An F/A-18 Super Hornet launches from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on Jan. 12, 2024, to target Iranian-backed Houthi militant sites in Yemen, in a screenshot from a video posted by U.S. Central Command. (U.S. Central Command)
WASHINGTON — Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile into the Red Sea on Friday, a day after U.S. and British forces launched strikes in Yemen in response to weeks of attacks from the militant group on commercial shipping lanes, a Joint Staff general said.
“My guess is that the Houthis are trying to figure things out on the ground and try to determine what capabilities exist for them,” Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of the Joint Staff, told reporters. “I would expect they would attempt some sort of retaliation. Honestly, I would hope they wouldn’t.”
U.S. and British armed forces, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, launched the retaliatory strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen on Thursday at about 2:30 a.m. local time. The coordinated military assault comes just a week after the White House and a host of partner nations issued a final warning to the Iran-backed Houthis to stop attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea or face potential military action.
Attacks stopped for several days. But on Tuesday, Houthis fired their largest barrage of drones and missiles targeting ships in the Red Sea. U.S. and British ships and American fighter jets responded and shot down 18 drones, two cruise missiles and an anti-ship missile. On Thursday, the Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile into the Gulf of Aden, which was seen by a commercial vessel but did not hit the ship. The anti-ship ballistic missile fired Friday also did not hit anything.
U.S. Air Forces Central said Thursday that the U.S.-led attack against the Houthis struck more than 60 targets at 16 sites in Yemen, including “command-and-control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, production facilities and air defense radar systems.”
Sims said Friday that an additional 12 Houthi locations were targeted in addition to the 16 sites previously reported.
“The number of casualties we don’t expect to be very high. This was not necessarily about casualties as much as it was degrading capability … that is impeding the freedom of navigation in international waters,” he said.
Sims also said several aircraft from Carrier Air Wing Three of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group participated in the strikes. Guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and destroyers USS Mason and USS Gravely, which are part of the carrier strike group, also took part. An Ohio-class, guided-missile submarine was also involved in the attack.
The strikes occurred while Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin remains at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he has been for nearly two weeks recovering from complications from prostate cancer surgery.
Austin, 70, has come under scrutiny for failing to notify President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials about his illness and hospital stay.
The White House was not told of Austin’s early December diagnosis or his late December surgery, which required him to go under general anesthesia, until this week. Austin’s hospitalization on Jan. 1 was not disclosed to top Pentagon officials, the White House, lawmakers or the public for several days.
After the Houthis’ attack on Tuesday, Austin conducted a phone call with Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who commands U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
Austin gave the order Thursday to Kurilla to execute the strikes following Biden’s authorization, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesman.
“He monitored them from his hospital room in real time via a full suite of secure communication capabilities,” Ryder said.
