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Australia supported United States-led strikes against targets linked to the Houthi movement in Yemen, the White House says.
They are the first strikes against the Iran-backed group since it started targeting international shipping in the Red Sea late last year.
“Today, at my direction, US military forces—together with the United Kingdom and with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands—successfully conducted strikes against a number of targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels to endanger freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most vital waterways,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement.
“These strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea—including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history.”
SBS News has contacted the Defence Minister Richard Marles’ office for comment.
A Houthi official on Thursday confirmed raids across the country, including in the capital Sanaa along with the cities of Saada and Dhamar as well as in Hodeidah governate, calling them “American-Zionist-British aggression.”
The ongoing strikes are one of the most dramatic demonstrations to date of the widening of Hamas-Israel war in the Middle East since its eruption in October.
One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes were being carried out by aircraft, ships and submarine, the Reuters news agency reported.
The official said more than a dozen locations were targeted and the strikes were intended to be more than just symbolic.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, defied a United Nations call to halt their missile and drone attacks on Red Sea shipping routes and warnings from the US of consequences if they failed to do so.
The Houthis say their attacks are a demonstration of support for Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza.
Israel has launched a military assault that has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza after Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October which killed 1,200 Israelis.
The Houthi have attacked 27 ships to date, disrupting international commerce on the key route between Europe and Asia that accounts for about 15 per cent of the world’s shipping traffic.
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