WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Yemeni Houthi rebel movement threatened the United States with a “strong and effective response” after new strikes by the American army in Yemen on the night of Friday to Saturday, at the risk of worsening the tensions in the region as Washington pledged to protect ships from attacks by Iran-backed countries.
The US strikes targeted a site equipped with radar and were intended to weaken the Houthis’ ability to carry out attacks against commercial ships, the US military said on Friday.
“This new strike will result in a firm, strong and effective response,” Houthi spokesperson Nasruldeen Amer told Al Jazeera television, adding that there were no injuries or “significant damage.” .
Mohammed Abdulsalam, another Houthi spokesman, told Reuters that the strikes, including one that hit a military base in the Yemeni capital Sanaa overnight, had no significant impact on the group’s ability to prevent Israeli-affiliated ships from crossing the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.
In Sanaa, Mohammed Samei, a civil servant, said the Western strikes constituted an act of “brutal aggression” and marked a new stage in a war that Yemen has endured for 10 years.
Another retired civil servant, Hussein Kabsi, judged for his part that supporting the Palestinians was a “religious and moral duty”.
“Our position is unwavering, we (will continue) to stand with our brothers in Palestine and Gaza until victory and until all Palestinian lands are liberated – not just Gaza,” he said. declared.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Sanaa on Friday, chanting slogans criticizing Israel and the United States, footage broadcast by the Houthis’ al-Masirah television showed.
BIDEN WARNS OF FURTHER STRIKES
US President Joe Biden warned on Friday that he could order further strikes if Houthi attacks on merchant and military ships in the Red Sea, one of the world’s most economically vital waterways, do not stop.
The Pentagon said on Friday that the US-British strikes had had “significant effects”.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, are disrupting global trade by attacking ships passing through the Bab el Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, what they say is a response to the war being waged by Israel in Gaza.
“This strike was carried out by the USS Carney (DDG 64) using Tomahawk cruise missiles. This was a follow-up action on a specific military target associated with strikes carried out on January 12 and aimed to reduce the ability of the Houthis to attack ships, including commercial ships,” the US command (Centcom) said on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
The United States and Britain carried out strikes Friday against sites used by the Houthis for the first time since the group began launching attacks on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea.
The American command clarified that the strikes were not part of the international operation called “Prosperity Guardian” set up in December by the United States with around twenty countries to ensure the security of maritime transport.
(Reporting Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Nandita Bose in Washington; Mohammed Ghobari and Reyam Mukhashef in Aden; Enas Alashray and Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo; with contributions from Daphne Psaledakis, Jonathan Landay and Kanishka Singh in Washington, Andrew Mills in Doha, Maher Hatem in Dubai; Elizabeth Piper in London; French version Camille Raynaud and Claude Chendjou)
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