U.S. forces carried out strikes against a suspected Houthi missile launch site on Wednesday, marking the fourth set of U.S. strikes against the Yemeni terrorist group in the last week.
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the military component overseeing U.S. operations throughout the Middle East, announced U.S. forces had identified 14 missiles in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen, loaded and prepared to launch.
“These missiles on launch rails presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region and could have been fired at any time, prompting U.S. forces to exercise their inherent right and obligation to defend themselves,” CENTCOM said of the U.S. strike, which began just before midnight local time on Wednesday.
The U.S. strike comes as the Houthis have claimed credit for dozens of drone and missile launches targeting commercial shipping throughout the Red Sea and adjacent Gulf of Aden since November.
“These strikes, along with other actions we have taken, will degrade the Houthi’s capabilities to continue their reckless attacks on international and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden,” CENTCOM said of the Wednesday strike.
U.S. warships and aircraft, and a British destroyer conducted the first set of strikes targeting suspected Houthi sites on Jan. 12. That first set of strikes targeted suspected Houthi radar and air defense systems, as well as storage and launch sites for one-way attack drones and missiles.
U.S. forces conducted a follow-up strike about a day later, using a sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missile to destroy a suspected Houthi radar site.
U.S. forces carried out a third set of strikes on Jan. 16, reportedly destroying four Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles. That U.S. strike came the day after a missile targeted the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged container ship owned and operated by the United States on Jan. 15. Hours after that U.S. strike on Tuesday, another suspected Houthi missile struck the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier, M/V Zografia.
US Strikes Come as Houthis Redesignated Terrorists
The Wednesday evening U.S. strikes came on the same day President Joe Biden’s administration announced it would re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization.
President Donald Trump’s administration originally designated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity in the final days of his presidential term. President Biden rescinded those Trump-era designations less than a month after taking office.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would reapply the SDGT label against the Houthis. The decision allows the United States to reapply some sanctions against the Houthis, but not the full range that had previously been available under the Trump administration.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the decision to only apply the SDGT label and not the FTO label against the Houthis was done to avoid the possibility of U.S. sanctions disrupting humanitarian aid efforts in war-torn Yemen.
“We decided that the SDGT designation gave us the tools to deny the Houthis access to the financial system and gave us the tools to impose additional actions, additional sanctions, on anyone who does business with the Houthis, while minimizing some of the downstream harm to Yemeni civilians and the deterrent effect that we thought the—an FTO designation would have on aid groups,” Mr. Miller said Wednesday.
The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, are a Zaydi Shiite movement that has intermittently fought with Yemen’s internationally recognized government since 2004. While the Yemeni conflict has waned in recent months with moves toward a ceasefire in the country, the Houthis have turned their attention to the ongoing Israel–Hamas conflict, launching missile and drone attacks intended to undermine the Israeli side. The Houthis have said their attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden are intended to target vessels that they believe are connected to the Israeli side.
The U.S. government has long suspected the Iranian regime of supplying and funding the Houthis. The Iranian side has cheered the recent Houthi attacks but has previously denied arming the group or helping it plan its attacks.
Some Lawmakers Question US Authority to Strike Yemen
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have questioned the Biden administration’s authority to conduct these recent strikes inside Yemen.
Much of the criticism for the strikes in Yemen came from progressive members of Congress. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Val Hoyle (D-Ore.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) all issued statements after the Jan. 11 strike, insisting the president must gain congressional authorization to conduct offensive foreign military actions.
Reacting to news of the first set of U.S. strikes in Yemen, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said, “We need a ceasefire now to prevent deadly, costly, catastrophic escalation of violence in the region.”
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) also raised arguments that the president is constitutionally limited in his ability to commit U.S. forces to offensive foreign military actions.
Mr. Massie credited Democrats like Mr. Khanna for calling the strikes into question even when a member of his own party is in the White House. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) similarly credited Mr. Khanna with speaking out, writing in an X social media post, “I totally agree with [Mr. Khanna]. The Constitution matters, regardless of party affiliation.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) also endorsed a statement by Mr. Khanna regarding the president’s ability to order military actions.
Former Michigan congressman Justin Amash, who served as a Republican before changing his party affiliation to Libertarian in his final year in office, also issued a statement arguing that federal laws like the 1973 War Powers Resolution are “frequently misrepresented” and “falsely used to justify unconstitutional presidential war powers.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has rebuffed the bipartisan claims that President Biden lacks the authority to order such strikes in Yemen.
“We’re very comfortable and confident in the legal authorities that the President exercised to conduct these strikes,” Mr. Kirby said during a conversation with reporters aboard Air Force One last week.