The United States and Britain carried out a series of air strikes on military locations belonging to Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen early Friday in response to the militant group's ongoing attacks on vessels traveling through the Red Sea.
Fox News is told there were attacks on more than a dozen Houthi targets by air, surface, and subsurface platforms. The attacks were carried out with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, and Canada. A U.S. defense official says the U.K. contributed aircraft.
President Biden said he'd authorized the strikes "in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea—including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history."
These Houthi attacks, Biden said, have endangered U.S. personnel and its allies and have threatened freedom of navigation.
"These targeted strikes are a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes," the president said.
"I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary."
A joint statement from the governments of Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Southers Korea, and others said in a joint statement that the strikes "were intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of international mariners in one of the world's most critical waterways."
In anticipation of the attack, Houthi forces transported some weapons and equipment and fortified others, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a U.S. defense official. Local reports indicated Houthi militants were evacuating the Red Sea city of Hodeidah.
The group's leader, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi vowed in a televised speech earlier Thursday that any U.S. attack on Yemen's Houthis would not go without a response. He said any such response would be bigger than the recent strike in which its drones and missiles targeted a U.S. ship in the Red Sea.
"Any American attack will not remain without a response. The response will be greater than the attack that was carried out with twenty drones and a number of missiles," he said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak briefed his cabinet of ministers late Thursday on the imminent military intervention.
British media also reported that other political figures, including the leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, as well as the speaker of the House of Commons, had been briefed by the government.
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