U.S. strikes Houthi targets in Yemen in escalating campaign

The Biden administration directed new airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Tuesday, as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said the attacks struck targets in coastal Yemen and the capital, Sanaa, including a command node and facilities used for manufacturing and storing weapons. The operations, which also included strikes on Monday, destroyed radar positions and one-way aerial drones, Centcom said in a statement.

Video provided by Centcom showed aircraft taking off from the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier positioned in the Red Sea.

The strikes mark the latest salvo in a year-long U.S.-led campaign aimed at halting ongoing attacks by the Houthis, a militant group that functions as the de facto government in much of Yemen, on commercial ships and military vessels in nearby waters. The Houthis’ campaign has impaired global shipping and taken a major toll on U.S. allies reliant on related revenue.

The American strikes come amid an intensifying, parallel drive by U.S. ally Israel, which has launched its own series of airstrikes on Houthi targets in response to recent missile and drone attacks on Israel that, while mostly intercepted, have struck some civilian sites and have sent millions seeking regular refuge in bomb shelters.

The Houthis, a rebel faction from Yemen’s northern mountains that took over much of the country a decade ago, proclaimed their maritime campaign in protest of Israel’s war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Now, amid increasingly bold Houthi attacks on Israel itself, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to open a new front against the Yemeni group, which experts say has received weapons, funding and military know-how from Iran.

Experts say that while a year of U.S., British and, now, Israeli strikes has weakened the Houthis’ military capability, it has had little impact on their determination. The regional standing of the Houthis, long an obscure faction in the Arab world’s poorest country, has risen as the militants portray themselves as leaders of an international resistance movement against Israel, America and the West.

Their ability to claim that mantle has grown in the past year as Israeli military operations have taken a toll on other Iranian-backed adversaries of Israel, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

U.S. officials privately acknowledge the Houthis’ determination in the face of multinational attacks, and voice fears the rebels may seize on other reasons to continue their campaign even if a ceasefire can be reached in Gaza, as they have demanded.

One U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to address sensitive security assessments, described the group as a “fanatical sect” which he said were in some ways more ideological than Hamas and Hezbollah.

“They want a fight and a scrap,” the official said. “When we talk about them being deterrable, we have to keep that in mind.”

But aid organizations are warning that recent Israeli strikes, which have struck key Yemeni transport, ports and other infrastructure, risk worsening already treacherous conditions for civilians who are trapped in a long-running civil war between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

In a new letter, a group of international and Yemeni groups, including Oxfam, CARE, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said Dec. 26 airstrikes, which included an attack on Sanaa’s international airport, on Yemen’s main Red Sea port and on power infrastructure, threatened the ability of Yemenis to access food, electricity and medical treatment abroad.

“The consequences of attacks on civilian facilities will be severe and long-lasting for Yemeni civilians, already suffering exhaustion from a decade-long conflict,” the groups wrote.

While the letter did not mention Israel by name, Israel has acknowledged the airport strike but said it was justified because of Houthi activity there.

Mohammed Albasha, a Yemen analyst and founder of the Basha Report, said that while U.S. strikes have been more narrowly targeted on Houthi military sites and equipment, Israeli strikes targeting infrastructure in Houthi-controlled areas have wider implications for the availability and affordability of imported goods. Albasha said recent Israeli strikes had destroyed all tugboats that had been operating at the Hodeida, Ras Issa and al-Salif ports, meaning that container and bulk ships cannot dock and unload there.

In a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday about the Houthi threat, Israel’s representative to the United Nations, Danny Danon, vowed that the Houthis would “share the same miserable fate as Hamas, Hezbollah and Assad.” Israel has staked out military positions in southern Syria following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by rebel forces in early December.

While the Biden administration has affirmed Israel’s right to retaliate for Houthi attacks, a senior official issued a gentle reprimand on Monday at the Security Council, saying Israeli operations should not threaten civilians or civil infrastructure.

With only a few weeks before President-elect Donald Trump begins his second term and takes responsibility for U.S. actions in the Middle East, Biden administration officials are cautioning that the effort to contain the Houthis’ rogue military drive must continue.

A second U.S. official said that additional military and diplomatic action may been needed from countries within and outside the Middle East. “We’re all going to need to do more,” the official said.