US Warships, Aircraft Launch New Strikes on Yemen’s Houthis

An F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet landing on the deck of the U.S. Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, during a NATO vigilance activity Neptune Shield 2022 (NESH22) on the eastern Mediterranean Sea on May 23, 2022. Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images

The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that U.S. warships and aircraft conducted multiple airstrikes on Dec. 30 and Dec. 31 targeting Houthi rebel sites in Yemen.

These new U.S. strikes come as the Houthis, an Iranian-backed Zaydi Shia Islamist faction also known as Ansar Allah, have continued to launch missile and drone strikes on Israel and harass ships transiting the Red Sea.

CENTCOM announced that U.S. Navy warships and aircraft specifically targeted a Houthi command and control facility in Yemen, as well as facilities the group has used to produce and store advanced conventional weapons. CENTCOM said these facilities helped launch attacks targeting both U.S. Navy warships and merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The U.S. military command said U.S. Navy and Air Force aircraft also destroyed a Houthi-operated radar site along the Yemeni coastline and intercepted cruise missiles and drones over the Red Sea.

The Houthis began as an insurgent movement within Yemen, opposing the internationally recognized Yemeni government. They took control of the Yemeni capital city of Sana'a in 2014 and continued to fight intermittently with the Yemeni government in the years that followed.

For a time, the United States supplied weapons to a Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni government in its fight with the Houthis. As then-President Donald Trump’s first White House term came to an end in 2021, his administration designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization and added them to the U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list. The Biden administration reversed those terror designations within days of entering office.

The Yemeni civil war largely subsided after a U.N.-mediated truce was established in the spring of 2022, and the Houthis have turned their attention outward. The Yemeni faction started the ongoing Red Sea standoff after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in southern Israel and the outbreak of fighting in the Gaza Strip. The group has since vowed to continue its attacks as long as the Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip continues.

U.S. forces began intercepting Houthi Red Sea attacks in the fall of 2023. By January 2024, U.S. forces were striking targets inside Yemen, and the Biden administration placed the Houthis back on the SDGT list.

Houthi Standoff Intensifies

While the Houthis have primarily focused their attention on the Red Sea waterways, they have sporadically traded blows with Israel. These back-and-forth strikes have intensified in recent weeks.

On Dec. 21, the Houthis targeted Israel with a ballistic missile that managed to break through Israeli air defense systems before landing near a playground, injuring several people in the vicinity.

U.S. aircraft conducted strikes on Sana'a in the hours after the Tel Aviv attack, but the Houthis responded by launching drones and missiles at the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group. As U.S. warships prepared to defend against incoming Houthi attacks in the early morning hours on Dec. 22, one warship accidentally shot down a friendly two-seater F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet, forcing the two aviators to eject to safety.

Israeli aircraft conducted their own strikes over Yemen on Dec. 26. Some of the Israeli warplanes targeted a number of ports and a power plant, while other strikes hit parts of the Sana'a International Airport.

A U.N. delegation was at the Sana'a airport during the Dec. 26 Israeli strikes.

In a post on X, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the strikes damaged an air traffic control tower, reportedly killed two people, and injured a member of the U.N. flight crew on his planned flight out of the country. He said the strikes also left the runway damaged, delaying his flight out.

Julien Harneis, the U.N. resident coordinator in Yemen, said in a statement that the U.N. delegation had no forewarning of the Dec. 26 Israeli strikes. Harneis said an airliner was about to land when the Israeli strikes damaged the traffic control tower.

“The airport is civilian infrastructure. It is where all the international humanitarian aid workers who work in the north of the country enter and leave, so if the airport is disabled, it will paralyze humanitarian operations,” Harneis stated.

The Houthis have continued to launch new attacks toward both Israel and U.S. forces in the region in the past week.

In a Dec. 31 statement, Houthi spokesman Yahya Sare‘e claimed that the Yemeni faction launched new attacks that targeted the Ben Gurion Airport and a power station in Israel. Sare’e said the Houthis also launched attacks targeting the Truman Carrier Strike Group.

The Israel Defense Forces said its aircraft intercepted one missile from Yemen on Dec. 30, before it could cross over into Israeli territory.

CENTCOM reported that no U.S. personnel were injured and no equipment was damaged in the Houthi attacks.