The United States and Britain struck at least 30 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in a second wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have relentlessly attacked US and international interests in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, American officials told the Associated Press.
Ships and fighter jets launched the latest strikes against the Houthis. The strikes follow an air assault in Iraq and Syria on Friday that targeted other Iran-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three US troops – William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett – in Jordan last weekend.
US defense secretary Lloyd Austin said the military action “sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels”.
Not only this, but the US has more firepower in the region than the rebel groups by such a wide measure that launching any laughing an attack against the ships is essentially a suicide note for that particular neighborhood block.