US and Britain strike Yemen in reprisal for Houthi attacks on shipping
WASHINGTON/ADEN, Yemen, Jan 12 (Reuters) – U.S. and British warplanes, ships and submarines launched dozens of air strikes across Yemen against Houthi forces in retaliation for months of attacks on Red Sea shipping that the Iran-backed fighters cast as a response to the war in Gaza.
Witnesses confirmed explosions 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.
“These targeted strikes are a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation,” U.S. President Joe Biden said.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said the strikes in the early hours of Friday had targeted the Houthis’ ability to store, launch and guide missiles or drones.
The Pentagon said the U.S.-British assault reduced the Houthis’ capacity to launch attacks, especially complex operations such as those they carried out earlier in the week.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations information hub said it had received reports of a missile landing in the sea around 500 metres (1,600 feet) 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.
In Yemen, crowds gathered in cities. 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 organisations” in 2021, was asked by reporters if he felt the term “terrorist” described the movement now. “I think they are,” he said.
At the United Nations, the Security Council was due to meet late on Friday about the Red Sea crisis. Sparked by Israel’s onslaught on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, which is ruled by another Iran-backed Islamist group, Hamas, it has raised concerns about the potential for a larger Middle East conflict.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the U.S. and Britain “singlehandedly 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.”
In Yemen, a poor country only just emerging from nearly a decade of war that brought millions to the brink of famine, people fearing an extended new conflict queued at gas stations.
