Washington’s UN envoy stated that the actions against Iraqi and Syrian targets are separate and distinct from the joint operations against Yemen’s terrorist group, Yemen’s Houthi Shiite terrorist group has renewed attacks on Red Sea shipping. They reportedly opened fire on a UK-owned cargo vessel in early February. Houthi fighters allegedly targeted two ships, one British and the other American, traversing the Red Sea. They have vowed further “self-defensive” actions against what they call “hostile” U.S. and British targets. The incident was confirmed by the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency, with only slight damage to the UK-owned cargo vessel and no injuries were reported.
U.S. and UK naval forces conducted a wide-ranging strike across Yemen against dozens of Houthi targets three days before the attacks. According to U.S. Central Command, the joint strikes hit Houthi-operated missile launchers they believed posed an “imminent threat” to both military and commercial vessels. Since mid-January, U.S. and UK naval forces have intermittently struck Houthi positions in response to the group’s repeated attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The group believes their attacks are a legitimate response to the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The United States has not confined its operations against Iran-linked groups to the Houthis in Yemen. A day before the strikes in Yemen, the United States attacked sites in both Syria and Iraq in response to an attack on a U.S. base in northeastern Jordan. The targeted base is adjacent to both the Iraqi and Syrian borders. The precise toll of the recent U.S. strikes on Iraqi and Syrian targets remains unclear, with reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights suggesting 23 Syrians—mostly military personnel—were killed. Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces said 16 members had been killed, while Iraqi government spokesmen have also said that civilians were among the dead.
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, clarifying 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.