Above photo: British Royal Air Force Typhoons conducting strikes against targets in Yemen. UK Ministry of Defense/X.
Yemen confirmed that no attack would deter its armed forces from supporting Palestine.
And promised to continue targeting Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea.
The Yemeni Armed Forces released a statement on 12 January condemning the US-British attack on the country and announcing the deaths of several of its troops.
“The US-British enemy, as part of its support for the continued Israeli crime in Gaza, launched a brutal aggression against the Republic of Yemen with seventy-three raids, targeting the capital, Sanaa, and the governorates of Hodeidah, Taiz, Hajjah, and Saada. The raids led to the death of five martyrs and the injury of six others from our armed forces.”
The attack will “not go unpunished or unanswered,” the Armed Forces added.
“The US and British enemy bears full responsibility for this criminal aggression … [We] will not hesitate to all target all threats and all hostile targets on land and sea in defense of Yemen.”
The statement vowed that no US or British attack is capable of deterring Yemen “from its position of supporting and standing with the oppressed Palestinian people.”
Sanaa’s forces will continue to attack ships linked to Israel or bound for Israeli ports, the statement confirmed.
Muhammad al-Bukhaiti of the Ansarallah resistance movement’s political bureau said on Friday that the US and UK “made a mistake” in waging war against Yemen, coming just hours after Washington and London carried out a series of airstrikes on the country.
The US and UK “made a mistake in waging war on Yemen, and did not benefit from their previous experiences” in supporting the Saudi-led coalition’s nine-year war against Sanaa.
“Without a doubt, today, they regret their previous follies … They will soon realize that this direct aggression against Yemen was the greatest folly in their history.”
Another member of the Ansarallah political bureau said that the US and British strikes “will not pass without a response.”
Muhammad Abdul Salam, Sanaa’s UN negotiator and head of the national delegation, said that the “armed forces made an initial response, and we will expand the response very soon.”
The joint US-British attack on Yemen drew condemnation from several nations and resistance groups.
Russia said that the attack was “a total violation of international law aimed at an escalation in the region to attain their destructive objectives.” China also urged restraint from all sides, saying it is concerned about the escalation of tensions in the Red Sea.
“We urge the relevant parties to keep calm and exercise restraint to prevent the conflict from expanding,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.
Iran’s foreign ministry “strongly” condemned the strikes and said that they would fuel “insecurity and instability” in the region.
“These attacks are a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and a breach of international laws.”
Saudi Arabia, which has waged war on Yemen for nine years at the head of an Arab coalition, expressed “concern” over the US and British attack and called for “restraint and avoiding escalation.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas resistance groups also strongly condemned the attack.
“The US aggression confirms once again that the US is a full partner in the tragedies and massacres committed by the Zionist enemy in Gaza and the region,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
Hamas called it a “blatant aggression” and a “threat to the region’s security,” adding that it “highly values” the Yemeni position in support of Gaza and the Palestinian resistance.
Washington and London’s late-night strikes on Yemen Thursday evening targeted several areas of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, and the provinces of Hodeidah, Saada, Taiz, and Hajjah, according to local news outlet Saba.
US President Joe Biden announced that the strikes were a “direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea.”
The US and UK “executed deliberate strikes on over 60 targets at 16 Iranian-backed Houthi militant locations, including command and control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, production facilities, and air defense radar systems,” US Air Forces Central Commander Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich said, adding that over 100 precision-guided munitions were used in the attack.
The attack followed a speech by the leader of Ansarallah, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, in which he vowed that any US attack would trigger a response greater than the previous retaliation, which saw Yemeni forces attack a US ship on 10 January.
“We have already offered thousands of martyrs while confronting US proxies … We prefer direct confrontation with the US, British, and Israelis … We are ready to do what is necessary and will fight with bravery … We rely on Allah in our position against the aggression on Palestine,” he added.
“A large number” of drones and missiles targeted a US ship on Wednesday in response to Washington’s sinking of three Yemeni naval boats and the killing of ten Yemeni officers on 31 December.