The strikes come at a point of high regional tension as the Israel’s war on Gaza approaches 100 days.
The United States and United Kingdom military forces started a massive campaign of strikes against the Yemen’s Houthis on Thursday night, following the group’s continual attacks on international ships and tankers in the Red Sea since the Gaza war.
The attacks marked the first time since 2016 that the US has directly retaliated against the Houthis, and hit the Hodeidah port vicinity in Yemen. The strikes come at a point of high regional tension as the Israel-Hamas war approaches 100 days.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak held an emergency call with his cabinet earlier on Thursday to assess a response hours after the US military confirmed another attack by the Iran-backed rebels in the Red Sea, which targeted international shipping lanes despite warnings from Washington and London earlier in the week.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that the Iran-backed group fired an anti-ship ballistic missile at around 2:00 a.m. local time (6:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday) into international shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden.
The attack was the 27th conducted by the Houthis on international shipping since Nov. 19, 2023, despite warnings to the Houthis earlier in the week from the White House and Downing Street that these actions will bear consequences on the group.
Earlier on Thursday, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi threatened a bigger retaliation for any attacks on Houthi forces.
“Any American aggression will never remain without a response, and the response will not be at the level of the operation that was recently carried out in targeting the American at sea with more than 24 aircraft and a number of missiles, the response is greater than that,” he said, as reported by the Houthi-controled Saba news agency.
Also on Thursday, the Egyptian presidency said that President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi received a call from Sunak. Egypt has seen major impact from Houthis’ attacks on maritime traffic through the Suez Canal. The disruption in world trade is evident in the number of companies using this container ship route, a 90% decline from one year ago.
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