How the US and UK launched Houthi strikes
Rishi Sunak described it as “limited, necessary and proportionate action” – but the strikes against the Houthis were still extensive.
The US military said it had struck 60 targets at 30 locations, using more than 150 precision-guided munitions. The Houthis reported 73 US and UK strikes and said they had killed five soldiers.
The Ministry of Defence said four RAF planes took part in strikes on two locations.
Sky News has geolocated videos shared by the RAF to Bani Basrah, an area of Northwestern Yemen. The videos show a precision strike from Typhoon jets, which the RAF said had flown from the Akrotiri base in Cyprus.
The site is around 124 miles north of Hodeidah and just over 155 miles north west of Sana’a. The RAF hit two locations in Bani and Abbs airfield.
Witnesses confirmed explosions throughout Yemen, saying raids targeted a military base adjacent to Sana’a airport, a military site near Ta’izz airport and a Houthi naval base in Hudaydah.
Houthi attacks on shipping
The Houthis announced their participation in the Israel-Gaza war on 19 November in spectacular fashion, landing a helicopter on the Galaxy Leader cargo ship and taking control of it. A Houthi spokesperson said the seizure of the ship was its response to “heinous acts against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and the West Bank”.
Since then, they have increased the tempo of attacks without mounting anything quite as ambitious.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) has recorded around 50 “violent events” in the Red Sea since 19 October – a pattern it describes as a “big escalation” compared to previous years.
The ACLED data counts events like drone and missile attacks, along with interceptions of those attacks by allied forces.
Data gathered by Ambrey Analytics, a maritime security firm, takes in non-violent events, including sighting of Houthi ships.
Before the strikes took place, defence analysts Sam Cranny-Evans and Dr Sidharth Kaushal had argued, in a commentary for RUSI, that “the most effective course of action would involve strikes against limited but valuable target sets within the Houthi organisation”.
“Doing so would impact the group’s ability to continue its missile strikes while minimising the risk of a wider regional conflict, thereby enabling the US and other navies to free up capacity for other strategic concerns,” they said.
That seems to describe the US and UK strikes exactly. The question is how much it will in fact impact Houthi capabilities. They have vowed to continue their attacks, and even strike back.
“America and Britain will undoubtedly have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences of this blatant aggression,” Hussein al-Ezzi, a Houthi Foreign Ministry official, said in an online statement.
The US Air Force had already said that “if necessary, we will take follow-on actions to protect US forces”. Both sides are prepared for further exchanges of fire.
Whatever the scenario, there is a lot of firepower in the region. Operation Prosperity Guardian is a US-led mission formed in response to the Houthi attacks on shipping.
Along with American and British ships, there is also a French vessel, and Greece and Denmark have said they will be sending a frigate each to the area.
That fleet may be kept busy over the next few days.