Dubai, United Arab Emirates – The American air strikes targeting the oil port of Ras Isa owned by the Houthis rebels of Yemen killed 58 people and injured 126 others, said the group on Friday, marking what seemed to be the most known attack under the president under president Trump’s new campaign targeting rebels.
The assessment of Mr. Trump’s campaign’s assessment, which began on March 15, was incredibly difficult, because the central command of the American army has so far not published information on the campaign, its specific targets and how many people have been killed. Meanwhile, the Houthis rebels of Yemen strictly control access to the attacked areas and do not publish information on strikes, many of which have probably targeted military and security sites.
But the strike on the oil port of Ras Isa, which sent massive fire balls pulling in the night sky, represented a major escalation of the American campaign. The Houthis also immediately published graphic images of those killed in the attack.
Al-Masirah TV / Handout via Reuters
The war in Yemen, on the other hand, was internationalized while the United States allegedly alleged that a Chinese satellite company “directly supported” the Houthi attacks, which Beijing did not immediately recognize.
The Al-Masirah satellite news channel of Houthis has disseminated graphic images of the consequences of the attack on the port of Ras Isa, showing corpses scattered on the site. He said the port paramedical and civilian workers had been killed in the attack, which sparked an explosion and massive fires.
Al-Masirah TV / Handout via Reuters
In a statement, Central Command said that “American forces have taken measures to eliminate this fuel source for Houthi terrorists supported by Iran and deprive them of illegal income that has financed Houthi efforts to terrorize the whole region for more than 10 years.”
“This strike was not intended to harm the inhabitants of Yemen, who rightly want to eliminate the yoke of the Houthi subjugation and live peacefully,” he added. He recognized no victim and refused to comment when asked by the Associated Press concerning the civilians who were killed.
The Port Ras Isa, a collection of three oil and refining equipment reservoirs, is in the governor of Hodeida Yemen along the Red Sea. NASA satellites that follow forest fires showed an intense fire early Friday morning on the site right next to the island of Kamaran, targeted by intense American air strikes in recent days.
Al-Masirah TV / Handout via Reuters
The port of Ras Isa is also the terminus of an oil pipeline which extends to the governor of the rich husbands of Yemen who is still held by the exiled government of the allies of Yemen. The Houthis expelled this government from the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, in 2015. However, oil exports were interrupted by the Decadelong War and the Houthis used Ras Isa to bring oil.
The Houthis and Iran denounced the American attack.
“This completely unjustified aggression represents a blatant violation of the sovereignty and independence of Yemen and a direct targeting of the whole of the Yemeni people,” the Houthis said in a press release published by the Saba news agency which they control. “He targets a vital civilian establishment which served the Yemeni people for decades.”
The spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmaeil Baqaei, said that Tehran “had firmly condemned the American barbaric air strike”, appealing “an example of aggressive crime and a flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations”, according to the French press agency AFP.
On April 9, the US State Department issued a warning concerning oil shipments in Yemen.
“The United States will not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as Houthis, including the unloading of ships and the supply of oil in the ports controlled by the Houthi,” he said.
The attack follows Israeli air strikes on the Houthis that have already struck the port and oil infrastructure used by rebels after their attacks on Israel.
The United States says that the Chinese satellite image supplier helps Houthis
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the US State Department, Tammy Bruce, during a briefing with accused journalists Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co. Ltd., a supplier of commercial satellite images, to “directly support the Houthi terrorist attacks supported by Iran against American interests”.
Bruce did not develop in detail, but recognized a history of the Financial Times who cited anonymous American officials saying that the company linked to the army of popular liberation provided images allowing rebels to target American warships and commercial ships traveling in the corridor of the Red Sea.
“The support of Beijing, by the way, of this company, of the satellite company, even after having discussions with them on this subject … certainly contradicts their claims to be supporters of peace,” said Bruce.
Chinese officials and the company, known to the acronym CGSTL, could not be immediately joined to comment. Chinese state media have not recognized the accusation. The US Treasury sanctioned the CGSTL in 2023 for having allegedly provided satellite images to the Russian mercenary force Wagner when he fought in Ukraine as part of Russia’s large -scale invasion.
An AP review revealed that the new American operation against the Houthis under Mr. Trump seems more extensive than that under former president Joe Biden, while Washington goes from the only one to target the launch sites to shoot the classification staff and drop bombs on the cities.
The new air strike campaign started after the rebels threatened to start targeting “Israeli” ships again on helping Israel by entering the Gaza Strip as This war Broy. The rebels have loosely defined what constitutes an Israeli ship, which means that many ships could be targeted.
The Houthis have targeted more than 100 merchant ships with missiles and drones, flowing two and killing four sailors from November 2023 to January this year. This has considerably reduced the flow of commerce through the corridor of the Red Sea, which generally sees 1 billion of dollars of goods moving through. The Houthis have also launched attacks targeting US warships, without success.
The American campaign does not show any signs of stopping, as the Trump administration has also linked its air strikes to the Houthis to an effort to put pressure on Iran Its fast advance nuclear program. A second series of negotiations between Iran and the United States is expected to perform on Saturday in Rome.
The challenges of negotiations could not be higher for the two nations Closing over half a century of enmity. Trump has repeatedly threatened to release air strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if an agreement is not concluded. Iranian officials are increasingly warning that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stock of uranium enriched at levels close to the quality of weapons.