Rockets narrowly misses US warships in Jordan

Two missiles were fired from Jordan early Friday, at a U.S. Navy ship docked in a Jordanian port and at a nearby airport in neighboring Israel, officials said. No casualties were reported.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet said a mortar was fired from Jordan at one of its ships docked in the seaport of Aqaba, missing the vessel but slamming into a warehouse on a dock.

Israeli police and witnesses said a Katyusha rocket fired from Jordan fell on the outskirts of the nearby airport of Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat but did not explode.

The attacks were believed to have been launched from a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Aqaba, a Jordanian Red Sea port 210 miles south of the capital, Amman. Aqaba and Eilat are about 10 miles apart and located on either side of the Jordan-Israeli border at the northern end of the Red Sea close to the Sinai Peninsula, reports the AP.

According to CBS, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz says the attacks were "intended to hit the Israeli side and the Jordanian side as well."

"We still don't know who is behind this act but I'm sure the Jordanians will do all they can to prevent such attacks in the future as in the past," Mofaz said, adding Israeli authorities are in contact with Jordanians over the incidents.

U.S. frigates, apparently part of routine exercises with the Jordanian army, were seen docked at the mouth of the Red Sea port earlier this week.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet based in Bahrain confirmed that a mortar was fired from Jordan at one of its ships docked in the seaport of Aqaba, missing the vessel but slamming into a warehouse on a dock.

"At approximately 8:44 a.m. local time a suspected mortar rocket flew over the (amphibious) USS Ashland over the bow and impacted a warehouse on the pier in the vicinity of the Ashland and the USS Kearsarge which were in port," said Lt. Cdr. Charlie Brown of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet,l based in Bahrain.