The Yemen Houthis say they will carry on with their attack on shipping in the Red sea, despite the intensification of US airstrikes on the Iran-backed group.
“The American-British aggression will only increase the Yemeni people’s determination to carry out their moral and humanitarian responsibilities towards the oppressed in Gaza,” Mohammed Albukhaiti, a member of the Houthi’s ruling council, said Monday evening, shortly after the latest round of airstrikes.
US and British forces carried out a fresh round of strikes late on Monday against eight locations in Yemen, targeting a Houthi underground storage site as well as missile and surveillance capabilities used by the Iran-aligned group against Red Sea shipping, the Pentagon said.
This is the eighth time in about two weeks that the US has hit Houthi targets, validating suggestions last week that the Biden administration may be gearing up for an extensive and prolonged campaign against Iran’s ‘wild card’ in its fight against the interests of the United States and its allies.
Iran has made it known that its ultimate goal is to ‘oust’ the Americans from the Middle East and fill in the ensuing power vacuum.
Late Monday, hours after the airstrike on Houthis in Yemen, Iran’s foreign minister Amir-Abdollahian once more threatened the US and UK –this time on US soil.
“We have sent a serious message to the Americans, warning them that what they did with the UK in attacking certain areas in Yemen endangers peace and security in the region,”Amirabdollahian told Iran’s official news agency IRNA, while in New York to take part in meetings at the UN. “This is intensification of war.”
Iran and the US seem to be on a collision course, despite signs that both the Iranian regime and the Biden administrations prefer to avoid direct confrontation.
On Monday, a top US Navy commander told the Associated Press that Iran was “very directly involved” in the Houthi operations in the Red Sea, which began in response to Israeli onslaught in Gaza mid-October.
“What I’ll say is Iran is clearly funding, they’re resourcing, they are supplying and they’re providing training,” said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet “They’re obviously very directly involved. There’s no secret there.
He said Iran-related attacks have outgrown the Persian Gulf to reach waters across the Middle East.
Iran and its regional proxy forces are engaged in attacks on the US and its allies almost daily, from Yemen to Iraq and Syria and Lebanon. The Biden administration seems to have failed to stop the attacks, despite repeated warnings and airstrikes.
Biden critics say his soft stance against Iran in the past three years has emboldened the regime and its proxies to the detriment of American troops and interests.
“There's a direct link between the Biden Admin’s futile Iran policy and our inability to stop attacks against American troops,” Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee posted on X Monday night. “Iran doesn't think the U.S. is willing to act. We must permanently freeze funds, enforce oil sanctions & restore credible deterrence.”
Experts warn that the Houthis may continue their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea –as they have repeatedly stated– and force the Biden administration to pursue harsher measures that some argue should include direct attacks on IRGC targets.
Early Tuesday local time, Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, a member of Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, vowed to leave no airstrike unanswered.
“Trust well that every operation and every aggression against our country will not be without a response,” he wrote on X.
The latest round of airstrikes on the Houthis was not as extensive as the first round ten days earlier. The objective, as set out by the Biden administration, is to degenerate the Houthis’ capabilities –something that the President himself has admitted has not been achieved.