Middle East airstrikes: US refuses to rule out Iran targets after hitting sites in Yemen, Syria and Iraq

Crews extinguished a fire on board a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel on Saturday after it was struck by a Houthi anti-ship missile in the Gulf of Aden, according to commodities trader Trafigura. It is the latest of more than 30 Houthi attacks in the past three months.

The Islamist group claims it is striking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which is a narrow strip of sea between Yemen and east Africa that is a key international trade route, in a bid to end Israel’s air and ground offensive against Hamas.

President Joe Biden, speaking after the first round of strikes, said they were a “direct response” to an onslaught of attacks on Red Sea ships which “jeopardised trade, and threatened freedom of navigation”.

The US strikes appeared to stop short of directly targeting Iran or senior leaders of the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force within its borders in an effort to prevent the conflict from escalating further.

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports:

On Sunday, President Joe Biden officially notified Congress of the airstrikes conducted in Syria and Iraq on Friday saying he directed them under his official responsibility.

“I directed the strikes in order to protect and defend our personnel and assets who are in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan,” Mr Biden said in a letter addressed to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson

Mr Biden said this action was consistent with his responsibility as commander and chief and said that he will direct “additional measures” against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups as appropriate.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that President Joe Biden was hindering Israel’s war effort by supplying humanitarian aid and fuel to people in Gaza.

“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel (to Gaza), which goes to Hamas,” Mr Ben-Gvir said.

Mr Biden has sent extremely necessary humanitarian aid to Gaza where at least 90 per cent of the population is without clean water and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of starving.

“If Trump was in power, the U.S. conduct would be completely different,” Mr Ben-Gvir, a far-right extremist whose statements in the past have been described as “racist”, added.

Iran issued a warning Sunday to the U.S. over potentially targeting two cargo ships in the Mideast long suspected of serving as forwarding operating base for Iranian commandos, just after America and the United Kingdom launched a massive airstrike campaign against Yemen‘s Houthi rebels.

The statement from Iran on the Behshad and Saviz ships appeared to signal Tehran’s growing unease over the U.S. strikes in recent days in Iraq, Syria and Yemen targeting militias backed by the Islamic Republic.

Those attacks, themselves a retaliatory campaign for the killing of three U.S. soldiers and wounding of dozens of others in Jordan, all stem back to Israel‘s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has escalated tensions across the wider Middle East and raised fears about a regional conflict breaking out.

The Yemen strikes overnight Sunday struck across six provinces of Yemen held by the Houthi rebels, including in Sanaa, the capital. The Houthis gave no assessment of the damage but the U.S. described hitting underground missile arsenals, launch sites and helicopters used by the rebels.”

After the US destroyed an anti-ship cruise missile belonging to the Houthi militia in Yemen on Sunday, the group vowed to respond to the attacks, saying they would not go unpunished.

The US struck the anti-cruise ship missile following a joint strike by the US, UK and six allies to hit 36 Houthi targets in northern Yemen.

On X, a spokesperson for the Houthi military, Yahya Sarea, said that the attacks would “not deter us from our moral, religious and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza strip and will not pass without response and punishment.”

The Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia, have launched attacks against commercial and military ships in the Red Sea over the last few months in what they claim is an act of solidarity with Palestinians.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security advisor, said that the strikes in Syria and Iraq are “the beginning, not the end” of the US’s response to the three American soldiers who were killed in Jordan last week.

Speaking with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on Sunday, Mr Sullivan said that Americans can expect more responses both “seen and unseen”.

“President Biden was clear that what you saw on Friday night in the strikes in Iraq and Syria was the beginning not the end of our response so there will be more steps in the coming days,” Mr Sullivan said.

Later on, Mr Sullivan told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that the US is prepared “for every contingency” including Iran to respond to the US.

“I would just say, from the perspective of Tehran, if they chose to respond directly to the United States, they would be met with a swift and forceful response from us,” Mr Sullivan said.

February 2: US military strikes more than 85 targets in Syria and Iraq in a retaliatory move. The military targeted facilities connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force and militias backed by Iran. An estimated 40 people are killed in the attacks.

February 3: The US and UK, with support from six other allied countries, launch attacks at dozens of sites in Yemen controlled by Houthi militants. The attack is related to an ongoing conflict in the Red Sea where Houthis have been attacking commercial and military ships.

February 4: Houthis vow to respond to the US’s attacks and Iran warns the US that carrying out more strikes will lead to more instability in the region.

RAF Typhoon aircraft took off to conduct further strikes against Houthi targets on Saturday, 3 February.

The UK has joined the US for a third time in further strikes in a bid to prevent further attacks on international shipping along a major trade route.

Strikes were against Houthi locations in Yemen involved in the campaign targeting the southern Red Sea and the Bab al Mandab, the Ministry of Defence said.

Fresh assaults were “not an escalation” but were designed to “protect innocent lives and preserve freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea, defence secretary Grant Shapps said.