US-led attacks in Yemen might spark more fighting

According to analysts, the United States and the United Kingdom’s airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi militia are illegal under international law, breach Yemen’s sovereignty, and run the risk of escalating the violence in the region despite their stated objectives and international de-escalation efforts. Five individuals were killed and six injured in Friday’s US-UK attacks on Houthi targets in Sanaa and other parts of Yemen, according to a statement from the group’s spokesman, Yahya Sarea. The Houthi-run al-Masirah TV said that the allies launched another attack on the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on Sunday.

According to US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US declared that the strikes were “necessary and proportionate” in response to Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. However, the Houthis issued a warning, as reported by Xinhua News Agency, stating that the West’s “aggression” would not go unanswered or unpunished. The US-UK strikes have drawn criticism from several nations. The US-UK strikes lack international legal justification, such as a resolution issued by the UN Security Council, according to Abdalfatah Asqool, a lecturer in international law at the University of Palestine, who made this statement to China Daily. “Thus, these attacks, according to international law, are considered a violation of the sovereignty of Yemen,” Asqool stated.

A commercial ship was the target of a missile strike on Monday off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden. “Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, US-owned and operated container ship,” the US Central Command said in a statement confirming the attack on X, formerly Twitter. “In addition to intensifying the violence, the US and UK are breaking international law when they attack Yemen. The primary goal of the Houthi activities in the Red Sea is to exert pressure on Israel to cease its massacres of Palestinians and to permit humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, as they have no bearing on the interests of the US, the UK, or even freedom of navigation.