The US and Britain carry out attacks on thirteen Houthi locations in Yemen.
The United States and Britain carried out large-scale military strikes on Saturday on multiple locations in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants, according to a statement from the two countries and six allies, as the Biden administration continues its retaliatory campaign in the Middle East against Iran continued. -backed militias.
The attacks on 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations in northern Yemen took place just 24 hours after the United States carried out an attack. series of military attacks against Iranian forces and the militias they support in seven locations in Syria and Iraq.
American and British warplanes, as well as Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles, hit deeply hidden weapons storage facilities; missile systems and launchers; air defense systems; and radars in Yemen, the statement said. Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand provided support, which officials said included intelligence and logistical assistance.
“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent sailors, and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous and destabilizing Houthi actions since previous coalition attacks,” the statement said. said, referring to major attacks by the United States and Britain last month.
The attacks were the second largest salvo since allies first struck Houthi targets on January 11. They came after a week in which the Houthis had been particularly defiant, launching several attack drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at US Navy merchant ships and warships. in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The American-led air and naval strikes began last month in response to dozens of Houthi drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November. The Houthis claim their attacks are a protest against Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
The United States and several allies had repeatedly warned the Houthis of dire consequences if the volleys did not stop. But the US-led attacks have so far failed to stop the Houthis from attacking shipping lanes to and from the Suez Canal that are crucial to global trade. There have been hundreds of ships forced to take a long detour around southern Africa, which drives up costs.
“Our military operations against the Zionist entity will continue until the aggression against Gaza stops, no matter what sacrifices it demands from us,” a senior Houthi official said in response to the latest attacks. “We will meet escalation with escalation.”
While the Biden administration insists it has no intention of expanding the war in the region, the strikes over the past two days represent an escalation.
In scale, the attacks in Yemen were about the size of the American and British attacks on January 22but smaller than the volleys at January 11officials said.
Saturday's attacks came after a back-and-forth exchange of more limited strikes over the past 36 hours between the Houthis and U.S. forces in the Red Sea and nearby waters.
At about 10:30 a.m. local time on Friday, the destroyer Carney shot down a drone flying over the Gulf of Aden. Six hours later, the United States attacked four Houthi attack drones that the military's Central Command said were about to launch and threaten merchant ships in the Red Sea. At about 9:20 p.m., U.S. forces fired cruise missiles into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen after determining they posed a threat to ships in the region, Central Command said in another news release. And about five hours after that, early Saturday, the destroyer Laboon and FA-18 attack planes shot down seven drones flying over the Red Sea.
On Saturday evening, before the planned strikes, the United States hit six Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles as they prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea, Central Command said.
So far, the Biden administration has sought to undermine the Houthis' ability to threaten merchant and military vessels without killing large numbers of Houthi fighters and commanders, potentially unleashing even more chaos in a spreading war.
“I don't see how these airstrikes can achieve U.S. objectives or prevent further regional escalation,” said Stacey Philbrick Yadav, a Yemen specialist at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. “While they may impact the Houthis' capabilities in the short term, the group's leadership has pledged to continue attacks on the Red Sea and retaliate for these airstrikes.”
Saturday's attacks came as the US military had begun assessing dozens of airstrikes it carried out on Friday evening, hitting 85 targets in seven locations in Iraq and Syria.
The strikes were in retaliation for a drone strike on a remote outpost in Jordan last Sunday that killed three American soldiers. Washington has suggested that an Iranian-linked Iraqi militia, Kataib Hezbollah, was behind the attack.
Syria and Iraq said Friday's attacks killed at least 39 people — 23 in Syria and 16 in Iraq — a toll that the Iraqi government said included civilians.
The multiple attacks put the region on edge, although analysts said they appeared aimed at avoiding a confrontation with Iran by focusing on the militias' operational capabilities.
“We do not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said after Friday's strikes, “but the president and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces.”
The response from Iranian officials to Friday's round of strikes was condemning but not inflammatory. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, said the U.S. strikes represented “yet another strategic mistake” but did not talk about hitting back.
Syria and Iraq denounced the US strikes in their countries as violations of their sovereignty, adding that the strikes would only hinder the fight against Islamic State militants.
Washington not only calibrated the attacks to avoid sparking a broader war but had openly warned they would happen days before the strikes, said Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon. Both sides, she added, had sought ways to attack that fell “below the threshold that would mean all-out war.”
The stakes of this particular US bombing were high, given the rising tensions in the Middle East due to the war in Gaza and the related violence it has sparked elsewhere in the region.
Since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, and Israel's retaliatory bombing and ground invasion of Gaza, Iranian-backed militias have carried out more than 160 attacks on US forces in the region, as well as on commercial ships in Gaza. the Red Sea.
The Houthis in Yemen have said they will not stop attacks in the Red Sea until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Iranian Foreign Minister Kanaani echoed that sentiment, saying on Saturday that “unlimited US support” for Israel was a major driver of regional tensions.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken returns to the region this week to continue negotiations on the release of Israeli hostages and a temporary ceasefire. More than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, and about 1,200 Israelis have been killed, Israeli officials said, according to Gaza health officials. More than 100 hostages kidnapped from Israel during the October 7 attack remain trapped in Gaza.
The three American soldiers killed in Jordan were the first to die in Gaza-related military violence since the war began. The United States said it only hit targets linked to Iranian-backed militias involved in the attack on the base in Jordan or in other offensives against U.S. forces.
But the United States did not attack Iran itself, despite its status as patron and overall coordinator of these militias. Nor was it hit Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's most powerful regional ally, which has battled Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border throughout the Gaza war.
This is in line with efforts by the United States to keep its own military activities separate from those of Israel, which says it wants to destroy Hamas.
How successful the new attacks will be in damaging the military capabilities of Iran and its allies — or in deterring them from attacking the United States — remains an open question.
Iran created its network, with branches in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, to expand its influence and give the country a way to attack enemies without having to do it itself, analysts say. Anti-Iranian hawks in the United States and the Middle East often argue that attacking allies without hitting Iran is a waste of time.
Ms. Yahya of the Carnegie Center said she did not expect the new U.S. strikes to dramatically change the activities of Iran's regional allies.
“The only thing that will make them withdraw would be a clear signal from Iran telling them to withdraw,” she said. “But even then, they might listen, or they might not.”
That is because Iran does not have direct control over its allies, who have significant leeway to make their own decisions, Ms. Yahya said.
Reporting was contributed by Raja Abdulrahim and Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem, Max Bearak from New York, Ben Hubbard from Istanbul, Hwaida Saad from Beirut and David E. Sanger from Berlin.