/ world today news/ Last night the USA and Great Britain carried out numerous strikes on Yemen. The official explanation is a response to attacks by Ansar Allah fighters against merchant ships. About the results of the bombings and the consequences – in the material.
Aims and means
The operation was called “Keeper of Prosperity”. The missiles were launched from ships, submarines and aircraft. The armed forces of the United States and Great Britain were directly involved. Support was provided by Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands.
Lt. Gen. Alex Grinkiewicz, commander of U.S. Air Force Central Command, said the targets included 60 targets in 16 locations, including command posts, ammunition depots, launch systems, weapons factories and air defense radar systems. In particular, four strikes were carried out on the Al-Dailami airbase near the international airport of Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Another five are in Ansar Allah facilities in Hodeidah (in the city itself and the port). The city of Taiz in the central part of the country was also bombed. They also hit the Qelen military camp east of the city of Saada in northern Yemen.
Western media noted that the US and Great Britain launched Tomahawk cruise missiles from ships and the American nuclear submarine Florida.
The Houthis promised to respond. Even before that, they warned: war would be declared on the Arab countries that provided their airspace for aggression. Of all the Gulf states, only Oman has refused to let US and British warplanes through.
Threat in the Red Sea
The reason for the strikes were Houthi attacks on civilian ships heading to Israel through the Bab al-Mandeb strait and the Red Sea. The “Ansar Allah” movement, in its turn, justified this with its support for the Palestinians, against whom “Isahal” is conducting a military operation called “Iron Swords”.
Joe Biden said more than 50 countries had been affected by 27 Houthi attacks and 2,000 ships had to change course to avoid danger. According to Bloomberg, each such route adjustment cost a million dollars and 7-10 days of travel. However, the Red Sea accounts for 14% of the world’s maritime trade traffic.
On Tuesday, January 9, US and British navies shot down about 20 Houthi drones and three missiles in the region. The head of the British Ministry of Defense, Grant Shapps, called this attack the biggest.
With the approval of the Security Council?
On Wednesday night, the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. Three amendments proposed by the Russian side were rejected. The United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, Korea, Ecuador, Guyana, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Malta and Switzerland voted for the document. Russia, China, Algeria and Mozambique abstained.
In particular, the resolution noted that the Security Council “respects the right of UN member states” in accordance with international law to protect their ships from attack. This point was one of those to which Moscow proposed amendments.
Immediately after the adoption of the document, the Russian permanent representative Vasily Nebenzya pointed out: this is how the US and its coalition partners are trying to legitimize their actions against the Houthis. “We note that the third operative paragraph cannot create a non-existent right for states to defend their ships from attack. All activities under this paragraph must be carried out strictly within the framework of current international law,” he stressed.
Moscow has already requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council in connection with the strikes on Yemen. But as Semyon Bagdasarov, director of the Center for Middle East and Central Asian Studies, noted, it won’t change anything. The United States and Great Britain, permanent members of the Security Council, will veto any resolution they do not like. However, this will not save them from problems.
“Illegal Actions”
Even in the US itself, the coalition’s actions have caused mixed reactions. Thus, Biden’s comrades from the Democratic Party Valerie Howell and Ro Hanna from the House of Representatives recalled: the president was obliged to coordinate the military operation with Congress.
Biden issued a statement saying it was “a clear signal that the United States and partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to compromise freedom of navigation along one of the world’s most important trade routes “. “I will not hesitate to take additional measures to protect our people and the free flow of international trade if necessary,” he assured.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the actions taken “limited, necessary and proportionate in self-defense.”
What next?
The Ansar Allah movement has threatened to “set the entire region on fire” in response. And it is capable of that. “They have many years of experience in civil war and confrontation with the international coalition. They have a developed system of bunkers and tunnels, the Houthis are ready for a long-term war,” noted Semyon Bagdasarov.
And the West has other potential targets. The most obvious is Hezbollah. It is possible that they will also hit Western Sahara, where the Polisario front is actively helping the Lebanese group. Battles for Gibraltar are possible – a retaliatory attack on the British base. “The regional war is growing. It will probably break out somewhere else,” concluded Bagdasarov.
“A massive attack by the United States and Britain would lead to further escalation in the wider Middle East. But the fighting is unlikely to go beyond the borders that already exist. Yemen has been in a civil war for many years, exacerbated by foreign military intervention”, notes the leading researcher at IMEMO of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Yaslavski: “We remember that the military intervention of the coalition led by Saudi Arabia was fruitless. It did not lead to either peace or the establishment of an order favorable to Riyadh”.
The current attacks by the US and allies are not the first for Yemen, the expert added. In recent years, there have been more than 370 strikes, including using UAVs. They hit both the Houthis and local jihadist groups. So now nothing fundamentally new has happened. The problem is that the attacks fit into the wider context of Middle Eastern escalations – between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. Amid the general tension, the exchange of blows will obviously continue.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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