The United States military has launched its sixth round of airstrikes against the Yemeni Houthis in just eight days.
“U.S. carried out three strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday morning.
The strikes targeted Houthi anti-ship missile launchers, which they were preparing to use, National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said on Friday.
‘This morning, U.S. forces conducted three successful self-defense strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen’, he explained. ‘This is the fourth preemptive action that the U.S. military has taken in the past week against Houthi missile launchers that were ready to launch attacks’.
The United States has carried out six rounds of strikes against them since last Thursday, and while U.S. officials maintain they are degrading the Houthis’ capabilities, the Iranian-supported rebel group still has the ability to launch their own attacks.
Similarly, the strikes have not deterred the Houthis from carrying out additional attacks despite knowing the U.S.’s ability to hit them.
The U.S. and Houthis have engaged in a back and forth where one will carry out an attack and the other will seemingly soon follow hours or days later.
On Thursday night, before the U.S.’s latest strikes, the Houthis launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles at M/V Chem Ranger, a Marshall Island-flagged, U.S.-owned, Greek-operated tanker ship. The crew observed the missiles impact the water near the ship and reported no casualties or damage to the ship.
Despite the tit for tat with the Houthis, the Pentagon does not believe it is at war against them.
‘We don’t seek war’, deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday. ‘We don’t think that we are at war. We don’t want to see a regional war. The Houthis are the ones that continue to launch cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles at innocent mariners, at commercial vessels that are just transiting an area that sees, you know, 10% to 15% of world’s commerce’. -Mike Brest, Washington Examiner
In response to the series of airstrikes that have targeted the Yemen-based militant group’s launch sites, not only have Houthi representatives stated specifically that American and British ships will not be permitted to sail through the Red Sea and that their attacks on them will continue but in an interview published by Russian newspaper Izvestiya, a member of the Houthi politburo revealed that the Shia organization is prepared to provide “security guarantees for their safe passage through the Red Sea” for other countries, namely Russia and China.