US military: Black Hawk helicopter crashes off Yemen coast

A Black Hawk helicopter belonging to the US military has crashed off the coast of war-torn Yemen during what is said to be a training mission.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Saturday that the chopper went down during training about 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the southern coast of Yemen at 7 p.m. local time (16000 GMT) a day earlier.

According the statement, search is underway for a missing US service member who was on board, while the five other service members aboard the helicopter had been rescued.

The Central Command noted that an investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the crash.

“When the incident took place the helicopter was not very high above the water,” CENTCOM spokesman Colonel John Thomas said.

Yemen has been under regular US drone strikes, with Washington claiming to be targeting al-Qaeda elements, while local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks.

Washington has over the past months stepped up its such air raids after US President Donald Trump in March gave the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) new powers to launch drone attacks against suspected terrorist targets.

The authority had been limited to the Pentagon under the former US administration.

In January and May, the US conducted deadly ground and aerial raids on Yemeni soil, leaving dozens of people dead.

According to a report by the American Business Insider news website in mid-August, Trump is expected to break his predecessor Barack Obama’s record of dropping the most bombs in the countries where the US is militarily intervening.

The report said Trump has escalated US military involvement in “non-battlefield settings,” including in Yemen, which has seen 92 such operations.

PressTV-Trump breaking Obama’s record in dropping bombs

Trump is expected to surpass Obama’s legacy of waging wars, having dropped in six months virtually the same number of bombs Obama dropped in the whole 2016.

Washington has been a major supporter of the Saudi regime and its allies in their bloody offensive against Yemen, which was launched in March 2015. The US has been providing huge amounts of arms and military training to Riyadh’s military.

The aggression has killed over 12,000 people, according to the latest tallies.

The US-backed Saudi war has fueled the chaos in Yemen, paving the way for al-Qaeda and other terrorists to increase their acts of violence.

The Saudi-led campaign is aimed at reinstalling the former Riyadh-allied government in Yemen and crush the country’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has been running the state affairs since 2014.

The movement, backed by the army and popular forces, has been defending Yemen against Saudi-led air and ground attacks as well as other terrorist activities.

Earlier in August, a new confidential UN report said that after the nearly two-and-a-half year military campaign in Yemen, the Riyadh regime and its partners are “no closer” to achieving their objective, and that they are failing.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk