The United States and Britain carried out large-scale military strikes on Saturday against multiple sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants, according to a statement by the two countries and six allies, as the Biden administration continued its campaign of retaliation in the Middle East targeting Iran. -supported militias.
The strikes against 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations in northern Yemen came just 24 hours after the United States launched a series of military strikes against Iranian forces and the militias they support in seven locations in Syria and Iraq.
US and British warplanes, as well as Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles, hit deeply buried 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 logistics assistance.
“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent seafarers and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous and destabilizing actions by the Houthis since previous coalition strikes “, he said, referring to the major attacks by the United States and Britain last month.
The strikes were the second largest since the allies first struck Houthi targets on January 11. They came after a week in which the Houthis have been particularly provocative, firing several offensive drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at merchant ships and US Navy warships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The US-led air and naval strikes began last month in response to dozens of Houthi drone and missile attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea since November. The Houthis claim their attacks are in protest of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
The United States and several allies had repeatedly warned the Houthis of dire consequences if the bombings did not stop. But the US-led strikes have so far failed to prevent the Houthis from attacking shipping lanes to and from the Suez Canal that are critical to global trade. Hundreds of ships were forced to take a long detour around southern Africa, driving up costs.
“Our military operations against the Zionist entity will continue until the attack on Gaza stops, whatever sacrifices it requires of us,” a senior Houthi official said in response to the latest attacks. “We will deal with escalation by escalation.”
While the Biden administration maintains it is not seeking to expand the war in the region, the strikes over the past two days represent an escalation.
In scope, the strikes in Yemen were about the size of the U.S. and British strikes on Jan. 22, but smaller than the Jan. 11 strikes, officials said.
Saturday’s strikes followed an exchange of more limited attacks over the previous 36 hours between the Houthis and US forces in the Red Sea and nearby waters.
At about 10:30 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 to launch and threaten merchant ships in the Red Sea. At about 9:20 p.m., U.S. forces fired cruise missiles at Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen after determining they posed a threat to ships in the area, the Central Command said in another statement. And about five hours later, early Saturday, the Laboon destroyer and FA-18 attack aircraft shot down seven drones flying over the Red Sea.
Then on Saturday night, ahead of the planned strikes, the United States fired six cruise missiles at the Houthis as they prepared to launch them at ships in the Red Sea, the Central Command said.
So far, the Biden administration is trying to eliminate the Houthis’ ability to threaten commercial ships and military vessels without killing large numbers of Houthi fighters and commanders, which could potentially unleash even more chaos in an expanding war.
“I don’t see how these airstrikes achieve US objectives or how they avoid further regional escalation,” said Stacey Philbrick Yadav, a Yemen expert at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. “While they may degrade Houthi capabilities in the short term, the group’s leadership is committed to continuing its attacks in the Red Sea and retaliating in response to these airstrikes.”
Saturday’s strikes came as the US military began evaluating dozens of airstrikes it carried out Friday night that hit 85 targets in seven locations in Iraq and Syria.
The strikes were in retaliation for a drone attack on a remote outpost in Jordan last Sunday that killed three American soldiers. Washington has hinted that an Iraqi militia linked to Iran, Kataib Hezbollah, was behind that attack.
Syria and Iraq said Friday’s strikes killed at least 39 people — 23 in Syria and 16 in Iraq — a toll the Iraqi government said included civilians.
The multiple strikes left the region on edge, although analysts said they appeared designed to avoid a confrontation with Iran by focusing on the militias’ operational capabilities.
“We are not seeking conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said after Friday’s strikes, “but the president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces.”
The reaction of Iranian officials to Friday’s round of strikes was condemning but not inflammatory. A foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, said the US strikes represented “another strategic mistake” but did not speak of a response.
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 scaled back the attacks to avoid sparking a wider war, but had openly warned that it was coming days before the strikes, said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon. Both sides, he added, had sought ways to attack that remained “below a threshold that would mean all-out war.”
The stakes of this particular US bombing were high given the rising tension across the Middle East over the war in Gaza and the related violence it has fueled elsewhere in the region.
Since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s retaliatory bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza, Iran-backed militias have carried out more than 160 attacks on US forces in the region, as well as merchant ships in the area. 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. Mr. Kanaani, the Iranian foreign minister, echoed that sentiment, saying on Saturday that the US’s “unreserved support” for Israel was the main driver of regional tensions.
Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken will return to the region this week to continue negotiations for the release of the Israeli hostages and a temporary ceasefire. More than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, according to Gaza health officials, and about 1,200 Israelis have been killed, Israeli officials said. More than 100 hostages kidnapped by Israel in the October 7 attack remain captive 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 struck targets linked to Iranian-backed militias involved in the attack on the base in Jordan or other attacks against US troops.
But the United States did not attack Iran itself, despite its status as the protector and general coordinator of these militias. Nor did it hit Hezbollah in Lebanon, the most powerful of Iran’s regional proxies, which has been fighting Israeli troops along the Lebanese-Israeli border throughout the Gaza war.
That fits with efforts by the United States to keep its own military activities separate from those of Israel, which it says seeks to destroy Hamas.
How successful the new strikes will be in degrading the military capabilities of Iran and its proxies — or deterring them from attacking the United States — remains an open question.
Iran created its network, with affiliates in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, to expand its influence and give it a way to strike back at enemies without having to do so themselves, analysts say. . Anti-Iran hawks in the United States and the Middle East often argue that attacking proxies without striking Iran is a waste of time.
Ms Yahya of the Carnegie Center said she did not expect the new US strikes to drastically change the activities of Iran’s regional proxies.
“The only thing that would make them withdraw would be a clear signal from Iran telling them to withdraw,” he said. “But even then, they might listen and they might not.”
This is because Iran does not directly control its proxies, who have considerable leeway to make their own decisions, Ms Yahya said.
Reporting was contributed by Raja Abdulrahim and Aaron Boxerman in Jerusalem, Max Bearak in New York, Ben Hubbard in Istanbul, Hwaida Saad in Beirut and David E. Sanger in Berlin.
