Two US Navy SEALs are missing off the coast of Somalia after falling into the water during a nighttime boarding mission on Thursday, according to two US officials.
Officials said the SEALs fell into the water one by one while boarding a ship by boat in the Gulf of Aden.
It was unclear what prompted them to board the ship.
Search operations for the missing SEALs are continuing, a US defense official said.
The Gulf of Aden has become a focal point of U.S. naval activity as Yemen's Houthi fighters have carried out more than two dozen attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since mid-November.
U.S. Navy ships stationed in these waters have responded to distress calls from some of these merchant vessels or shot down dozens of Houthi drones and missiles.
On Thursday and Friday, the US carried out airstrikes against nearly 30 locations linked to the Houthi attacks.
“On the evening of January 11, two U.S. Navy sailors were reported missing at sea while conducting operations off the coast of Somalia,” said a U.S. Central Command statement released Friday, announcing that the sailors had disappeared.
“Search and rescue operations are currently underway to locate the two sailors,” the statement said. “For operational security reasons, we will not release any further information until the personnel recovery operation is complete.”
The statement did not disclose what type of operation the sailors were conducting at the time, other than to say they were “deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet (C5F) area of operations supporting a variety of missions.”
“Out of respect for the affected families, we will not be releasing any further information about the missing personnel at this time,” it said.
A former U.S. official described night boarding operations as some of the most complex and dangerous operations that Navy sailors can undertake, and that sea conditions and environmental aspects are constantly monitored.