US, UK strike 36 Houthi targets in Yemen

The United States and Britain on Saturday (February 3, 2024) carried out joint air raids in Yemen as a response to repeated assaults on delivery by Iran-backed Houthi rebels which have disrupted world commerce.

The joint air raids in Yemen come a day after a wave of unilateral US strikes in opposition to Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria that had been carried out in response to the killing of three US troopers in Jordan on Jan 28.

The strikes hit “36 Houthi targets throughout 13 places in Yemen in response to the Huthis’ continued assaults in opposition to worldwide and business delivery in addition to naval vessels transiting the Red Sea”, each nations stated in a press release.

“These precision strikes are meant to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Huthis use to threaten world commerce, and the lives of harmless mariners,” the assertion stated.

The assault “focused websites related to the Huthis’ deeply buried weapons storage amenities, missile methods and launchers, air protection methods, and radars”.

“These strikes are meant to degrade Houthi capabilities used to proceed their reckless and illegal assaults on U.S. and U.Ok. ships in addition to worldwide business delivery in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden. These strikes are separate and distinct from the multinational freedom of navigation actions carried out beneath Operation Prosperity Guardian,” the assertion added.

On Friday, the US performed airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in opposition to 85 targets linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia teams, officers confirmed.

“U.S. navy forces struck greater than 85 targets, with quite a few plane to incorporate long-range bombers flown from United States,” US Central Command stated in a press release.

The airstrikes employed greater than 125 precision munitions.

“Our response started at this time,” US President Joe Biden stated. “It will proceed at occasions and locations of our selecting.”

“The United States doesn’t search battle in the Middle East or anyplace else in the world,” he stated. “But let all those that would possibly search to do us hurt know this: If you hurt an American, we are going to reply.”

Anger over Israel’s steady assaults on Gaza, which started after an unprecedented Hamas assault on October 7, has grown throughout the Middle East, triggering violence involving Iran-backed teams in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.