U.S. forces, allies shoot down more than 2 dozen Houthi drones in Red Sea

The U.S. army and its allies shot down a flurry of a minimum of 28 drones within the Pink Sea fired by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen early Saturday, the Pentagon mentioned.

The drones had been fired over an roughly four-hour interval from about 4 a.m. to eight:20 a.m. native time, U.S. Central Command reported on social media.

There have been no experiences of economic or naval vessels broken within the assault, CENTCOM mentioned.

U.Ok. Protection Secretary Grant Shapps posted video to social media early Saturday exhibiting what he mentioned was the British warship HMS Richmond utilizing missiles to shoot down two Houthi drones.

“The UK and our allies will proceed to take the motion essential to save lots of lives and shield freedom of navigation,” Shapps wrote.

Houthi militants, who occupy huge swaths of Yemen, have since November launched dozens of assaults on ships within the Pink Sea in a present of solidarity with the militant group Hamas in its warfare with Israel. The assaults have considerably disrupted worldwide transport routes.

A Houthi assault Wednesday killed a minimum of three members of the crew on the Liberian-owned business ship True Confidence, based on protection officers, marking the primary fatalities from one of many Houthi assaults since they began in November.

And final weekend, a British owned-ship which had been struck by a Houthi missile in February sank within the Pink Sea, making it the primary vessel to be destroyed by the Houthis since they started their assaults. The ship’s sinking was additionally believed to have severed three undersea telecommunication cables.

In response, the U.S. and U.Ok., with the help of coalition forces, have launched 4 rounds of airstrikes on Houthi army targets in Yemen courting again to mid-January.

The Biden administration earlier this 12 months declared the Houthis to be a “specifically designated international terrorist group,” reversing a part of an earlier determination by the U.S. State Division in February 2021 that eliminated that designation.

— Eleanor Watson contributed to this report. 

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