US strikes Houthi targets, 1 of several attacks
Several entities launch fire in the Middle East
WASHINGTON — The United States carried out another military strike against Houthi ballistic missiles in Yemen on Tuesday, the US military said, but the latest salvo against the Iran-backed group left the White House grappling with how to stop a battle-hardened foe from disrupting shipping lanes critical for global trade.
The strikes Tuesday, the third overall against the group, destroyed four missiles that the Pentagon’s Central Command said posed an imminent threat to merchant vessels and Navy ships traveling through the Red Sea and nearby waters.
But the preemptive US strike also came on the third day in a row that the Houthis have defied the Biden administration and its allies by firing missiles at passing ships, damaging a Greek-owned cargo vessel Tuesday. The Houthis damaged a US-owned commercial ship Monday after attempting to hit an American warship the day before.
“We’re not looking for a war; we’re not looking to expand this,” John F. Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, told reporters Tuesday, adding, “We will continue to defend against them and counter them as appropriate.”
The strike was one of a series of attacks launched by an array of adversaries.
• Palestinian militants launched at least 25 rockets, damaging an Israeli store in one of the strongest bombardments in more than a week. Israel’s Channel 12 television said the rockets were launched from the Bureij camp in central Gaza.
• Iran fired missiles late Monday at what it said were Israeli “spy headquarters” in an upscale neighborhood near the sprawling US Consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s northern semiautonomous Kurdish region. Iraq and the United States condemned the strikes, which killed several civilians, and Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Iran in protest. Iranianbacked groups in Iraq and Syria have carried out dozens of attacks on bases housing US forces, and a US airstrike in Baghdad killed an Iranian-backed militia leader earlier this month.
• Iran also launched attacks in Pakistan targeting what it described as bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl. Pakistan said the strikes killed two children and wounded three others in an assault it described as an “unprovoked violation” of its airspace. The attack inside of nuclear-armed Pakistan by Iran threatens the relations between the two countries, which long have eyed each other with suspicion while maintaining diplomatic relations.
The inability to ensure safe passage for vessels in the Red Sea has bedeviled the Biden administration. The president could order another blitz of strikes against Houthi air defenses, weapons depots, and facilities for launching and producing an array of missiles and drones, but analysts say that would risk widening the war even more. Or he could settle for more limited tit-for-tat exchanges, like Tuesday’s strike, but that would not necessarily resolve the threat to commercial ships, analysts say.
Neither approach has fazed the Houthis. Vowing solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the group’s leaders have said they will continue their attacks in what they say is a protest against Israel’s military campaign in the territory.
A confidential Pentagon analysis of the first barrage against the rebels suggested it had a limited effect. While the US-led strikes damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets that were struck, the Houthis retained about threequarters of their ability to fire missiles and drones at ships, two US officials said Saturday.
The damage estimates are the first detailed assessments of the strikes against nearly 30 locations in Yemen last week. They reveal the serious challenges the Biden administration and its allies face as they try to deter the Houthis from retaliating, secure critical shipping routes between Europe and Asia, and contain the spread of regional conflict.
“There’s a limited amount you can do with just an air campaign,” said Adam Clements, a retired US Army attaché for Yemen, who noted that the Houthis have survived a near decadelong air war with Saudi Arabia. “It’s very difficult to neutralize this wide array of threats.”
Residents in the area near the latest US airstrike said Monday that they saw Houthi missiles being fired from remote and mountainous parts of Mukayras, a Houthi-controlled town in central Yemen, on Friday and Monday.
The missiles launched from Mukayras are believed to have been aimed at ships south of Aden or in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, while missiles fired from the western cities of Hodeida and Taiz targeted ships south of the Red Sea or off Yemen’s coast.