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BRITAIN and the United States launched another wave of bombing raids on Yemen over the weekend.
US officials said bombs targeted eight locations in the fourth joint air raid with Britain. The US military has carried out a larger number of attacks on its own.
The strikes by US F-18s and British Typhoon jets are intended to deter attacks on Israel-linked shipping by Yemen’s Houthi government, though these have escalated since the bombings began. Last week, they disabled the British-registered Rubymar cargo vessel, forcing its crew to evacuate.
The Houthis began by firing on ships linked to Israel, saying they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians amid Israel’s invasion of Gaza. These have been extended to attacks on British and US shipping as the two countries providing the greatest military and diplomatic support to Israel. This month, Britain and the US were the only countries not to back a ceasefire resolution at the UN security council.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US would “not hesitate to take action as needed to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways,” while Britain’s Grant Shapps defended “precision strikes” in response to “severe Houthi attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, including against the British-owned MV Islander and the MV Rubymar.”
But the Houthi government retorted that “the Yemeni armed forces will confront the US-British escalation with more quantitative military operations against all hostile targets in the Red and Arabian seas in defence of our country, our people and our nation.”
The bombing raids have sparked angry clashes at the UN, with Russia and China saying they breach international law and risk turning the Gaza conflict into a regional war.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh admitted last week that so far there was no indication the retaliatory raids had deterred the Houthis. “We know they maintain a large arsenal. They are very capable. They have sophisticated weapons, and that’s because they continue to get them from Iran,” she said.
