U.S. launches airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen

Yemen’s Houthi spokesperson, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said the country would continue to defend itself after several U.S. strikes targeted facilities in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday.

The U.S. military said it carried out strikes against Houthi targets in Sanaa and coastal locations in Yemen on Monday and Tuesday.

“On Dec. 30 and 31, U.S. Navy ships and aircraft targeted a Houthi command and control facility and advanced conventional weapon (ACW) production and storage facilities that included missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV),” the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

It said the facilities that were hit were used in attacks against U.S. navy warships and merchant vessels in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. U.S. navy and air force aircraft also destroyed a Houthi coastal radar site, seven cruise missiles and a UAV over the Red Sea, it said.

The Iran-backed militant group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, saying it’s acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.

The Houthis’ media office said on Tuesday that 10 airstrikes hit the May 22 facility in Sanaa’s northern Thurah district and two more hit the Aradi facility, which houses the rebels’ Defence Ministry in central Sanaa.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the Houthi chief negotiator and spokesperson, called the strikes “a gross violation of the sovereignty of an independent state.”