The United States recently conducted a cyberattack against an Iranian military vessel that was gathering and providing intelligence to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, purportedly to help them attack merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The cyberattack, which occurred last week, was seemingly carried out partly in response to the deaths of three U.S. soldiers during a drone attack in Jordan last month that also injured dozens, as per a U.S. official speaking to NBC News.
The targeted ship was the MV Behshad, an Iranian military ship disguised as a cargo vessel, which Iran allegedly uses to give targeting data to the Houthis to improve the effectiveness of their attacks.
Through the cyberattack, the U.S. aimed to disrupt the ship’s capacity to share intelligence with the Houthis, the report noted, adding that the U.S. rarely discusses covert missions publicly.
Iran claims the ship merely exists to counter piracy in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, according to Iranian military propaganda.
The MV Behshad is registered as a commercial cargo ship belonging to an Iranian company sanctioned by the U.S. for being a front for Iran’s Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.
Per CNN, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses the ship as a covert base in the region to gather and distribute intelligence to militants, and the ship was sanctioned under former President Donald Trump’s administration.