For days, the US has hinted strikes are imminent. While the threat of retaliation for Sunday’s deaths has driven some militant groups to say they were stopping hostilities, as late as Thursday, Yemen’s Houthi rebels were still attacking vessels and fired a ballistic missile at a Liberian-flagged container ship in the Red Sea.
“At this point, it’s time to take away even more capability than we’ve taken in the past,” Austin said Thursday, in his first press conference since he was hospitalized on January 1 due to complications from prostate cancer treatment.
Previous US strikes have not deterred the attacks. Since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October, Iranian-backed militant groups have struck US bases in Iraq and Syria at least 166 times with rockets, missiles and one-way attack drones, drawing about a half-dozen US counterstrikes on militant facilities in both countries. The US military also has carried out airstrikes targeting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In the Red Sea, the Houthis have fired on commercial and military ships almost 40 times since November. In the latest attack, they fired a ballistic missile at a Liberian-flagged container ship on Thursday, US defense officials said. READ MORE
