SANAA: Yemen’s Houthis said Sunday US and British air strikes “will not deter us” and vowed a response after dozens of targets were hit in retaliation for the Iran-backed rebels’ repeated Red Sea attacks.
The joint air raids in Yemen late Saturday followed a separate wave of unilateral American strikes against Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria in response to a drone attack that killed three US soldiers in Jordan.
It is the third time that British and American forces have jointly targeted the Houthis, whose attacks in solidarity with Palestinians in war-battered Gaza have disrupted global trade.
The United States has also carried out a series of air raids against the Yemeni rebels on its own, but their attacks on the vital Red Sea trade route have persisted.
Saturday’s strikes hit “36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks against international and commercial shipping as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea,” the United States, Britain and other countries that provided support for the operation said in a statement.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes “are intended to further disrupt and degrade the capabilities of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia to conduct their reckless and destabilising attacks.”
Neither Austin nor the joint statement identified the specific places that were hit, but Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the capital Sanaa and other rebel-held areas were targeted.
Saree reported a total of 48 air strikes, and said on social media platform X that “these attacks will not deter us from our... stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” where the Israel-Hamas war has raged since early October.
The latest strikes “will not pass without response and punishment,” Saree said.
Britain’s defense ministry said Royal Air Force Typhoon warplanes struck targets including two ground control stations used to operate attack and reconnaissance drones.
Austin said that “coalition forces targeted 13 locations associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, and radars.”
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
