After the United States and United Kingdom's new wave of strikes in Yemen, the Houthis vowed a response. The US-UK airstrikes "will not deter us", said Houthis after the strikes hit dozens of Iran-backed rebels' targets over the Red Sea attacks.
The Yemen airstrike comes after the US retaliatory strikes targeting Iran-backed stations in Iraq in Syria. The retaliatory strikes on Friday was a response to the drone attack in Jordan by militias in Iran, that killed 3 US soldiers.
The strikes hit "36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks against international and commercial shipping as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea,” the United States, Britain and other countries that provided support for the operation said in a statement.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes “are intended to further disrupt and degrade the capabilities of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia to conduct their reckless and destabilising attacks.”
Meanwhile, Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree said a total of 48 strikes were launched. "These attacks will not deter us from our … stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip," Saree said on X.
Hamas has condemned the Yemen strikes and said it will bring "further turmoil" to the Middle East. Hamas called the strikes as "a blatant assault on the sovereignty of a sister Arab country, and an escalation that will drag the region into further turmoil”.
However, Iran said that the strikes "contradict" the US-UK policy of wanting to avoid a wide conflict in the Middle East. "These attacks are in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, said in a statement.
Kanani accused the US and Britain of "fuelling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting Israel in its war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, UK's foreign secretary, David Cameron, demanded the Houthis to stop its attacks on international shipping.
"We have issued repeated warnings to the Houthis. Their reckless actions are putting innocent lives at risk, threatening the freedom of navigation and destabilising the region. The Houthi attacks must stop," Cameron wrote on X.
Meanwhile, the US on Sunday said that it intends further strikes on Iran-backed groups. "We intend to take additional strikes," said the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC news.
