YEMEN AL-MUKALAH: The US military has destroyed several Houthi drones, remotely piloted boats, and ballistic missiles targeting ships on international trade routes.
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement Tuesday morning Yemen time that it had destroyed three drones launched by the Houthis from Yemen across the Gulf of Aden and another drone in Houthi-controlled Yemeni territory. The U.S. also destroyed a drone boat, a drone, and an anti-ship ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from the Red Sea before they reached their intended targets along a critical maritime route.
“These weapons pose a clear and imminent threat to U.S. and coalition forces, and to commercial vessels in the region. This reckless and dangerous action by the Iranian-backed Houthis continues to threaten regional stability and security,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
In Sanaa, the Houthis did not claim credit for the new attacks on ships in the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, as they often do hours or days after they attack ships. On Saturday, the Houthis fired missiles at commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden, reviving a two-week moratorium on anti-ship operations. The Liberian-flagged cargo ship Groton was struck twice Saturday afternoon while sailing east of the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center.
In a statement released by the militia's military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, the Houthis said the Groton was targeted because the ship's parent company violated regulations banning its entry into Israeli ports.
Houthi attacks on shipping have stopped since July 20, when Israeli jets struck oil storage facilities and other targets in the Houthi-held city of Hodeidah in western Yemen. Despite frequent threats of retaliation for Israeli bombings, the Houthis have not claimed any further attacks on Israel or its shipping in the past two weeks.
Since November, the Houthis have seized one merchant ship, sunk two others and launched dozens of missile, drone and drone boat attacks on merchant and naval vessels in the international shipping lane of the Yemen Strait, claiming solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's presidential leadership council, said on Monday his government had promoted the “interests of the people” by lifting harsh economic measures against Sanaa Bank.
In a surprise move that has sparked anger in Yemen, the Yemeni government has reached a UN-brokered deal with the Houthis to lift sanctions on Sanaa-based banks and allow Yemeni state-owned airline Yemeni Airlines to increase flights from the Houthi-held Sanaa airport to Jordan, Egypt and India. This is a reversal of previous strong promises to punish Sanaa-based banks if they refuse to move their headquarters to the interim government-controlled capital of Aden.
“We are fighting an economic battle, and the presidential leadership council has decided with conviction that this choice needs to be reversed in order to put the interests of the Yemeni people above all other interests,” Al-Alimi told the state-run Hadhramaut newspaper.
The Yemeni leader also said his government had accepted the roadmap, a UN-brokered peace plan to end the country's civil war, and praised the Saudi-led coalition to restore legitimacy in Yemen for its work supporting the government and its allies in liberating parts of the country from Houthi rebels.
“We agreed on a roadmap and now the ball is in the Houthis’ court who continue to resist peace,” he said, adding that “without Operation Decisive Storm and the resistance and sacrifices of the Yemeni people, the militias would have dominated all of Yemen by now.”
