AL-MUKALLA: US and UK jets launched airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen’s western Hodeidah on Tuesday, the second wave of strikes against the Yemeni militia in the same city within 24 hours.
The Houthi-run Al-Masirah channel reported that US and UK aircraft conducted four strikes against targets in Hodeidah’s Al-Luhayyah area, but did not provide any additional information about the targeted locations, casualties or property damage.
On Monday, Houthi media reported that US and UK jets had struck the Al-Saleef district in Hodeidah, but provided little information about the targets.
US Central Command, in the campaign against the Houthis, usually reports that its forces target drone and missile launchers, storage facilities, as well as explosive-laden drone boats, missiles, or drones prepared by the Houthis to attack international shipping lanes.
The US military’s largest and most recent wave of airstrikes occurred on Oct. 4, when US Central Command said that its forces had carried out 15 strikes against Houthi targets in various Yemeni locations controlled by the militia.
The Houthis said that the strikes targeted Sanaa, Dhamar, Hodeidah and Al-Bayda, with residents reporting thick smoke and explosions rocking military bases in targeted areas.
In a campaign that began in November, the Houthis have launched hundreds of ballistic missiles, drones, and drone boats at international commercial and naval ships in the Red Sea and other international shipping lanes off Yemen, as well as seized a commercial ship with its crew and sunk two more.
The Houthis claim that the campaign is intended to put pressure on Israel to stop its military operations in the Gaza Strip.
Houthi drone and missile attacks on Israeli cities prompted two waves of airstrikes by Israeli jets, which targeted power plants, fuel storage facilities and ports in Hodeidah in July and September.
The latest attack came as two international human rights organizations condemned the Houthis for abducting Yemenis who celebrated the 1962 revolution, demanding their release.
Human Rights Watch and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights said in a joint statement on Tuesday that since Sept. 21, the Houthis have abducted dozens of people in Sanaa, Taiz, Al-Bayda, Dhale, Hajjah, Dhamar, Ibb, Amran and Hodeidah who wrote about the 62nd anniversary of the 1962 revolution or waved or wore a Yemeni flag.
“The crackdown on protests and any activities that diverge from Houthi beliefs and ideologies is yet another violation in the extensive record of human rights abuses they have committed in Yemen with total impunity,” Amna Guellali, research director at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, said.
According to the two organizations, the Houthis have not filed charges against the abductees, and Houthi fighters, using several military vehicles, raided the home of a Yemeni social media activist in Sanaa after breaking in, scaring his family after he posted about the revolution on social media. He was abducted and his phones, laptop and old cameras were seized, the organizations said.
“The Houthis continue to call for the international community to respect the rights of Palestinians in Gaza, while simultaneously violating the rights of the people living in the territories they control,” Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch, said.
Jafarnia added: “They should show the Yemeni people the same respect that they demand for Palestinians, starting by ending this endless campaign of arbitrary arrests.”
Meanwhile, Rashad Al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, asked the US to lift sanctions against a Yemeni businessman and his companies.
Last week, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on Yemeni politician and banking, telecom and media magnate Hamed Abdullah Hussein Al-Ahmer, as well as nine of his companies, for supporting Palestinian Hamas.
Without naming Al-Ahmer, Yemen’s official news agency SABA reported that Al-Alimi met US Ambassador to Yemen Steven Fagin in Riyadh to “review” OFAC’s measures against Yemeni businesses.
Separately, a Yemeni military officer was killed by an explosion while driving in Yemen’s southern province of Shabwa on Monday night, in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
According to local media and officials, Col. Ahmed Mohsen Al-Suleimani, a commander with the Shabwa Defence Forces, was killed in an explosion caused by a roadside bomb that ripped through his car in Shabwa’s Al-Musenah.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released on Tuesday.
