The United States and Britain hit 36 ​​Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in a second wave of strikes aimed at further disabling Iran-backed groups that have continued to attack American and international interests in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Attacks have been made for Yemen.

The latest attacks against the Houthis were carried out by warships and fighter jets. Strikes happen. Air strikes in Iraq and Syria on Friday in retaliation for a drone strike that killed three American soldiers in Jordan last weekend that targeted Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The Houthis targeted 13 different locations and were hit by Tomahawk missiles fired from the Red Sea by F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower fleet aircraft carrier and the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and USS Carney. officials told The Associated Press. He was not authorized to discuss the military operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The United States has warned that its response will not be limited to just one night, one target or one group after last Sunday’s killing of soldiers at the Tower 22 base in Jordan. But the Houthis have been launching near-daily missile or drone attacks on commercial and military ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and have made clear they have no intention of abandoning their campaign. It was not immediately clear whether Allied attacks would stop them.

Defense Minister Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the military operation, backed by Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Yemen and the Netherlands and New Zealand, “sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to suffer further consequences if they do so. International not to put an end to their unlawful attacks on ships and vessels.”

He added: “We will not hesitate to defend the free flow of lives and commerce in one of the world’s most important waterways.”

The strikes targeted the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems and sites associated with radars, the Defense Department said.

Saturday’s Yemen strikes marked the third time the US and Britain have carried out a major joint operation to target Houthi weapons launchers, radar sites and drones. The attacks in Yemen are intended to underscore the broader message to Iran that Washington is behind arming Tehran, funding and militias that have been behind attacks against American and international interests across the Middle East, including Iraq and Syria, for the past several months. Responsible for training Rebels in Yemen

Video shared online by people in Yemen’s capital Sanaa included the sound of explosions and at least one blast was seen lighting up the night sky. Residents attributed the blasts to explosions around buildings attached to the Yemeni presidential compound. The Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA reported attacks in al-Bayda, Zamar, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Taiz and Sana’a provinces.

On Friday, US destroyers LeBron and Eisenhower F/A-18s shot down seven drones fired into the Red Sea from Yemen’s Houthi-controlled areas, while the destroyer Carney shot down one drone fired into the Gulf of Aden. And American forces shot him down. Four more drones were ready for launch.

Hours before the latest joint operation, the U.S. launched another self-defense attack on a site in Yemen, destroying six anti-ship cruise missiles, as it has repeatedly done when it has launched missiles or drones. Detected as ready to launch.

The Houthi attacks have forced shipping companies to reroute their ships from the Red Sea to around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope – a much longer, more expensive and less efficient route. The threats have also prompted the US and its allies to establish a joint mission where warships from partner countries provide an air defense umbrella for ships as they navigate the key waterway from the Suez Canal to the Bab al-Mandab strait. Travel on. .

During normal operations, approximately 400 merchant ships transit the southern Red Sea at any given time.

The United States has blamed Jordan’s attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias. Iran has tried to distance itself from the drone strikes, saying the militias operate independently of its direction.

Hossein al-Mousavi, a spokesman for Harakat al-Najaba, one of the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, condemned the first US attack in Iraq and said Washington “must understand that every action has a reaction.” But in an AP interview in Baghdad, he also struck a more conciliatory tone. He said that we do not want to increase or widen the regional tension.

The sites targeted in Iraq were essentially “empty of fighters and military personnel at the time of the attack,” Mousavi said.

Rami Abd al-Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 23 people were killed, fighters of all ranks. Iraqi government spokesman Basim al-Awadi said in a statement that 16 people, including civilians, had been killed and “significant damage” to homes and private property.

The US said it informed Iraq about the operation before it began.

A U.S. official said initial battle damage estimates showed the U.S. had hit every one of its planned targets except for a few “dynamic targets” that emerged as the mission unfolded, including Surface-to-air missile sites and drone launch sites. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that were not yet public, did not have a casualty estimate.

The Iraqi government has been in a precarious position since a group of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq launched attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria on October 18. The group described the attacks as retaliation for Washington’s support. Israel in the Gaza War.

Behind the scenes, Iraqi officials have tried to rein in the militias, while condemning the U.S. retaliatory strikes as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and calling for the withdrawal of 2,500 U.S. troops to fight IS. are present in the country as part of an international coalition. . Last month, Iraqi and U.S. military officials began formal talks to end the coalition presence, a process that will likely take years.