Heavy US and British air strikes pounded targets in Yemen early on Friday after weeks of attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by Houthis forces acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza which killed at least five people and wounded six others, a military spokesman from the Houthi rebels said Friday.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree made the announcement in a videotaped address.
“The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished,” Saree said.
He described 73 strikes hitting five regions of Yemen under Houthi control. He did not elaborate on what the US-led strikes targeted.
Friday’s strikes targeted an airbase, airports and a military camp, the Houthi’s Al-Masirah TV station said, with AFP correspondents and witnesses also reporting they could hear bombardments.
“Our country was subjected to a massive aggressive attack by American and British ships, submarines and warplanes,” Houthi Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Al-Ezzi said, according to official rebel media.
“America and Britain will have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences of this blatant aggression,” he said.
US President Joe Biden called the US and British strikes a “defensive action” after the Red Sea attacks and said he “will not hesitate” to order further military action if needed. The strikes involved fighter jets and Tomahawk missiles, the US Air Forces Central Command said in a statement. Sixty targets at 16 Houthi locations were hit by more than 100 precision-guided munitions, it said.
“Today, at my direction, US military forces — together with the United Kingdom and with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands — successfully conducted strikes against a number of targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels to endanger freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most vital waterways,” Biden said in a statement.
