Houthi tribesmen near Sana, Yemen.Credit…Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
U.S. hit targets in the Middle East
The U.S. launched scores of strikes against Iranian-backed militias in the Middle East over the weekend.
The latest one came yesterday in Yemen, where the U.S. military said it had destroyed an antiship cruise missile that belonged to Houthi militants. The U.S. and Britain hit 36 Houthi targets in northern Yemen on Saturday, a day after the U.S. carried out attacks on more than 85 targets in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. officials said that the strikes were carefully calibrated to avoid setting off a direct confrontation with Iran and that they hampered the militias’ ability to hit U.S. forces. But the attacks risk the kind of escalation of hostilities that President Biden has sought to avoid since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October.
Background: The U.S.-led air and naval strikes began last month in response to Houthi drone and missile attacks that have upended commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November. The weekend’s retaliation made good on President Biden’s promise to respond to a recent drone attack that killed three American soldiers at a remote outpost in Jordan.
Context: The strikes took place asSecretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to the Middle East to push for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza and to secure more humanitarian aid for the battered enclave.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
