US launches fresh air strikes against Houthis in Yemen

Washington targets antiship ballistic missiles in pre-emptive blitz as rebels renew attacks in Red Sea

‘Houthis have suffered more than 25,000 air strikes in nine years, and it didn’t deter them’

THE United States launched fresh air strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen yesterday as the rebel group defied coalition warnings to stop attacking ships in the Red Sea.

Four anti-ship ballistic missiles were targeted in an undisclosed Houthi-controlled area, officials in Washington said. Earlier, the Houthis had attacked a Greek-owned ship, while the US announced it had seized a shipment of Iranian missiles bound for Yemen.

It was reportedly the third incident involving the Malta-flagged vessel, the Zografia, in the past 24 hours as the Houthis continued to launch attacks in defiance of the US and Britain’s air strikes last week.

The US also announced that, in an operation last week, Navy Seals had seized Iranian-supplied weapons that were being delivered to the Houthis.

American forces launched additional air strikes on the group’s positions on Monday night, although it was unclear what had been targeted.

The Houthis say they are singling out ships passing through the Red Sea with any links to Israel in an effort to stop the country’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

However, many of the ships that have come under attack in recent weeks have no links to the Jewish state.

The US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees operations in the Middle East, yesterday announced that it had seized a dhow, a small trading vessel, carrying “advanced lethal aid” from Iran to Yemen.

“This is the first seizure of lethal, Iranian-supplied advanced conventional weapons to the Houthis since the beginning of Houthi attacks against merchant ships in November 2023,” Centcom said in a statement.

Navy Seals boarded the dhow, with support from helicopters and drones, near the coast of Somalia, seizing Iranian-made components for ballistic and cruise missiles.

The vessel was then sunk as it was deemed “unsafe” by US forces. Two Navy Seals were lost overboard during the raid and a search for them was continuing yesterday evening.

Qatar condemned the Western strikes on Yemen, warning that they would not deter the Houthis and were a “recipe for escalation everywhere”.

Elisabeth Kendall, a British expert on the Houthis and head of Girton College, Cambridge, warned that Western strikes were unlikely to deter the Houthis from renewing their attacks on commercial shipping.

“The Houthis are no strangers to air strikes – they have been in a civil war now for nine years, they’ve suffered more than 25,000 air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition, and it didn’t deter them,” she told Deutsche Welle, the German broadcaster.

“So I think, looking ahead, we might stand to see even more conflict start to erupt in this Red Sea region.”