The United States recently carried out a cyberattack against an Iranian military ship that the Pentagon said was gathering intelligence on merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and passing that information on to Houthi fighters, a U.S. military official said Thursday.
The cyberattack occurred as part of the Biden administration's Feb. 2 retaliation for a drone attack by Iran-backed militias in Iraq last month that killed three American soldiers at a remote outpost in Jordan and injured dozens more, according to the report Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
U.S. analysts had suspected for weeks that the ship, the MV Behshad, was operating near the African port of Djibouti, which sits on the Yemen Strait, to spy on nearby ships and pass that information to Iran-backed Houthi rebels . The Houthis, who control northern Yemen, have fired missiles and drones at ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Iranian officials have denied the allegations. The Houthis said their attacks were in solidarity with Palestinians under attack by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
According to the US military, which did not elaborate on the secret mission, the cyberattack was intended to impair the Iranian ship's ability to pass this information to the Houthis.
Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to comment on the matter Thursday.
The New York Times previously reported that the United States carried out a cyber attack on Iranian targets in response to the deaths of the three soldiers in Jordan. This response also included retaliatory strikes against Iranian forces and the militias they support in seven locations in Syria and Iraq. NBC News first reported new details about the cyberattack on Thursday.