Yemen: US Launches Fresh Strikes on Hodeidah City

On early Thursday, Al-Masirah TV reported that the U.S.-British maritime coalition launched strikes on Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

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The strikes targeted the Al-Jabanah area north of Hodeidah. The assaults came a few hours after the coalition struck a Houthi surface-to-air missile in Saada city.

The Ansar Allah Movement (Houthi) announced that they launched a missile attack on a U.S. commercial vessel "Kol" in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday night and directly hit it.

The Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea declared all U.S. and British commercial vessels and warships as "legitimate targets" until the coalition stops attacking the Houthi sites, vowing to "confront escalation with escalation."

He also pledged continued attacks on Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea until Israel stops its war against and siege of the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.

The U.S.-British maritime coalition stationing in the Red Sea has said their strikes on Houthi military sites aim to degrade the Houthi military capabilities and deter them from launching further attacks on commercial ships and disrupting shipping in the Red Sea.

The Houthi group controls much of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, and the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah since the Yemeni civil war erupted in 2014. Last month, the United States re-designated the Houthi group as a "global terrorist organization."