{"id":298645,"date":"2024-11-16T06:24:43","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T06:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=298645"},"modified":"2024-11-18T08:19:08","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T08:19:08","slug":"exclusive-houthi-arsenal-shocks-the-pentagons-top-weapons-buyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=298645","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Houthi arsenal shocks the Pentagon&#8217;s top weapons buyer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Crew onboard HMS Diamond shoot down Houthis drones over the Red Sea in January 2024. HMS Diamond sailed in support of the USS Sight D. Eisenhower.<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Colin Demarest \u2013 Axios.com Nov 14, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Houthi rebels are brandishing increasingly sophisticated weapons, including missiles that &#8220;can do things that are just amazing,&#8221; the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/08\/21\/japan-patriot-missiles-laplante\">Pentagon&#8217;s chief weapons buyer<\/a> said at an Axios event.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/01\/12\/us-uk-strike-yemen-houthi-rebels-red-sea\">militant group<\/a> has for a year used drones and missiles to strangle waters off Yemen, disrupting international shipping.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante on Wednesday said the Houthis &#8220;are getting scary.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I&#8217;m an engineer and a physicist, and I&#8217;ve been around missiles my whole career,&#8221; he said at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/11\/06\/axios-event-future-of-defense-megadecade\">Future of Defense summit<\/a> in Washington, DC. &#8220;What I&#8217;ve seen of what the Houthis have done in the last six months is something that \u2014 I&#8217;m just shocked.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>State of play: <\/strong>The group&#8217;s forces menace almost every ship passing by \u2014 civilian or military \u2014 and have even sent some to the seafloor.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Two U.S. Navy destroyers were attacked days ago as they slipped through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.<\/li>\n<li>At least eight attack drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and four anti-ship cruise missiles were intercepted, according to U.S. Central Command. No injuries or damage to the warships were reported.<\/li>\n<li>The barrages are said to be in retaliation to Israel&#8217;s war in Gaza. But many targets have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/01\/12\/us-uk-strike-yemen-houthi-rebels-red-sea\">no obvious affiliation<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom out: <\/strong>The Houthis are empowered by Iran. The U.S. considers the regime a national security threat.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;The Houthis are the only Iranian proxy with anti-ship ballistic missiles,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/authors\/bbtaleblu\">Behnam Ben Taleblu<\/a>, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Axios. &#8220;That is no accident.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Houthi zeal and Iranian backing, he added, &#8220;have proven to be a lethal combination.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/11\/14\/laplante-houthi-antiship-missiles-iran\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Much of the Houthi\u2019s newfound capabilities \u2013 which has reportedly \u2018shocked\u2019 Pentagon insiders \u2013 has been realised with the help of Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":279826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Iran","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=298645"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298647,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298645\/revisions\/298647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/279826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=298645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=298645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=298645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}