U.S., Britain hit dozens of targets in new wave of strikes in Yemen | EUROtoday

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U.S. and British forces launched dozens of strikes towards Houthi militants in Yemen on Saturday night time, U.S. officers stated, the most recent effort to cease what have develop into near-daily assaults on industrial vessels within the Red Sea and close by waterways.

The strikes mark the biggest navy motion towards the Houthis in weeks, although U.S. forces have launched smaller assaults towards varied targets, equivalent to Houthi missiles ready to be launched. The new wave, U.S. officers stated, was meant to focus on infrastructure and weapons that the Houthis have used to hold out assaults.

The Pentagon didn’t instantly launch details about the most recent strikes.

The navy motion got here on the finish of per week by which the Houthis carried out a number of brazen assaults, together with one Feb. 18 that broken the MV Rubymar, a British-owned vessel that was carrying 41,000 tons of fertilizer, U.S. navy officers stated in an announcement. The assault brought on an 18-mile oil slick and compelled the crew to desert the ship. The following day, on Feb. 19, the Houthis struck the MV Sea Champion, a U.S.-owned vessel that was carrying grain to the Yemeni port metropolis of Aden.

The Houthis, a band of militants that seized management of a part of Yemen in 2014, have solid their marketing campaign of violence as a response to Israeli navy operations in Gaza, and U.S. help of Israel. The group will get weapons and coaching from Iran, U.S. officers have stated, and are a part of a broader community of proxy militias on which Tehran has affect.

But the continued cycle of Houthi assaults stands in distinction to the state of affairs in Iraq and Syria, the place U.S. forces weathered greater than 150 assaults between October and Feb. 4, however at the moment are seeing a relative interval of calm. Following the loss of life of three U.S. troopers in northeastern Jordan on Jan. 28, the Biden administration launched retaliatory airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Feb. 3, hitting dozens of targets affiliated with Iranian-backed militias it held accountable.

No assaults have occurred towards U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria or Jordan since Feb. 4, however the Houthis have continued their very own marketing campaign of violence. As of Friday, they’d launched a minimum of 57 assaults towards industrial delivery since November.

This is a creating story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/02/24/houthi-airstrikes-us-uk/