The Navy sent the USS Cole to the Gulf of Aden following an attack earlier this week on a Saudi warship off Yemen by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, a U.S. defense official told Fox News Friday.
(FOX)- The destroyer is the same warship that suffered heavy damage in an Al Qaeda bombing attack in Yemen in 2000 that killed 17 sailors.
The Navy’s move also came as the Trump administration on Friday imposed sanctions on 13 people and a dozen companies in response to Iran’s recent ballistic missile test.
Trump tweeted Friday that “Iran is playing with fire – they don’t appreciate how `kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!”
The Cole has been sent to an area off Yemen where U.S. warships were attacked in October, resulting in a retaliatory Tomahawk cruise missile strike from a U.S. destroyer against Houthi radar installations in on Yemen’s coastline.