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06-02-2024
SANA’A/ WASHINGTON: The US carried out further strikes against the Iran-backed Houthi group in Yemen early on Sunday, the US military said.
Centcom said the US struck a land-attack cruise missile and four anti-ship missiles that “were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea”.
The additional strikes came a day after joint US-UK strikes on Houthi targets.
The US has also warned that it intends to take further action against Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria.
On Friday, the US said it struck targets linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militias in Iraq and Syria, responding to the deaths of three US soldiers in a drone attack on a military base in Jordan on 28 January.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan told US media on Sunday there would be “more steps” to deter the militias.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to the Middle East on a trip that will include stops in Israel, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the West Bank.
Sullivan said Blinken’s “top priority” would be a deal between Israel and Hamas that sees hostages released in exchange for a pause in fighting in Gaza.
“We are going to press for it relentlessly,” but the ball is in Hamas’s court, Mr Sullivan said.
Israel’s offensive against Hamas has killed more than 27,000 people in Gaza, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry says. It was triggered by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October that killed about 1,300 people and saw 250 others taken back to Gaza as hostages.
The Houthis say they began attacking shipping linked to Israel in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, forcing major shipping companies to avoid the waterway and hitting international trade.
Egypt has said its revenue from the Suez Canal plunged by almost half in January, with the number of ships travelling through the key trade artery last month down by more than a third.
Saturday’s joint US-UK strikes lit up the night sky in the south of Yemen’s capital city, Sanaa, with one human rights activist and local resident telling the BBC houses were shaking.
Houthi officials struck a defiant tone in response to the US-led strikes – and vowed to respond.
Reacting to Saturday’s strikes, the group’s military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, wrote on X: “These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the resilient Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and will not go unanswered or unpunished.”
Earlier, the White House warned that its air strikes on Iran-backed targets in Iraq and Syria were just “the beginning, not the end” of its response to Iran. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
