Yemen’s Houthi Shiite terrorist group (also known as Ansar Allah) has renewed its attacks on Red Sea shipping, reportedly opening fire on a United Kingdom-owned cargo vessel in the early hours of Feb. 6.
According to group spokesman Yahya Sarea, Houthi fighters launched missiles at two ships—one British and one American—traversing the Red Sea near Yemen’s port city of Al-Hudeidah.
The group has vowed to wage additional “self-defensive” actions against what it calls “hostile” U.S. and British targets.
The pre-dawn attack has since been confirmed by the British military’s UK Maritime Trade Operations agency.
According to the agency, a UK-owned, Barbados-flagged cargo vessel sustained “slight damage” after having come under fire off Yemen’s west coast.
The agency also noted that a small watercraft had been sighted nearby shortly before the incident.
No deaths or injuries have been reported, while it remains unclear whether a second U.S.-owned vessel sustained any damage from the attack.
The incident comes three days after U.S. and UK naval forces carried out wide-ranging strikes across Yemen against dozens of Houthi targets.
According to U.S. Central Command, the joint strikes hit Houthi-operated missile launchers that had posed an “imminent threat” to both military and commercial vessels.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes “send a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels.”
The Houthis, for their part, had warned that the strikes would “not go without a response.”
Since mid-January, U.S. and UK naval forces have intermittently struck Houthi positions in response to the group’s repeated attacks on ships—both commercial and military—in the Red Sea.
The Houthis say the attacks are a legitimate response to an ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that has left thousands of Palestinian civilians dead.
Repeated Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have severely disrupted regional maritime traffic and taken a toll on international commerce.
An estimated 12 percent of the world’s commercial traffic passes through the Red Sea via Egypt’s Suez Canal.
Since the attacks began last November, Houthi fighters have hijacked one commercial vessel and attacked some two dozen others with missiles and drones.
The Houthis overran much of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014. The group is closely linked to Shiite Iran, Israel’s arch-foe in the region.
Tehran, meanwhile, has denied Western claims that it directs the group’s actions or provides it with material support.
Iraq, Syria Under Fire
The United States has not confined its operations against Iran-linked groups to the Houthis in Yemen.A day before hitting Houthi targets, the United States launched a wave of strikes on positions in both Syria and Iraq said to be linked to Iran-backed terrorists.
According to U.S. military officials, the strikes hit more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran-backed terror groups known to be active in the region.
The strikes came in response to an attack late last month on a U.S. base in northeastern Jordan that killed three U.S. military personnel and left dozens more injured.
Although that attack occurred inside Jordan, a longstanding U.S. ally, the targeted base—known as Tower 22—sits adjacent to both the Iraqi and Syrian borders.
Responsibility for the attack was later claimed by the self-styled Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of mostly Shiite militia.
The group, which reportedly includes security elements linked to Baghdad, demands the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq and Syria.
The United States maintains roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq as part of an international coalition tasked with fighting the ISIS terrorist group.
It also maintains a military presence in eastern Syria—currently estimated at some 900 troops—which Damascus regards as an “illegal occupation.”
According to the Pentagon, U.S. forces deployed in both countries have come under attack more than 165 times since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza last October.
Death Toll Uncertain
The precise toll of the recent U.S. strikes on Iraqi and Syrian targets remains unclear.According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, 23 Syrians—mostly military personnel—were killed in the strikes.
Syria’s defense ministry had earlier claimed that the strikes had killed an unspecified number of soldiers and civilians.
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, which is linked to several terrorist groups with ties to Iran, said 16 of its members had been killed.
Iraqi government spokesmen have also said that civilians, too, were among the dead.
The Pentagon, for its part, has said that it was still unaware of any Iranian deaths.
“It’s fair to conclude that there likely were casualties associated with these strikes,” Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder told reporters on Feb. 5.
An official assessment, he added, was still ongoing.
Mr. Ryder went on to assert that U.S. troops deployed in Syria had come under fire twice since the Feb. 2 bombardment but had not sustained any casualties.
Robert Wood, Washington’s deputy envoy to the U.N., has said the U.S. strikes were justified under the U.N. Charter, which grants members the right to self-defense.
“The United States does not desire more conflict in a region when we are actively working to contain and de-escalate the conflict in Gaza,” Mr. Wood said on Feb. 5.
“We are not seeking a direct conflict with Iran,” he added. “But we will continue to defend our personnel against unacceptable attacks.”
The diplomat also clarified that U.S. strikes on Iraqi and Syrian targets were a “separate and distinct” operation from joint U.S.-British strikes on Yemen’s Houthis.
