U.S., Britain launch strikes in Yemen

Despite months of U.S.-led airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi fighters, the once ragtag rebels have continued to threaten some of the world’s most vital shipping routes, drawing from an arsenal of increasingly advanced weapons to attack vessels in and around the Red Sea... “Their ability to replace whatever we destroy is unimpeded and our ability to interdict materiel coming into the country negligible,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen who is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington...

In May the destroyer USS Carney returned home to Mayport, Florida, at the end of a seven-month voyage to the Middle East – a voyage unlike any other. For Commander Jeremy Robertson and his crew, the war between Israel and Hamas turned a routine deployment into a running gun battle against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen... But the Carney and the other Navy ships patrolling the Red Sea could not protect every commercial ship from Houthi attacks. One vessel sank...

Houthis undeterred despite US action to protect Red Sea shipping

U.S.-led efforts to thwart attacks on international shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen are nothing more than a “shock absorber” and are unlikely to lead to stability or safer seas, according to a senior U.S. commander... “The solution is not going to come at the end of a weapon system,” Wikoff told an audience in Washington, speaking via video from U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain... “Our mission remains to disrupt their ability and try to preserve some semblance of maritime order while we give an opportunity for policy to be developed against the Houthis,” Wikoff said. “The more players in the field that can get involved in a diplomatic piece of this, the better off I think we'll be”...