The US military unleashed a wave of attacks targeting radar sites operated by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over their assaults on shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor, authorities said yesterday, after one merchant sailor went missing following an earlier Houthi strike on a ship.
The attacks come as the US Navy faces the most intense combat its seen since World War II in trying to counter the Houthi campaign — attacks the rebels say are meant to halt the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
However, the Iranian-backed rebel assaults often involve Houthis targeting ships and sailors who have nothing to do with the war, while traffic remains halved through a corridor vital for cargo and energy shipments between Asia, Europe and the Mideast.
Photo: AP
US strikes destroyed seven radars within Houthi-controlled territory, the US Central Command said.
It did not elaborate on how the sites were destroyed and did not immediately respond to questions.
“These radars allow the Houthis to target maritime vessels and endanger commercial shipping,” the Central Command said in a statement.
The US separately destroyed two bomb-laden drone boats in the Red Sea, as well as a drone launched by the Houthis over the waterway, it said.
The Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, since 2014, did not acknowledge the strikes, nor any military losses. That has been typical since the US began launching airstrikes targeting the rebels.
Meanwhile, the Central Command said that one commercial sailor from the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk cargo carrier Tutor remained missing after an attack on Wednesday by Houthis that used a bomb-carrying drone boat to strike the vessel.
“The crew abandoned ship and were rescued by USS Philippine Sea and partner forces,” the Central Command said, adding that the “Tutor remains in the Red Sea and is slowly taking on water.”
The US Navy has prepared for decades to potentially fight the Soviet Union, then later Russia and China, but instead of a global power, it finds itself locked in combat with the Houthis.
The combat pits the US Navy’s mission to keep international waterways open against a group whose former arsenal of assault rifles and pickup trucks has grown into a seemingly inexhaustible supply of drones, missiles and other weaponry.
The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, killed three sailors, seized one vessel and sunk another since November last year, the US Maritime Administration said.
A US-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes on May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the rebels say.
The Houthis say the attacks are aimed at stopping the war in Gaza and supporting the Palestinians, but it comes as they try to bolster their position in Yemen.
“The Houthis claim to be acting on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza and yet they are targeting and threatening the lives of third-country nationals who have nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza,” Central Command said. “The ongoing threat to international commerce caused by the Houthis in fact makes it harder to deliver badly needed assistance to the people of Yemen as well as Gaza.”
All signs suggest the warfare would intensify — putting US sailors, their allies and commercial vessels at more risk.
“I don’t think people really understand just kind of how deadly serious it is what we’re doing and how under threat the ships continue to be,” said US Navy Commander Eric Blomberg, with the USS Laboon.
“We only have to get it wrong once,” he said. “The Houthis just have to get one through.”
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