US, UK strikes on Houthis in Yemen: Live updates
The US and UK began carrying out airstrikes on Houthi militias in Yemen in the early hours of Friday in response to the group targeting shipping routes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Washington and London launched their attacks without authorization from the UN Security Council. US President Joe Biden is also facing accusations from American lawmakers that he violated the Constitution as he didn’t ask for permission from Congress for the military operation.
The Houthis, who have pledged to support Gaza amid fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, have launched multiple drones and missiles targeting merchant vessels, as well as warships patrolling the vital waterway since mid-October.
The Houthis are a Shia Islamist militia that rose to power following a wave of protests known as the Arab Spring, which swept the Middle East in the early 2010s.
One of the poorest countries in the region, Yemen has been plagued by an intermittent civil war for nearly a decade. It was further devastated by a Saudi-led intervention, which began in 2015 with the aim of expelling the Houthis.
12 January 2024
13:19 GMTUS Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered and oversaw the overnight strikes on dozens of Houthi-related targets in Yemen from a hospital bed “with a full suite of secure communications,” CNN has reported, citing an anonymous senior Pentagon official. The American defense chief was hospitalized on January 1 for complications after prostate cancer surgery, keeping President Joe Biden and Congress in the dark about his condition for days.
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- 11:53 GMT
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the US and UK of trying to turn the Red Sea into a “sea of blood” with their disproportionate strikes on Yemen. The Houthi fighters are mounting a “successful defense, response” against those attacks, Erdogan also said, newspaper Daily Sabah reported.
The Houthis earlier announced that five people were killed and six others wounded in an aerial assault by the two Western nations. Despite the losses, they vowed to continue targeting commercial vessels off Yemen’s coast, which they’ve been doing for more than two months now, in response to the Israeli military operation in Gaza.
- 11:04 GMT
The German Foreign Ministry has claimed that the airstrikes on Yemen by the US and UK were “consistent with the UN Charter” and aimed at preventing further attacks by the Houthis against Israeli-bound ships.
“Our aim remains to de-escalate tensions and restore stability in the Red Sea, but let our message be clear: we will not hesitate to defend lives and protect the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways in the face of continued threats,” the ministry said in a statement. - 10:50 GMT
Russia condemns the “illegitimate” airstrikes on Yemen by the US and UK, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. He stressed that the UN Security Council Resolution, which had been adopted on Thursday and called on the Houthis to stop targeting Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea, didn’t give Washington and London the right to carry out the attack. Russia abstained during the vote on the document, Peskov reminded reporters.
The US and UK “tried to bring their actions under an international legal framework, but they failed. From the point of view of the international law, these strikes are illegitimate,” the spokesman stressed.
As for the Houthi attack on commercial vessels, Moscow “repeatedly called on them to abandon this practice and consider[s] it unlawful,” Peskov said.
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- 10:12 GMT
Paris believes the Houthis “bear the extremely serious responsibility” for the escalation in the Red Sea, the French Foreign Ministry said, following the US and UK airstrikes on Yemen.
“France renews its condemnation of the attacks carried out by the Houthis in the Red Sea against commercial vessels which violate navigation rights and freedoms and demands that the Houthis put an end to them immediately,” the ministry said in a statement.
- 09:27 GMT
The UK isn’t planning more strikes against Houthi fighters in Yemen at the moment, British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey has told the BBC. When asked about possible further sorties, Heappey replied that “there are none immediately planned, and that’s an important point.”
The American and British air attacks on Yemen overnight were “a limited, proportionate, necessary response” to actions by the Houthis, who targeted Israeli-bound vessels in the Red Sea, the minister said.
- 09:12 GMT
Following the American strikes on Yemen, which were carried out without congressional approval, social media users have been sharing a previous post from US President Joe Biden on X (formerly Twitter), in which he attacked Donald Trump for a similar move.
The message in question was published on January 6, 2020, a few days after top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
“Trump does not have the authority to take us into war with Iran without Congressional approval. A president should never take this nation to war without the informed consent of the American people,” Biden insisted at the time.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers have criticized the attacks against the Houthis in Yemen, arguing that the president violated the US Constitution by ordering them unilaterally.
Let's be clear: Donald Trump does not have the authority to take us into war with Iran without Congressional approval. A president should never take this nation to war without the informed consent of the American people.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 6, 2020 - 09:02 GMT
Five people have been killed and six others wounded as the US and UK targeted five regions of Yemen with 73 strikes overnight, Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree has said in a video-address.
“The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished,” he insisted.
Saree also warned that “the Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target sources of threat and all hostile targets on land and at sea in defense of Yemen, its sovereignty and independence.”
- 08:25 GMT
There has been a mixed reaction from lawmakers in Washington following a series of retaliatory strikes by the US and UK on Houthi targets in Yemen, with some questioning whether President Joe Biden had the authority to approve the military action. However, many backed the use of force, saying it was the responsibility of the administration to unblock shipping routes and protect US troops in the region.
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- 08:09 GMT
Beijing is “concerned about the escalation of tensions in the Red Sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said, following the US and UK airstrikes in Yemen. “We urge the relevant parties to keep calm and exercise restraint, to prevent the conflict from expanding,” Mao stressed.
Source: https://www.rt.com/news/590482-yemen-strikes-live-updates/
Blogger's note: Why should anybody fight Israel's war? Let them fight for themselves. No, by deception they will wage war. They like to have someone else die for their desires.
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