Houthis say US-led strikes on Yemen killed five people, won’t go without ‘punishment’

US-led airstrikes on Yemen killed at least five people and wounded six others, a military spokesman from the Houthis said Friday.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree made the announcement in a videotaped address.

“The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished,” Saree said.

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He described 73 strikes hitting five regions of Yemen under Houthi control. He did not elaborate on what the US-led strikes targeted.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthis spokesperson said there was no justification for the US-Britain attack on Yemen and the Iran-backed group will continue targeting ships heading toward Israel, Mohammed Abdulsalam posted on X.

Heavy US and British airstrikes pounded targets in Houthi-held areas in Yemen early on Friday after weeks of disruptive attacks on Red Sea shipping by the militia’s forces acting in solidarity with Hamas.

The Houthis have carried out a growing number of attacks on what they deem to be Israel-linked shipping in the key international trade route since the eruption of the war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

They have controlled a major part of Yemen since a civil war erupted there in 2014 and are part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” arrayed against Israel.

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