In a second wave of retaliatory attacks against Iran-backed groups, the United States and Britain struck at least 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday.
The strikes mark the third time the U.S. and Britain have conducted a large, joint operation against Houthi weapon launchers, radar sites and drones. But the Houthis have made it clear that they have no intention of scaling back their assaults.
In a statement Saturday, the Pentagon said the U.S. and Britain hit 36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen using U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. The USS Gravely and the USS Carney Navy destroyers also fired Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.
“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade, and the lives of innocent mariners, and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi actions since previous coalition strikes on January 11 and 22, 2024, including the January 27 attack which struck and set ablaze the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker M/V Marlin Luanda,” the statement said.
“We remain committed to protecting freedom of navigation and international commerce and holding the Houthis accountable for their illegal and unjustifiable attacks on commercial shipping and naval vessels,” it continued.
Saturday’s strike specifically targeted sites associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, and radars.
Hours before the latest joint operation, the U.S. hit another site in Yemen, destroying six anti-ship cruise missiles.
The strikes were the second wave of attacks that began Friday when the U.S. hit more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and its proxies in Iraq and Syria, in retaliation for last Sunday’s deadly drone attack on an American military base in Jordan.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said three facilities were hit in Iraq and four in Syria.
U.S. President Joe Biden said the strikes demonstrate to “all those who might seek to do us harm” that “if you harm an American, we will respond.”
According to the U.S. Central Command, the retaliatory strikes reportedly killed nearly 40 people and injured about 23. The operation included long-range B-1 bombers flown from the U.S. that used more than 125 precision munitions, according to U.S. military officials.
A U.S. official said Saturday that an initial battle damage assessment showed the U.S. had struck each of its planned targets.
“We hit exactly what we meant to hit,” said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, who serves as the operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the air assault took place over about 30 minutes, and three of the sites struck were in Iraq and four were in Syria.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that 23 people were killed in the Syria strikes, all rank-and-file fighters, while Iraqi government spokesperson Bassim al-Awadi said in a statement Saturday the strikes in Iraq near the Syrian border killed 16, including civilians, and there was “significant damage” to homes and private properties.
Iraq, but not Iran, was informed before the strikes, according to U.S. officials.
“This is the start of our response,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after the strikes.
“We do not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else, but the president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces,” Austin said.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani contended the airstrikes were “violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Syria and Iraq, and they represent “another adventurous and strategic mistake by the United States that will result only in increased tension and instability in the region.”
In an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Hussein al-Mosawi, spokesperson for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, condemned the U.S. strikes, though he struck a more conciliatory tone, saying that “we do not wish to escalate or widen regional tensions.”
Mike Johnson, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was critical of the Biden administration’s weeklong delay in launching a retaliatory attack. “The public handwringing and excessive signaling undercuts our ability to put a decisive end to the barrage of attacks endured over the past few months.”
Senator Jack Reed, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee disagreed. “These strikes, in concert with wise diplomacy, send a clear signal that the United States will continue to take appropriate action to protect our personnel and our interests.”
Senator Roger Wicker, the panel’s senior Republican, said Biden’s move was too little, too late.
“These military strikes are welcome but come far too late for the three brave Americans who died and the nearly 50 wounded,” Wicker said. “Iran and its proxies have tried to kill American soldiers and sink our warships 165 times while the Biden administration congratulates itself for doing the bare minimum. Instead of giving the Ayatollah the bloody nose that he deserves, we continue to give him a slap on the wrist.”
“There will be additional response actions taken in [the] coming days,” said Kirby on a call Friday with journalists.
Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday afternoon, Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s foreign deputy permanent representative to the U.N. said on social media platform X.
VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin also contributed.