The extremist group has been targeting ships in response to the Israeli-Hamas war.
A coalition led by the United States and Britain carried out a new offensive against Yemen's Houthis on Saturday in and around the Red Sea “in response to continued Houthi attacks on commercial and naval vessels,” officials said. .
A joint statement from the eight countries involved said the attacks were against 18 targets, including those related to “underground weapons storage facilities, missile storage facilities, one-way attack unmanned aircraft systems, air defense systems, radars and helicopters.” ”
“These precision strikes will disrupt and degrade the capabilities the Houthis are using to threaten global trade, warships, and the lives of innocent seafarers in one of the world's most important waterways,” the joint statement said. It is written, “It is aimed at.''
“Since mid-November, there have now been more than 45 attacks by the Houthis against commercial and naval vessels, posing a threat to the global economy and regional security and stability, and requiring an international response. ”.
The US has already targeted dozens of Houthi strongholds this year. Six countries supported the US and UK in Saturday's strike: Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in part in his statement: “We continue to make clear to the Houthis that if they do not stop their illegal attacks that damage the Middle East's economies and cause environmental destruction, they will bear the consequences.” And it would disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen and other countries. ”
The Houthis said their attacks were in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and targeted Hamas in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that sparked the war.
The United States has publicly emphasized that it wants to prevent the conflict from spilling into the region, and has said its strikes in Yemen are meant to de-escalate tensions.
Still, the established pattern of retaliation also raises questions about the immediate effectiveness and long-term goals of the U.S. strategy regarding the Houthis.
“We need to be thoughtful about our approach in these areas, but we cannot predict exactly how any of these groups will respond,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CQ Gen. Brown, told ABC. told the news. Martha Raddatz, chief global affairs correspondent, spoke in an exclusive interview in January. “So we need to look not only at the protection of our key partner forces, but also our ability to disable them.
“And we don't want to go down a path of further escalation that would lead to wider conflict in the region,” Brown said.
He told Raddatz at the time that U.S. airstrikes were “impacting” the Houthis' ability to continue attacks with missiles and drones, but he did not specify the extent.
ABC News' Luis Martinez and Meghan Mistry contributed to this report.
