U.S. and U.K. military forces late Saturday night launched joint airstrikes on Iranian-backed Houthi targets in Yemen, two U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News.
The airstrikes come one day after the U.S. launched retaliatory airstrikes on more than 85 targets of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliated militias in Syria and Iraq in response to last weekend’s drone strike on a Jordanian base which killed three U.S. service members.
Saturday night’s airstrikes came in addition to self-defense strikes that were launched earlier Saturday evening targeting six Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles that were being prepared for launch against ships in the Red Sea, U.S. Central Command said.
A U.S. defense official told CBS News that since Friday’s strikes in Iraq and Syria, there has been one attack on U.S. forces. In that attack, multiple rockets targeted U.S. forces based at the Mission Support Site Euphrates in Syria, but there were no reports of injuries or damage.
Saturday night’s assault is the third time that the U.S. and U.K. have taken part in joint airstrikes since Yemen-based Houthi militants began launching attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Houthis launched the attacks in an act of solidarity with the Hamas militants who invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and as retaliation against Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which officials in the Hamas-run enclave say has killed more than 26,000 people.
There have been 167 attacks by Iranian-backed groups on U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria and Jordan since Oct 17 of last year.
— David Martin and Eleanor Watson contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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