The US carried out a cyber attack on an Iranian military ship, an official says.

The United States recently launched a cyberattack on an Iranian military ship that the Pentagon said was gathering intelligence on merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and passing that information to Houthi fighters, a U.S. military official said Thursday.

The cyberattack came as part of the Biden administration's Feb. 2 retaliation for a drone strike last month by Iran-backed militias in Iraq that killed three U.S. soldiers at a remote outpost in Jordan and injured dozens of others, the official said. spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

U.S. analysts had suspected for weeks that the ship, the MV Behshad, was operating near the African port of Djibouti, which lies across the strait from Yemen, to spy on nearby ships and pass that information to Iran-controlled backed Houthi rebels. The Houthis, who control northern Yemen, have fired missiles and drones at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Iranian officials have denied the allegations. The Houthis have said their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli attacks in Gaza.

The cyberattack was intended to disrupt the Iranian ship's ability to share that information with the Houthis, the US military said, which did not elaborate on the clandestine mission.

Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to comment on the case Thursday.

The New York Times previously reported that the United States had carried out a cyberattack on Iranian targets as part of the response to avenge the deaths of the three soldiers in Jordan. That response also included retaliatory strikes against Iranian forces and the militias they support in seven locations in Syria and Iraq. NBC News first reported this new details about Thursday's cyber attack.