More than 70 have been killed and several others are wounded after a US airstrike on an important oil port held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. This is considered to be a major escalation in the military campaign that President Donald Trump launched last month against the Iranian-backed group.
According to AP, the overnight strike on the Ras Isa port sent massive fireballs billowing skyward and turned tanker trucks into burning wrecks. It was the first American attack on a Houthi-controlled oil facility since the U.S. began its new bombing campaign. It came just before the resumption of the negotiations in Rome between the US and Iran over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.
The United States is targeting the Houthis because of the group’s attacks in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and on Israel. The Houthis are the last militant group in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” that is capable of regularly attacking Israel.
The port serves as the major hub for the incoming fuel shipments that power areas of Yemen held by the Houthis. According to AP, the Houthis aired graphic footage of the aftermath on their al-Masirah satellite news channel, showing corpses strewn about the port and smashed tanker trucks. They denounced the strike as a “completely unjustified aggression.”
“It targets a vital civilian facility that has served the Yemeni people for decades,” the group said in a statement as quoted by news agency AP.
The US Central Command declined to answer any questions about the possible civilian casualties but referred to a statement in which it said that “this strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen.”
“U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years,” it said in its statement.
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