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On February 6, 2025, the United States Navy issued a statement reporting that the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) aircraft carrier and its embarked air wing, and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109) had left the area of the Red Sea two months after arriving there, and had reached Greece.
On February 8, the Houthi Ansar Allah movement Al-Masirah TV website published an article celebrating the "fleeing" of the aircraft carrier and claiming that it departed the region in defeat, unable to fulfill its main mission which, the article contends, was to halt the Houthi assistance operations to the Palestinians during the Al-Aqsa Flood war. According to the article, the U.S. suffered "a historic defeat" at the hands of the Houthis after they presented it with "an unprecedented operational and tactical challenge" which left it powerless for the first time in its history, and even transformed its forces from pursuers into the pursued. It also asserts that President Trump is powerless against the Houthis, and is not expected to bring about any change in the strategic positions of their leadership.
The article on an official Houthi website, claims that the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier is the fourth American aircraft carrier to leave the region without achieving the main goal for which it was dispatched – to deter the armed forces of Yemen, to damage their capabilities, and to employ force to exert influence on the position of the Houthi leadership. The article declares that the departure of the Harry S. Truman was "the jewel in the crown of the great historic defeat" suffered by the United States at the hands of the Houthis. It further states that this is not only because of the American failure to stop the Houthi "assistance operations" to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and their inability to protect the "Zionist ships," but because the American aircraft carriers and the warships that escorted them were themselves transformed into targets of the Houthi forces, which, the article claims, compelled them to distance themselves from the areas where the Houthis operate, and ultimately to flee the region.
According to the article, before the Harry S. Truman departed the region it came under six drone and missile attacks within one month, and the actions of the Houthi forces to chase it away proved the Houthi "operational and tactical superiority" over the American naval forces. Another claim made in the article is that the Houthi attacks on the aircraft carrier were "pre-emptive strikes" which thwarted in advance largescale attacks that the American forces had intended to carry out against Yemen. In this context the article mentions what it describes as the "disgrace" of the aircraft carrier on December 22, 2024, when one of the Houthi attacks caused the downing of an American F/A-18 warplane by friendly fire, when one of the destroyers attempted to intercept the Houthi missiles and drones.
Another claim is that the United States Navy could not match the rate of technological, tactical, and operational development attained by the Houthi forces in the Red Sea. The article contends that this proves that the American defeat is not only the result of "political vacillation" on the part of the Biden administration, but is also the result of "a resounding failure of the basic [American] strategies of deterrence."
The article further states that despite the attempts of the new American administration headed by Trump to place the responsibility for the American defeat on his predecessor, it appears that Trump's administration is incapable of changing the situation. Even Trump's recent decision to designate the Houthis a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) is not expected to cause any real change in the strategic positions of the Houthi leadership, with regard to the Palestinian issue or other issues.
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