Yemen’s Saba news agency said a civilian was killed in the series of missile strikes the US and Britain launched across Houthi-controlled Yemen over the weekend, marking the first reported civilian death since the US began bombing Yemen on January 12.
“The American-British aggression on the district of Maqbana in the governorate of Taiz has left one civilian dead and eight wounded,” Saba reported. The Houthis have previously confirmed at least 17 of their fighters have been killed by US or British strikes.
On Saturday, the US and the UK said in a joint statement that the two militaries hit 18 Houthi sites across Yemen. US Central Command claimed the strikes targeted “underground weapons storage facilities, missile storage facilities, one-way attack unmanned aerial systems, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter.”
The bombing marked the fourth round of joint US-British missile strikes on Yemen. The US has also been conducting unilateral strikes, which have been launched on a near-daily basis over the last few weeks.
The bombing campaign has done nothing to deter the Houthis and has only escalated the situation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. US officials acknowledged to CNN that they are unable to assess if the strikes are degrading the Houthis’ missile capabilities.
For their part, the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have said they would only stop the attacks on commercial shipping once the Israeli onslaught in Gaza comes to an end. Some of the US officials who spoke with CNN said they believed the Houthis would be true to their word if there were a ceasefire in Gaza.
The US backed a Saudi/UAE-led coalition against the Houthis in a brutal war that killed 377,000 people between 2015 and 2022. During that time, the Houthis only became a more formidable fighting force and developed missile and drone technology that gave them the ability to hit Saudi oil infrastructure. A ceasefire between the Saudis and Houthis has held relatively well since April 2022, but new US sanctions are now blocking the implementation of a peace deal.