US launches large-scale strikes on Yemen, at least 31 killed
The unfolding strikes - which one US official said might continue for weeks - represent the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January. It came as the United States ramped up sanctions pressure on Tehran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
At least 31 were killed and 101 others injured in the US strikes, mostly women and children, Anees al Asbahi, spokesperson for the health ministry said in an updated toll on Sunday. The group's political bureau described the attacks as a "war crime." "Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation," it said in a statement.
Strikes also targeted military sites in Yemen's southwestern city of Taiz, two witnesses in the area said on Sunday. Another strike on a power station in the town of Dahyan in Saada led to a power cut, Al Masirah TV reported early on Sunday.
The Yemeni group, an armed movement that took control of most of Yemen over the past decade, have launched scores of attacks on ships off its coast since November 2023, disrupting global commerce and setting the US military on a costly campaign to intercept missiles and drones that have burned through stocks of US air defences. A Pentagon spokesperson said that they have attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023. The Yemenis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel's war in Gaza with Hamas.
The US military's Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described Saturday's strikes as the start of a large-scale operation across Yemen. The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by fighter aircraft from the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea, officials said.
Iran's foreign ministry condemned strikes on Yemen as a "gross violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter and the fundamental rules of international law", in a statement shared by state media.
The Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the US government had "no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy." "End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop killing of Yemeni people," he said in an X post early on Sunday. On Tuesday, the group said it would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire. — Reuters
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