By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States launched a series of strikes against targets in Yemen on Saturday, three U.S. officials told Reuters, in what appeared to be a second day of major operations against Iran-linked targets following a deadly attack on American troops last weekend.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not provide further details on the locations being struck, but two of them said there were dozens of targets.
The United States on Friday carried out strikes in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and militias it backs, reportedly killing nearly 40 people.
Those strikes, which were condemned by Iran and by Iraq, were retaliation for a drone strike that killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 40 other American service members in Jordan last Sunday.
But while the United States accuses Iran-backed militias of attacking U.S. troops at bases in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting commercial ships and warships in the Red Sea.
The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, say their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel strikes Gaza. But the U.S. and its allies characterizes the Houthi attacks as indiscriminate and a menace to global trade.
The United States has previously carried out more than 10 strikes against Houthi targets in the past several weeks, but they have failed to stop attacks by the group.
The Houthi-run Yemeni News Agency (Saba) said the U.S. and Britain launched 14 raids on Saturday on the governorates of Taiz and Hodeidah.
Eleven of the attacks targeted the Al-Barah area in the Maqbanah District and areas in the Haifan District, a security source told the news agency. The other three attacks targeted Jabal Al-Jada’ in Al-Lahiya District and the Al-Salif District in Al-Hudaydah Governorate.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Yemen and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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