The strikes damaged the group’s ability to carry out complex missile and drone attacks, U.S. officials said, but identifying targets has proved to be a challenge.
The United States-led airstrikes on Thursday and Friday against sites in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets struck, but the group retained about three-quarters of its ability to fire missiles and drones at ships transiting the Red Sea, two U.S. officials said on Saturday.
The damage estimates are the first detailed assessments of the strikes by American and British attack planes and warships against nearly 30 locations in Yemen, and they reveal the serious challenges facing the Biden administration and its allies as they seek to deter the Iran-backed Houthis from retaliating, secure critical shipping routes between Europe and Asia, and contain the spread of regional conflict.
But the two U.S. officials cautioned on Saturday that even after hitting more than 60 missile and drone targets with more than 150 precision-guided munitions, the strikes had damaged or destroyed only about 20 to 30 percent of the Houthis’ offensive capability, much of which is mounted on mobile platforms and can be readily moved or hidden.
American and other Western intelligence agencies have not spent significant time or resources in recent years collecting data on the location of Houthi air defenses, command hubs, munitions depots and storage and production facilities for drones and missiles, the officials said.
A senior Defense Department official said on Saturday that a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile strike on a radar facility in Yemen on Friday was a “reattack” of a target originally hit in Thursday’s barrage that had not been adequately degraded or destroyed.
Despite their fiery rhetoric and vows of retaliation, the Houthis’ military response to Thursday night’s attack so far has been muted: just a single anti-ship missile lobbed harmlessly into the Red Sea, far from any passing vessel, General Sims said on Friday.
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The United States-led airstrikes on Thursday and Friday against sites in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets struck, but the group retained about three-quarters of its ability to fire missiles and drones at ships transiting the Red Sea, two U.S. officials said on Saturday.
The damage estimates are the first detailed assessments of the strikes by American and British attack planes and warships against nearly 30 locations in Yemen, and they reveal the serious challenges facing the Biden administration and its allies as they seek to deter the Iran-backed Houthis from retaliating, secure critical shipping routes between Europe and Asia, and contain the spread of regional conflict.
But the two U.S. officials cautioned on Saturday that even after hitting more than 60 missile and drone targets with more than 150 precision-guided munitions, the strikes had damaged or destroyed only about 20 to 30 percent of the Houthis’ offensive capability, much of which is mounted on mobile platforms and can be readily moved or hidden.
American and other Western intelligence agencies have not spent significant time or resources in recent years collecting data on the location of Houthi air defenses, command hubs, munitions depots and storage and production facilities for drones and missiles, the officials said.
A senior Defense Department official said on Saturday that a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile strike on a radar facility in Yemen on Friday was a “reattack” of a target originally hit in Thursday’s barrage that had not been adequately degraded or destroyed.
Despite their fiery rhetoric and vows of retaliation, the Houthis’ military response to Thursday night’s attack so far has been muted: just a single anti-ship missile lobbed harmlessly into the Red Sea, far from any passing vessel, General Sims said on Friday.
The original article contains 641 words, the summary contains 298 words. Saved 54%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!