The long-anticipated coordinated airstrikes carried out by the United States and the United Kingdom against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Friday were a response to several weeks of attacks targeting commercial cargo ships in the Red Sea. The U.S. and UK have warned that the Houthi attacks threaten the free passage of goods through the region, which in turn could destabilise the global economy.
The U.S. military fired missiles from ships and submarines, and backed those attacks with airstrikes by U.S. and British warplanes, on Houthi sites housing drones, ballistic and cruise missiles and coastal radar stations. This anticipated military action, which came after several repeated warnings by both the U.S. and UK, has raised questions of whether the U.S. or even the word as whole is moving closer to a global conflict.
The Houthis, whose official name is Ansar Allah, have vowed to that the U.S. and British strikes won’t go without “punishment or retaliation.”
The Houthis, a Yemeni militia group named after their founder, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, emerged in the 1980s in opposition to Saudi Arabia’s religious influence in Yemen. With an estimated 20,000 fighters, the militant group runs most of the west of the country and controls the Red Sea coastline.
The airstrikes signify a notable escalation of U.S. involvement in the Middle East and is potentially the most significant escalation in a conflict that has the potential to spread throughout the region. Just last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarked on his fourth mission to the Middle East in three months, with the objective of containing the spill-over effects from the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Some foreign affairs and defense experts suggest that the U.S. military’s response may not dissuade the Houthi rebels, which has endured and outlasted years of bombings carried out by a coalition of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Houthi rebels have expressed their determination to continue their attacks until Israel ends its military operations against Hamas.
Chloe Atkinson is a climate change activist and consultant on global climate affairs.
Source: CounterPunch
