Yemen strikes: US military conducts fresh strikes against Houthi targets – live

The Houthi-controlled Saba news agency have claimed that US and British aircraft targeted a number of areas in Yemen in overnight strikes.

The governorates that were targeted were Hodeidah, Taiz, Dhamar, al Bayda and Saada, the agency said.

The UK has not declared any involvement in the latest round of strikes on Houthi positions; the claims from Saba likely reflect a prevailing anti-US and UK sentiment among within the militant group.

The US military carried out more strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Wednesday, the US Central Command said.

The military said that it “conducted strikes on 14 Iran-backed Houthi missiles that were loaded to be fired in Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen”.

It added: “These missiles on launch rails presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region and could have been fired at any time prompting US forces to exercise their inherent right and obligation to defend themselves.”

It said the strikes and “other actions we have taken” would “degrade the Houthi’s capabilities to continue their reckless attacks on international and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden”.

Huge explosions were seen in Yemeni cities including Sana’a and Hodeidah in the early hours of 12 January, with the US military saying 60 strikes were launched against 16 sites linked to the Houthis’ military operations. On Wednesday, the US military carried out more strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, the US Central Command said.

The military said that it “conducted strikes on 14 Iran-backed Houthi missiles that were loaded to be fired in Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen”.

Below, The Independent looks at how the attacks unfolded and what weapons were used in the strikes.

On January 1, 2024, Italy assumed the Presidency of the G7 and Tajani answered questions about the possible deployment of an EU naval mission to protect ships from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia in the Red Sea.

Would the US and the UK be prepared to put boots on the ground in Yemen (as Boris Johnson proposed)? Will a prolonged air campaign be enough to paralyse the Iran-backed Houthis? There are many difficult questions left to answer over the Middle East’s latest hotspot, warns Kim Sengupta:

Officials said they would design the financial penalties to minimize harm to Yemen’s 32 million people, who are among the world’s poorest and hungriest after years of war between the Iran-backed Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition.

But aid officials expressed concern. The decision would only add “another level of uncertainty and threat for Yemenis still caught in one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises,” Oxfam America associate director Scott Paul said.

The US military fired another wave of ship- and submarine-launch missile strikes against Houthi-controlled sites Wednesday, US officials said, marking the fourth time in days it has directly targeted the group in Yemen as violence that ignited in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war continues to spill over in the Middle East.

The Islamist group claims it began striking a narrow strip of sea between Yemen and east Africa, which is a key international trade route, in a bid to end Israel’s air and ground offensive against Hamas.

In retaliation, Britain and the US launched air strikes across Yemen against Houthi forces. President Joe Biden called the strikes a “direct response” to an onslaught of attacks on Red Sea ships which “jeopardised trade, and threatened freedom of navigation”.

Nearly three years after removing them from US government rolls of international terrorist groups, the Biden administration is re-adding the Yemen-based Houthis to a list of specially designated global terrorists following a series of attacks by the group on US forces and international shipping in the Red Sea.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters late Tuesday that the Houthi militia will not be re-added to the ranks of groups designated by the State Department as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, but will instead receive the lesser designation, which automatically imposes a range of US sanctions on the group.

By contrast, a designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation makes it a crime for anyone to provide “material support” to the group, a category broad enough to potentially include humanitarian aid meant for the people of Yemen.

A Houthi pirate dubbed “Timhouthi Chalamet” on X, formerly known as Twitter, has shot back at media coverage praising his looks saying: “This is not the time to talk about beauty.”

Rashid al-Haddad went viral for social media posts he recorded of himself on board a vessel as it circled a ship in the Red Sea.

Responding to a Newsweek article with the headline: “’Hot’ Houthi pirate becomes online sensation: ‘God you’re beautiful’” he replied:

“I did not talk about beauty or anything else, but our issue is Palestine, and this is not the time to talk about beauty. I hope that my message will reach you, a free Palestine, and we will ignite it against the Israeli aggression that violates human rights.”