US, UK target key airport in western Yemen

Reports on Wednesday said that US and British warplanes had carried out three rounds of bombardments on the international airport in the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah.

The attacks came just hours after the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a subsidiary of the British navy responsible for overseeing Middle East waterways, said it had received a report about an incident involving commercial shipping in waters off Yemen.

British security firm Ambrey also confirmed there had been attack on a ship in the Gulf of Aden.

The UKMTO said that a bomb-carrying drone had smashed into Genco Picardy, a US-owned ship, in an area 110 kilometers (70 miles) southeast of the southern Yemeni port of Aden.

Yemen’s military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree confirmed that the ship attacked was the bulk carrier Genco Picardy.

“... any new attack will not remain without response and punishment,” Saree said in a prerecorded video address.

The attack was the second by Yemenis in recent days on ships linked to the US. On Monday, they had hit the US-owned Gibraltar Eagle.

Led by the ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement, the armed forces of Yemen started attacking ships sailing to and from the Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories in November weeks after the Israeli regime launched its one-sided war on the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

The attacks later expanded to cover ships owned by the United States and Britain after the two countries launched attacks from sea and air on Yemen in a clear show of support for Israel’s aggression on Gaza.