Key Points
- The US has carried another strike against Houthi forces.
- Iran says the decision by the US and UK to target Houthis with strikes in Yemen will fuel instability.
- The Houthis have vowed to respond to the US and UK strikes.
The United States carried out an additional strike against Yemen’s Houthi forces on Friday, after President Joe Biden’s administration vowed to protect shipping in the Red Sea.
The latest strike, which the US said targeted a radar site, came a day after dozens of American and British strikes on the Iran-backed group’s facilities.
The guided missile destroyer Carney used Tomahawk missiles in the follow-on strike early on Saturday local time “to degrade
the Houthis’ ability to attack maritime vessels, including commercial vessels,” the US Central Command said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
The Houthi movement’s television channel Al-Masirah reported that the United States and Britain were targeting the Yemeni capital Sanaa with raids.
Intensifying concerns about a widening regional conflict, US and British warplanes, ships and submarines on Thursday launched missiles against targets across Yemen controlled by the group, which has cast its maritime campaign as support for Palestinians under siege by Israel in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
More US strikes possible
Even as Houthi leaders swore retaliation, Biden warned on Friday that he could order more strikes if they do not stop their attacks on merchant and military vessels in one of the world’s most economically vital waterways.
“We will make sure that we respond to the Houthis if they continue this outrageous behavior,” Biden told reporters during a stop in Pennsylvania on Friday.
Witnesses confirmed explosions early on Friday, Yemen time, at military bases near airports in the capital Sanaa and Yemen’s third city Taiz, a naval base at Yemen’s main Red Sea port Hodeidah and military sites in the coastal Hajjah governorate.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said the initial strikes had targeted the Houthis’ ability to store, launch and guide missiles or drones, which the group has used in recent months to threaten Red Sea shipping.
The Pentagon said the US-British assault reduced the Houthis’ capacity to launch fresh attacks. The US military said 60 targets in 28 sites were hit.
The Houthis, who control Sanaa and much of the west and north of Yemen, said five fighters were killed, but they vowed to continue their attacks on regional shipping.
Iran says US actions adds to instability
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian praised the Iran-aligned Houthis’ actions against Israel-linked vessels and said the movement upholds maritime security.
He urged the United States to end its all-out support for Israel.
“Yemen’s action in…confronting the genocide of the Israeli regime is admirable. Sanaa strictly adheres to maritime security,” Amirabdollahian said on the X platform.
“Instead of attacking Yemen, the White House should immediately stop all-out military and security cooperation with Tel Aviv – against the people of Gaza and the West Bank – to restore security across the region,” he added.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations information hub said it had received reports of a missile landing in the sea around 500 metres from a ship about 90 nautical miles southeast of the Yemeni port of Aden.
The shipping security firm Ambrey identified it as a Panama-flagged tanker carrying Russian oil.
Drone footage on the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV showed hundreds of thousands of people in Sanaa chanting slogans denouncing Israel and the United States.
“Your strikes on Yemen are terrorism,” said Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a member of the Houthi Supreme Political Council.
“The United States is the Devil.”
Biden, whose administration removed the Houthis from a State Department list of “foreign terrorist organizations” in 2021, was asked by reporters if he felt the term “terrorist” described the movement now. “I think they are,” he said.
Spillover
The Red Sea crisis is part of the violent regional spillover of Israel’s war with Hamas, an Iran-backed Islamist group, in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Hamas militants rampaged through southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages. Israel has responded by laying waste to large sections of Gaza in an effort to annihilate Hamas. More than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Tobias Borck, a Middle East security expert at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, said the Houthis wanted to portray themselves as champions of the Palestinian cause but were mainly concerned about retaining power.
At the United Nations Security Council, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield defended the Yemen strikes, saying they were intended to “to disrupt and degrade the Houthis’ ability to continue the reckless attacks against vessels and commercial shipping.”
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said earlier that the US and Britain “single-handedly triggered a spillover of the conflict (in Gaza) to the entire region.”
In Washington, Kirby said, “We’re not interested in … a war with Yemen.”
