US and British forces carried out nearly a dozen airstrikes inside Yemen on Sunday, February 4, targeting the capital Sanaa and Hodeidah port. The fresh round of attacks followed dozens of strikes on Saturday and deadly attacks on Syria and Iraq on Friday.
Yahya Saree, the spokesperson of the Yemeni armed forces, said that on Saturday, at least 48 airstrikes targeted locations in Sanaa, Hodeidah, Taiz, and Saada, among other places in the Ansarallah-governed areas of the country.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) acknowledged Sunday’s attacks inside Yemen, claiming that “these actions will protect freedom of navigation” and announced that their forces had identified Yemeni missile launch sites and determined that they presented imminent threat to “US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.” Earlier it said that 36 strikes were carried out on 13 different locations inside Yemen on Saturday, targeting “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operation sites, radars and helicopters.”
Saree warned that the Yemeni armed forces would retaliate. He also reiterated the Yemeni position that no amount of attacks by the US and the UK would dissuade them from their “moral, religious and humanitarian stance in solidarity with the resilient Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Ansarallah has been targeting Israel-bound ships passing through Bab-al-Mandab and Red Sea since November, following the Israeli offensive on Gaza that began in October and has killed over 27,300 Palestinians and wounded over 66,500 others since. It has repeatedly stated that it will would not end the attacks on Israel-bound ships until the war on Gaza stops.
The US termed these operations as an attack on freedom of navigation and launched a global maritime coalition, the so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian, along with the UK and others. However, it has also claimed that the attacks on Yemen are separate from the work of the maritime alliance.
The repeated US and UK attacks on Yemen and the larger US military involvement in the region is contrary to its stated position of preventing a region-wide escalation of the Israeli war on Gaza. The US has carried out several attacks in Iraq and Syria as well, including a massive round of bombardment of Iraqi targets on Friday in which 18 people were killed.
The US claimed Friday’s strikes inside Iraq and Syria would be repeated to prevent attacks on its own bases across the region by the resistance forces in support of Palestine.
The Iraqi resistance has carried out over 165 attacks on US bases in the region, demanding an end to its support to the Israeli war in Gaza. It has also demanded the withdrawal of all US troops from the country.
Another Ansarallah spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam warned the US against carrying out attacks across the region. He claimed this may lead to further escalation of anger and hatred against the US and Israel in the region.
“Instead of escalating and opening a new war front in the region, America and Britain should listen to international public opinion, which is calling for an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression, lifting the siege of Gaza, and ending protection to Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people,” Abdulsalam was quoted saying by Al-Jazeera.
The US attacks in Iraq and Syria have been condemned by most of the countries in the region including Iran.
Meanwhile, Russia has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to discuss what it says are the US attempts to drag more and more countries in the region to the conflict and threaten peace and stability. The meeting of the UNSC may happen on Monday.
