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Reuters

US-led air strikes on Yemen killed at least five people and wounded six others, a military spokesman from the Houthi rebels said Friday.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree made the announcement in a videotaped address.
“The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished,” Saree said.
He described 73 strikes hitting five regions of Yemen under Houthi control. He did not elaborate on what the US-led strikes targeted.
Who are Yemen’s Houthis, and why are the Iran-aligned group under attack?
The United States and Britain launched strikes from the air and sea against Houthi military targets in Yemen in response to the movement’s attacks on ships in the Red Sea, a dramatic regional widening of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
US President Joe Biden cautioned he would not hesitate to take further action if needed.
“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,” Biden said in a statement late on Thursday.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the strikes as a “limited, necessary and proportionate action” after weeks of “dangerous and destabilising attacks” by the Houthis against shipping in the Red Sea.

On Jan. 11 at 2:30 a.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Central Command forces, in coordination with the United Kingdom, and support from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Bahrain conducted joint strikes on Houthi targets to degrade their capability to continue their illegal and… pic.twitter.com/bR8biMolSx
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 12, 2024

Britain’s ministry of defence said “early indications are that the Houthis’ ability to threaten merchant shipping has taken a blow”. It said four of its fighter jets based in Cyprus took part in the strikes.
The British government on Friday published a summary of its legal advice, which said its decision to strike Houthi military targets in Yemen was justified under international law.
“The UK is permitted under international law to use force in such circumstances where acting in self-defence is the only feasible means to deal with an actual or imminent armed attack and where the force used is necessary and proportionate,” the document said.
UN Security Council demands immediate end to Houthi Red Sea attacks
The document was titled ‘Summary of the UK Government Legal Position: The legality of UK military action to target Houthi facilities in Yemen’ and was published on the government website.
Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the Houthis’ chief negotiator and spokesperson, separately described the US and Britain as having “committed foolishness with this treacherous aggression.”
“They were wrong if they thought that they would deter Yemen from supporting Palestine and Gaza,” he wrote online. Houthi “targeting will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine,” he wrote.
Iran, which supports the Houthis, strongly condemned the attacks. A spokesperson for the Houthis said there was no justification for the attacks and that the group will continue targeting ships heading towards Israel.


Russia on Friday said it had requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council, and China called for all sides to prevent the Yemen conflict from expanding.
“China is concerned about the escalation of tensions in the Red Sea,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said, adding: “We urge the relevant parties to keep calm and exercise restraint, to prevent the conflict from expanding”.
The Houthis say their attacks on shipping routes in the Red Sea are a show of support for the Palestinians and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is in hospital due to surgery complications, said in a statement that the strikes targeted Houthi capabilities including drones, ballistic and cruise missiles, coastal radar and air surveillance.
US allies reluctant on Red Sea task force as Israel-Gaza war rages
A Houthi official confirmed “raids” in the capital Sanaa along with the cities of Saada and Dhamar as well as in Hodeidah governorate, calling them “American-Zionist-British aggression”.
Witnesses said that the raids targeted a military base near Sanaa airport, a military site near Taiz airport, a Houthi naval base in Hodeidah and military sites in Hajjah governorate.
The US said Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands supported the operation, and sought to present the strikes as part of an international effort to restore the free flow of trade in a key route between Europe and Asia that accounts for about 15 per cent of the world’s shipping traffic.

But the strikes, the first on Yemeni territory since 2016, were also an undeniable demonstration of Washington’s struggle contain the fallout of the Israel-Gaza war in the Middle East since its eruption in October.
Although Washington said there was no intent to escalate tensions, the Houthis have vowed to retaliate for any attack.
In a statement after the strikes, Saudi Arabia called for restraint and “avoiding escalation”.
The United States also accused Iran of being involved operationally in the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, providing the military capabilities and intelligence to carry them out.


“We believe that they have been certainly involved in every phase of this,” a senior US official told reporters.
US officials said the US used warplanes based on the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and US Air Force fighter jets, while Tomahawk missiles were fired from US Navy destroyers and a submarine.
One official said more than a dozen locations were targeted and the strikes were intended to weaken the Houthi’s military capabilities and were not just symbolic.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, defied UN and other international calls to halt their missile and drone attacks on Red Sea shipping routes and warnings from the United States of consequences if they failed to do so.
Are Israel, US and Iran’s allies inching closer to all-out war?
The Houthi attacks have disrupted international commerce, forcing international shipping to take the long route around South Africa to avoid being struck. The increase in delivery costs is stoking fears it could trigger a fresh bout of global inflation.
Israel has launched a military assault that has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 people died and 240 were abducted.
Hours before the US and British strikes in Yemen, the US military said the Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile into international shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden, two days after the Houthis’ largest attack to date.




On January 9, US and British naval forces shot down 21 Houthi drones and missiles fired in what the US military described as a complex attack, language reminiscent of the way it once described Taliban or Islamic State attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Biden, in his statement, said the Houthi’s January 9 attack directly targeted American ships.
The strikes followed other diplomatic and military steps that US officials had hoped would halt the Houthi attacks without starting a fresh conflict.
In December, more than 20 countries agreed to participate in a defensive US-led coalition, known as Operation Prosperity Guardian, safeguarding commercial traffic in the Red Sea. But the US and British strikes are taking place outside that coalition.
“The response of the international community to these reckless attacks has been united and resolute,” Biden said.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Bloomberg


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Middle East

Houthi rebels say US and UK strikes in Yemen killed 5 people and wounded 6, raising Mideast tensions

An RAF Typhoon aircraft takes off from Cyprus to carry out strikes in Yemen. Photo: UK Ministry of Defence via Reuters

A warship fires a missile during the US-led operation against targets in Yemen. Photo: US Central Command via X

Iran’s navy seizes oil tanker in Gulf of Oman, in new threat to Mideast shipping

An Iranian soldier on a jet boat in front of a US warship during the seizure of a Vietnam-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman in November 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE

UN Security Council demands immediate end to Houthi Red Sea attacks

Footage taken from the bridge of HMS Diamond, shows Sea Viper missiles being fired in the Red Sea in response to Houthi attacks. Photo: UK Ministry of Defence via AP

Red Sea attacks: US, UK forces shoot down 21 Houthi drones and missiles launched from Yemen

The USS Carney firing at Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea on October 19. File photo: US Navy via TNS


News

World

US President Joe Biden warns of further military action after launching strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen
Strikes follow weeks of Red Sea attacks by Iran-backed Houthi forces acting in solidarity with Hamas


Strikes represent a major escalation of tensions in the Middle East that have been simmering since the Hamas attack on Israel in early October.
