US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says strikes aimed at countering Houthis’ ‘destabilising behaviour’.

The United States military has bombed a series of targets in areas of Yemen controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthi group, the US defence chief has said.

US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers conducted “precision strikes” against five underground weapons storage locations, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday.

The Houthis’ Al Masirah TV satellite news channel reported air strikes around Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which the group has held since 2014, and around its stronghold of Saada. It provided no immediate information on damage or casualties.

The latest bombing raids come a day after the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, warned that the country was at risk of being dragged further into the military escalation in the Middle East.

  • @Keeponstalin
    5•1 month ago

    Turns out Yemen has been undergoing a US-Saudi backed genocide for years. Had no clue until recently

    Quotes

    Guterres put the crisis in stark perspective, emphasizing the near complete lack of security for the Yemeni people. More than 22 million people out of a total population of 28 million are in need of humanitarian aid and protection. Eighteen million people lack reliable access to food; 8.4 million people “do not know how they will obtain their next meal.”

    Besides Saudi Arabia, the coalition attacking Yemen includes the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, Kuwait and Bahrain. Qatar was part of the coalition but is no longer.

    Based on the information available to it using open sources, YDP reports that two-thirds of the coalition’s bombing attacks have been against non-military and unknown targets. The coalition isn’t accidentally attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure – it’s doing it deliberately.

    The air and naval blockade, in effect since March 2015, “is essentially using the threat of starvation as a bargaining tool and an instrument of war,” according to the UN panel of experts on Yemen.

    The coalition’s genocide in Yemen would not be possible without the complicity of the U.S. This has been a bipartisan presidential effort, covering both the Obama and Trump administrations.

    U.S. arms are being used to kill Yemenis and destroy their country. In 2016, well after the coalition began its genocidal assault on Yemen, four of the top five recipients of U.S. arms sales were members of the coalition.

    The U.S. has also provided the coalition with logistical support, including mid-air refueling, targeting advice and support, intelligence, expedited munitions resupply and maintenance.

    As of February 2018, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the coalition had killed 6,000 people in airstrikes and wounded nearly 10,000 more.

    Yet, according to the OHCHR report, these counts are conservative. Tens of thousands of Yemenis have also died from causes related to the war. According to Save the Children, an estimated 85,000 children under five may have died since 2015, with more than 50,000 child deaths in 2017 alone from hunger and related causes.

    US complicity in the Saudi-led genocide in Yemen spans Obama, Trump administrations