Today, the United Nations (UN) envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, expressed his concern about recent developments involving Yemen following the US-UK strikes that targeted Houthi-linked sites in Sanaa and other Yemeni governorates.
In a statement on the X platform, Grundberg's office said: "Grundberg reiterates the Secretary-General’s call for all involved to avoid actions that would worsen the situation in Yemen, escalate the threat to maritime trade routes, or further fuel regional tensions at this critical time".
“[Grundberg] stresses the need to protect Yemeni civilians, and to safeguard the progress of peace efforts since the truce of April 2022. This includes the recent commitments by the parties in December 2023 and the ongoing discussions around a UN Roadmap," the statement added.
The statement further added that "the Special Envoy urges all involved to exercise maximum restraint and to prioritize diplomatic channels over military options and calls for de-escalation”.
Grundberg’s statement comes less than 48 hours after the US and UK, with the support of several allies, carried out a series of strikes by air and sea against Houthi positions across Yemen, as a response to nearly 27 attacks by the Iranian-backed rebel group against ships in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab since November 19.
Related: Houthi Piracy and American Responses in the Red Sea: What Next?
The statement also comes after US President Joe Biden described the Houthis as a terrorist organization yesterday, during an interview with reporters. Notably, the Biden administration removed the Houthis' designation from the list of foreign terrorist organizations in February 2021, following his presidential inauguration.
This morning, US Central Command
announced that it had launched a new strike on a Houthi radar site in Sanaa at dawn using Tomahawk missiles fired by the USS Carney, as a follow-on action against a specific target linked to the strikes taken on Friday.
Later today, Sky News Arabia
reported another strike on Yemen by the US military, this time against “a site in the naval military base controlled by the Houthis in Hodeidah”, according to sources speaking to the news outlet. The sources claimed that the US strikes were in retaliation to a missile fired from Hodeidah toward the southern Red Sea.
In a
statement to Al Jazeera, the head of the Houthis’ Saba News Agency, Nasr al-Din Amer, said that the radar base targeted in Saturday morning’s raid in Sanaa was the “out of service” Al-Dulaimi air base. The Houthi official vowed to target American and British military assets in the region.
