WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. forces late Friday struck another target in Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels, a day after American and British troops launched a massive assault on the Iran-backed group that for months has wreaked havoc on commercial shipping traffic in the Red Sea.
U.S. Central Command said that the latest strike, carried out using Tomahawk missiles, targeted a Houthi radar site believed to represent a threat to maritime traffic in the area. AP journalists on the ground in Yemen‘s capital, Sanaa, reported hearing an explosion. Ahead of the strikes, the Navy warned ships to avoid areas around Yemen in the Red Sea.
Just a few hours before the strike, President Biden warned that the Houthis could face additional strikes.
“If they continue to act and behave as they do, we’ll respond,” the president told reporters Friday while traveling in Pennsylvania.
Friday night’s strike comes after the major U.S. and British joint attacks on Houthi targets Thursday. During those attacks, U.S. and British troops bombed 28 separate locations and destroyed more than 60 individual Houthi targets.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon earlier Friday, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II, director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that U.S. and British warplanes conducted two separate rounds of strikes within 30 to 60 minutes of each other. The first round of attacks on Thursday hit 16 locations in Yemen, each of which the Pentagon said was home to Houthi military assets that the Iran-backed group had been using for the past several months to target commercial shipping traffic in the Red Sea.
“Immediately following those strikes, there were 12 other locations that had been identified as possessing articles that could be potentially used against forces, maritime and air. Those areas were subsequently struck,” Gen. Sims said.
In total, 150 munitions were used, including Tomahawk missiles. Officials could not provide an exact number of targets destroyed, but said the total is over 60. At various locations, officials said, there were several different individual targets, such as missile launchers or buildings that each housed attack drones.
