Updates with changes throughout
The US and the UK carried out air and missile strikes against Houthi militants' facilities in Yemen that the allies say were used to attack commercial shipping and naval vessels in the Red Sea.
"These strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea — including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history," President Joe Biden said on Thursday evening.
The US and the UK carried out the attacks in the early hours on Friday, Yemen time — late evening ET on Thursday — with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, Biden said.
The military action targeted Houthi radars and missile and drone launching sites, a senior US administration official said. "The aim is to degrade the ability of the Houthis to continue carrying out these reckless attacks," the official said. "There is no intent to escalate the situation."
The US and UK strikes involved fighter jets and missiles launched from naval vessels and submarines, relying on precision guidance munitions to minimize collateral damage, a senior military official said, adding: "We were absolutely not targeting civilian population centers."
The Pentagon has not observed any immediate response to the strikes from the Houthis or any other Iran-backed group elsewhere in the region. The US-led coalition will carry out additional strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen if attacks against Red Sea shipping continue, the senior administration official said.
The US-led retaliatory action follows a warning by Washington and its allies on 3 January for the Houthis to stop targeting commercial ships or face an escalation in military response. The Houthi militants disregarded the warning and on 9 January carried out their most sophisticated attack yet, targeting a US warship in the Red Sea.
The Houthi militants have launched 27 attacks since November targeting commercial ships and US naval vessels in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, most recently early on Thursday local time. An attack carried out last month targeted a tanker carrying a US-owned jet fuel cargo, the US administration official said.
The US-led coalition in recent days laid out a legal rationale for the retaliatory attack on Houthi facilities, relying on the right of self-defense and invoking the US national security strategy that calls for the US to use force to protect major international shipping lanes.
The Houthi attacks have affected flows of multiple commodities and forced major shipping firms to indefinitely suspend all transits through the Red Sea. Crude tankers have continued to head through the Red Sea, but freight rates are volatile, reflecting escalating tensions and higher insurance costs.
The UN Security Council on Wednesday condemned the Houthi attacks and acknowledged the right of UN members to defend their vessels in international waters. Russia and China, which typically oppose unilateral US military actions, chose to abstain rather than veto the UN Security Council resolution. A significant proportion of crude flows through the Suez Canal at the north exit of the Red Sea is from Russian ports in the Baltic and Black Seas to Asia-Pacific. Chinese shippers likewise rely on cargo transit through Suez and the Red Sea.
US administrations have rarely sought the UN's authorization for military operations in the past decade. But turning to the UN fits with the White House portrayal of the militants' attacks as a threat to global shipping and economy, downplaying the Houthi militants' justification for their attacks. The Houthis said they targeted commercial ships linked to Israel because of its treatment of Gaza's Palestinian population.
Security risks to regional shipping are not limited to the Red Sea. Iran on Thursday seized an oil tanker off the coast of Oman. But the US is less likely to resort to force against Iran, since the two countries have avoided direct military confrontation in the Middle East.
The US holds Iran responsible for the Houthi attacks because Tehran has provided information, intelligence and weapon capabilities to enable the Yemeni militants, the senior US administration official said.
