The United States and Britain have carried out air strikes on several sites in Yemen in what they said was a bid to degrade Huthi rebels’ ability to conduct attacks on maritime shipping.
AFP journalists heard loud explosions in the capital Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida overnight from Thursday to Friday.
The Huthi-controlled television channel Al-Masirah said strikes had also targeted telecoms infrastructure in the town of Taez.
It reported that “several” people were killed or injured in the strikes.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify the toll.
The British defence ministry said in a statement that its planes launched strikes in “a joint operation with US forces against Houthi military facilities to degrade their ability to persist with their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden”.
The ministry said intelligence had indicated that two sites near Hodeida had been involved in the attacks on shipping, “with a number of buildings identified as housing drone ground control facilities and providing storage for very long range drones, as well as surface to air weapons”.
Further south, another site “had also been identified as being involved in the command and control of their anti-shipping campaign”, it added.
Thirteen Huthi-held installations were attacked, according to a statement from the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which also stated that the attacks were “necessary to protect our forces, ensure freedom of navigation, and make international waters safer and more secure”.
In reaction to the rebels’ assaults on the crucial waterways, the US and the UK have been hitting Huthi targets in Yemen with retaliatory strikes since January.
The Huthis, however, have pledged to target all ships that are traveling to Israeli ports as well as US and British boats, so the strikes haven’t had much of an impact.
