Saudi base inside Yemen - but not claiming any attack on the US ship. Even the US military doesn't seem to be sure it was an attack on the US ship, a couple of missiles fell out of the sky somewhere vaguely near the US ship but apparently outside its threat perimeter (otherwise they would have attempted to shoot them down.)

    But that's really minor compared to the second omission. Probably the most important single fact that could be mentioned about this event was skipped. The attacks on the Saudi bases are in retaliation for an attack two days ago, when the Saudis bombed a big funeral and killed 140 Yemenis, many prominent ones. This has convinced many Yemenis to quit talking peace and go full warpath, apparently including some folks that have the more fancy weapons and have been keeping them out of play prior to this.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=1, Informative=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Chrontius on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:01AM

    by Chrontius (5246) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:01AM (#412776)

    Do we know if they fell out of the sky outside the threat perimeter, or are we just very politely not pointing out that they were shot down by the Phalanx guns or laser cannons or whatever now provides the outermost layer of the point-defense network on a modern destroyer?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:57AM

      by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:57AM (#412794) Journal
      What I have is this:

      http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/10/10/two-missiles-fired-yemen-land-near-us-warship/91844032/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

      "Two missiles fired from rebel-held territory in Yemen landed near a U.S. warship in the Red Sea, the U.S. Navy said Monday.

      Ian McConnaughey, a spokesman for U.S. Navy Forces Central Command, said it was unclear if the USS Mason — a guided missile destroyer — was specifically targeted, but the missiles were fired in its direction in the space of an hour from 7 p.m. local time Sunday."

      So no, that's not proof of a negative, it's only indicative, but they have no reason to minimize this, if anything their motivation is to do the opposite. So my characterization would appear to be extremely likely to be correct. It sounds to me like the US Navy spokesman chose his words very carefully.

      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:28PM (#413013)

        In that URL, all of this is unnecessary to get the page:
        ?utm_source=feedblitz
        &utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss
        &utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:42PM

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:42PM (#413022) Journal

          Join the editing team and you can be our special URL processor. Did the URL cause your computer to catch fire, crash, or otherwise cease to function correctly? No? Then there is no problem. If it did, please join our very small and busy team and support us by preventing this sort of problem for occurring again.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:35PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:35PM (#413162)

            ...if you download the site's CSS and run it.
            I don't.
            (I like a white background with black text and no sidebars.)
            As such, ridiculously long strings of text with no whitespaces spill past the right edge of my screen.
            (I liked the way that was handled back at the start of the site, which worked for any browser setup.)

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

            • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday October 12 2016, @04:45AM

              by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 12 2016, @04:45AM (#413281) Journal

              I liked the way that was handled back at the start of the site, which worked for any browser setup.

              And most of the time that is exactly what you get, However, it is a time consuming part of our task and we are currently very stretched. There are two options, as I pointed out to you in my earlier post. You either accept that, from time to time and despite our best efforts, such things will slip through or you join the team and help out by providing additional editorial support. We would, of course, prefer the latter,

          • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday October 17 2016, @04:46AM

            by Arik (4543) on Monday October 17 2016, @04:46AM (#415094) Journal
            "Did the URL cause your computer to catch fire, crash, or otherwise cease to function correctly? No? Then there is no problem."

            I have to agree with anon that that is a bit too glib.

            I normally strip such junk out manually before posting, in this case I failed. Mea culpa.

            However, if I understood the problem the other gent had, it sounds like a browser issue. It's usually a mistake in the long run to fix a problem at the wrong level. You shouldn't be expected to work around all the buggy browsers out there, they should fix them instead.
            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @03:57AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @03:57AM (#413262)

          The firefox extension PureURL [mozilla.org] strips that crap off by default.
          You can manually add other crap to the list of crap to strip off.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:16AM (#412806)

      Do we know if they fell out of the sky outside the threat perimeter, or are we just very politely not pointing out that they were shot down by the Phalanx guns or laser cannons or whatever now provides the outermost layer of the point-defense network on a modern destroyer?

      So far no news agencies have indicated whether the missiles were actively shot down. The USS Mason [wikipedia.org] has 20mm Phalanx CIWS for its PDN. If the missiles were actively targeting then I'm a bit disappointed that the USS Mason didn't mark the point of launch and send a BGM-109 as a response.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:51AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:51AM (#412824)

        With how much those suckers cost I'm gonna go with "happy" they didn't let one loose. There's plenty of waste so it would be a drop in the bucket, but hey why add the extra drop?

        • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:37AM

          by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:37AM (#412899) Journal

          Because I'm not getting more hooker and blow money you selfish clod! -Raytheon exec

    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday October 17 2016, @04:49AM

      by Arik (4543) on Monday October 17 2016, @04:49AM (#415096) Journal
      The navy now seems to be saying that the Mason may have been picking up non-existing missiles because of a radar malfunction, which would neatly explain why the Yemenis keep denying that they are launching anything in that direction.

      http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/15/politics/uss-mason-fired-on-again/
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 11 2016, @08:15AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @08:15AM (#412849) Journal

    "a couple of missiles fell out of the sky somewhere vaguely near the US ship but apparently outside its threat perimeter"

    I've seen that before, first hand, with guns. 1981, we were tasked with keeping tabs on Iran's "Million Man Army" and Hussein's Merciless Mothers. We went in closer to shore one day, to get a better look at a battle in progress. I think it was both sides that turned their artillery our way, and started firing. Everything fell way short, like two miles and more short. We were kinda pissed that they were shooting at us, but we didn't really feel threatened. All the same, we got out of Dodge before they had time to learn from their mistakes. I have no way of knowing if their guns even had the range to reach us, but I do know that we were in range to hammer them with our guns.

    The range to the beach was about fifteen miles, the closest guns (that we could see) were about a mile inland, but there may have been more guns behind hills.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @10:25AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @10:25AM (#412883)

      Oh look, there's a battle over there. Let's get involved!

      You guys are fucked in the head.

      • (Score: 2) by ticho on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:24AM

        by ticho (89) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:24AM (#412895) Homepage Journal

        Alas, it's what you do when you consider yourself "World Police".

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:54PM (#412993)

          And who is the unarmed black person in this scenario?
          Oh wait it fits, all the innocent civilians that the US bombs.

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:58PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:58PM (#412933) Journal

        Dude, life is just a temporary condition. Fucked in the head, you say? I say, "What's to worry about?" Besides, didn't I make it clear that those silly assed Muslims can't hit anything? I've been told that they don't aim, they point the weapon down range somewhere close to the target, close their eyes, pull the trigger/lanyard, and recite "Allah be willing, this shell will hit the target!" The rest of us know that Allah don't give a damn about mortals, so we take careful aim before we fire. These are the same people who bought all those dousing sticks based on some wild assed claim that a high tech dousing stick could find explosives.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:45PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:45PM (#412946)

          > I've been told that they don't aim,

          You've been told a lot of things. You seem to be extremely credulous.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:42AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:42AM (#413347)

          Yeah, not really worried about you getting hit. Except that the Good Ol' USA would use it as an excuse to kill yet more people. You're still fucked in the head.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:19PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:19PM (#412939)

        That's nothing new: Back in 1961, at the First Battle of Bull Run / Manassas, a bunch of members of Congress packed a picnic lunch and rode out in their carriages to watch the carnage unfold in person. This stopped seeming like a good idea right about the point when the Union army retreated and the congresscritters had to make a mad dash back to Washington to not get caught by the advancing Confederate forces.

        More recently, there was the firefight between the Boston marathon bombers and the police, with all sorts of random people hanging outside their window trying to get a better view of what was going on even though that was just making it harder for the cops.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by number6x on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:55PM

          by number6x (903) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:55PM (#412952)

          1961?

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:06PM

            by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:06PM (#412956)

            Sorry, typo, I of course meant 1861.

            --
            The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:30PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:30PM (#413015)

              ...though it wouldn't surprise me a bit to know that there were reenactors on the 100th anniversary out there, giving it all they had (including spectators in antebellum garb).

              -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]