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US bracing for military intervention in Yemen: Houthis

13 October 2016 23:14 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The leader of the Shia Houthi militia on Thursday accused the U.S. of planning an attack on Yemen’s Al-Hodeida province following a U.S. cruise missile strike one day earlier that targeted Houthi positions along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, APA reports quoting Anadolu Agency.

In a statement broadcast by the Houthi-run Al-Maseera television channel, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi declared that the U.S. missile strike had been intended to "pave the way for an aggressive operation targeting Al-Hodeida".

On Thursday, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. military had struck three Houthi radar platforms deployed on Yemen’s Red Sea coast with cruise missiles.

According to the U.S. Defense Department, the missile strikes were in retaliation for two failed rocket attacks -- allegedly carried out by Houthis militiamen -- on a U.S. naval vessel earlier in the week.

Houthi officials believe that Thursday’s missile strikes presage an imminent military operation by the U.S. -- in coordination with a Saudi-led anti-Houthi coalition -- aimed at establishing control over Al-Hodeida, which commands more than half of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline.

Yemen’s pro-Houthi SABA news agency, for its part, quoted a senior Houthi political figure as saying that the group was now bracing for an anticipated U.S. military assault on Houthi-held parts of the country.

The political figure, whose name was not given, asserted that Thursday’s cruise missile strike was being regarded as the opening salvo in "direct U.S. military intervention in Yemen’s coastal area aimed at securing control of the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait".

The same source reasserted that neither Houthi forces nor those of their allies had been responsible for the recent targeting of any U.S. naval vessels operating in the region.

On Thursday, Houthi military spokesman Sharaf Luqman stressed the group’s "total readiness" to cooperate with any investigation -- by the UN or any neutral third party -- aimed at determining the party responsible for firing on the U.S. naval vessel earlier this week.