SANAA, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi group announced on Friday they had launched ballistic missiles at the U.S. aircraft carrier Eisenhower in the Red Sea and the attack was accurate.
The group's military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a statement that the attack was "in response to last night's multiple airstrikes launched by the U.S.-British coalition" against Houthi positions in the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, the capital Sanaa, and the southwestern province of Taiz.
He added that his group "will not hesitate to respond directly and immediately to every new aggression on Yemeni territory by targeting all sources of threat and all hostile American and British targets in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea."
The U.S. military has yet to comment on the attack.
The earlier U.S.-Britain joint operations against Houthis-held positions, including the Hodeidah Radio building and a military site in al-Salif port, killed 16 people and wounded another 41, including civilians, and damaged a number of commercial ships in the port, Sarea said via the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.
"This represents a clear targeting of civilians, a blatant violation of all international laws, and a full-fledged war crime," he said.
Since November last year, the Houthi group began to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said were Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea, to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In response, the U.S.-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted regular air raids and missile strikes against Houthi targets to deter the group, but only led to an expansion of Houthi attacks to include U.S. and British commercial vessels and naval ships. ■
