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Questions mounted Sunday about the long-term impact of U.S.-led airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, with a spokesman for the Iran-backed militant group boasting that the attacks caused no “material damage” to the Houthis’ ability to target commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The Houthis have not launched any significant attacks since the massive U.S.-British joint air assault on Houthi positions on Thursday and a follow-up strike by U.S. forces Friday that took out a rebel radar base near Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. Still, the Houthis’ significant military capabilities may not have been eliminated.
On Sunday, the Houthis fired at the USS Laboon, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, but a U.S. fighter jet shot it down, the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement.
Some specialists say the American attacks could bolster the Houthis’ reputation in the region by allowing the group to credibly say it is fighting the U.S. and Israel as it stands in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The group’s arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles and armed drones, which have helped the Houthis launch more than two dozen attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes over the past two months, may still be at least partially intact.
U.S. officials insist the attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen were successful, but the rebel group says otherwise.
Houthi spokesman Nasruldeen Amer told Al Jazeera over the weekend that the attacks caused no “material damage” and vowed that a fierce response is imminent.
“This new strike will have a firm, strong and effective response,” he said.
Another Houthi spokesman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, told Reuters that the U.S.-British attacks will not have a significant impact on the group’s plan to stop Israel-linked vessels from sailing through the Red Sea. Houthi leaders have said their Red Sea campaign is retaliation against Israel for its war in the Gaza Strip, though many of the ships targeted seemingly had no connection to the Jewish state.
U.S. officials stressed that the massive airstrikes destroyed their targets, including logistical hubs, air defense systems and weapons storage locations.
Other indications suggest the U.S.-British strikes might not have fully crushed the Houthis. Citing two unidentified U.S. officials, The New York Times reported Saturday that the Houthis retained roughly three-quarters of their ability to fire missiles and drones into the region’s vital waterways.
Such a result would seem to confirm fears that the U.S. and Britain, despite the best efforts of their military and intelligence assets in the region, may have limited visibility of the details of Houthi positions in Yemen. Many Houthi assets, such as mobile missile launchers, can be moved relatively easily and quickly, making them harder to strike.
Specialists say the Houthis have valuable experience moving and hiding weapons and quickly rebuilding capabilities. The rebel group was subject to years of bombing by a Saudi-led military coalition during Yemen’s decade of civil war.
“The Houthis may well calculate that, having withstood seven years of Saudi aerial bombardment over the course of the Yemeni civil war, it’s unlikely that a U.S. air assault on Yemeni targets would inflict more substantial damage or that any damage to its equipment or facilities could not be quickly repaired or replaced,” Gerald Feierstein, a senior fellow on diplomacy at the Middle East Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, wrote in a recent analysis.
On the public relations front, he said, the attacks may benefit the Houthis.
“Moreover, a U.S. [or other] attack on Houthi military targets would validate, from the Houthi perspective, their propaganda that they are fighting on the front lines in support of Palestinians and that their operations are succeeding in threatening U.S. and allied interests,” Mr. Feierstein wrote.
Still, U.S. officials say they believe the strikes significantly degraded the Houthis’ ability to disrupt maritime traffic in the Red Sea.
“We feel very confident about where our munitions struck, but we don’t know at this point the complete battle damage assessment,” Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II, director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. “This was solely designed to get after the capability that is impeding international freedom of navigation in international waters. We feel pretty confident we did good work on that.”
During the initial rounds of bombing on Thursday night, U.S. and British troops struck 28 locations and destroyed more than 60 Houthi targets, Pentagon officials said. The U.S. launched a follow-up strike on Friday that hit a Houthi radar site.
Before the airstrikes, the Houthis launched at least 26 attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes over two months.
President Biden vowed that the U.S. would strike the Houthis again if necessary.
“These targeted strikes are a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes,” Mr. Biden said in a statement after the initial strikes Thursday. “I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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