New US strikes target sites belonging to Ansar Allah group in Yemen

The United States carried out an additional strike against the Yemeni Houthi “Ansar Allah” forces, Friday, after the administration of President Joe Biden pledged to protect navigation in the Red Sea.

The latest strike, which the United States said targeted a radar site, came a day after the group’s facilities were subjected to dozens of US and British strikes.

US Central Command said in a statement on X, that the guided-missile destroyer Carney used Tomahawk missiles in the subsequent strike, which was carried out early Saturday, to reduce the Houthis’ ability to attack naval vessels, including commercial vessels.

US and British warplanes, ships and submarines carried out strikes across Yemen on Thursday, in response to attacks carried out by the Houthis on ships in the Red Sea, in a development that represents an expansion of the repercussions of the war between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

On Saturday afternoon, a new strike targeted a military site in Hodeidah, western Yemen, in response to a missile they fired from it towards the Red Sea, according to what two security and military sources within the Houthi ranks reported.

An unnamed military source loyal to the Houthis in Hodeidah said that the site from which a Houthi missile was launched a short while ago was struck on the outskirts of Hodeidah city towards the Red Sea.

He added, “It wasn’t known whether the bombing was from the sea or a raid”.

A security source in the Hodeidah Police confirmed, without revealing his identity, the new strike.

After Houthi leaders vowed to respond to those attacks, Biden said he may order more strikes if the Houthis don’t stop their attacks on commercial and military ships in one of the world’s most economically important waterways.

“We will certainly respond to the Houthis if they continue this heinous behavior,” Biden told reporters during his stop in Pennsylvania on Friday.

When reporters asked Biden if he felt that the Houthi movement could be described as a “terrorist” group, he said, “I think they are”.

Witnesses in Yemen confirmed that explosions occurred at military bases near airports in the capital, Sanaa, Taiz, the third largest city in the country, a naval base in Hodeidah, the main port on the Red Sea, and military sites in the coastal Hajjah governorate.

White House spokesman John Kirby said that the strikes aimed to reduce the Houthis’ ability to store, launch and direct the missiles and drones that the group has used in recent months to threaten navigation in the Red Sea.

Kirby added, “We’re not interested… in a war with Yemen”.

The Pentagon said that the US-British attack reduced the Houthis’ ability to launch new attacks.

The US military said that 60 targets were bombed in 28 locations.

The Houthis, who control Sanaa and large areas in western and northern Yemen, said that five of his soldiers were killed, but they pledged to continue their attacks.

The British Maritime Trade Operations Authority reported that it had received reports of a missile landing in the sea about 500 meters from a ship about 90 nautical miles southeast of the Yemeni port of Aden.

The British maritime security company Ambrey identified it as a Panama-flagged tanker carrying Russian oil.

Drone footage broadcast by the Houthi-run al Masirah TV showed hundreds of thousands of people in Sanaa carrying Palestinian and Yemeni flags and chanting slogans denouncing Israel and the United States.

Muhammad Ali al Houthi, a member of the Supreme Political Council of the Houthis, said, “Your strikes on Yemen are terrorism… The United States is the devil”.

At the UN Security Council, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield defended the strikes in Yemen, saying they were intended to “disable and weaken the Houthis’ ability to continue reckless attacks on ships and commercial shipping”.

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, said earlier that the United States and Britain “single-handedly caused the conflict (in Gaza) to spread to the entire region”.