Joint UK and US airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels have killed at least 16 people and wounded 35 others, ABC News reports.
On Thursday, the US and Britain launched more than a dozen strikes on Houthi targets in several areas of Yemen in response to a recent series of attacks by the Iranian-backed militant group on ships in the Red Sea.
Three US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the ongoing attack, described Thursday’s strikes as hitting a wide range of underground facilities, missile launchers, command and control points, Houthi vessels and other targets. They called it a response to a recent spate of attacks by the Iranian-backed militant group on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in connection with the Israel-Hamas war.
Officials said the US F/A-18 fighter jets involved in the strikes took off from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea. Other US warships in the region also took part in the strike.
On Friday morning, however, the Houthis focused only on one of the strikes, which they said targeted the Hodeida radio station building and civilian homes in the Red Sea port city. Their satellite news channel Al Masirah showed footage of one bloodied man being carried down a ladder while others were in hospital receiving treatment.
Other strikes hit the outskirts of Sanaa near its airport, as well as communications equipment in Taiz, the broadcaster said. There was no other information about the sites, likely indicating that the strikes targeted Houthi military installations. Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam posted on X:
We confirm this brutal aggression against Yemen as punishment for its position in support of Gaza, in support of Israel to continue its crimes of genocide against the wounded, besieged and steadfast Gaza Strip.
When the military operation began
The US and UK began strikes against the Houthis in January, with the US regularly carrying out its own strikes thereafter. Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the Houthi’s secretive supreme leader, gave the total death toll from the strikes up to that point as 40 killed and 35 wounded.
The Houthis have stepped up attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, demanding Israel end the war in Gaza that has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians. The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
The Houthis have carried out more than 50 attacks on ships since November, killing three sailors, hijacking one vessel and sinking another, according to the US Maritime Administration. On Wednesday, another US MQ-9 Reaper drone crashed in Yemen. The Houthis claim to have fired a surface-to-air missile at it. The US Air Force has not reported the aircraft missing, raising suspicion that the CIA may have piloted the drone. In May alone, the US lost three drones.
