American adversaries in the Middle East that have Iran’s support continued their attacks over the weekend despite the U.S. military retaliation against prior aggression.
Militias launched two rockets at Mission Support Site Euphrates on Saturday and a one-way attack drone on Sunday near Mission Support Site Green Village, both of which are U.S. bases in Syria. Additionally, the Houthis have continued to attempt to attack commercial vessels in the Red Sea despite the third iteration of joint U.S.-U.K. strikes against them earlier in the weekend.
“So [the Houthis] have capability,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday. “It would not be surprising to anyone if they attempt to conduct attacks in the future, but when they do, again, we’ll take appropriate action, as we have been doing.”
The United States carried out its most significant response to the militias in Iraq and Syria that attacked American troops in both countries on Friday and killed three U.S. service members in a strike on Jan. 28 in Jordan.
In the response, the U.S. hit 85 targets at seven sites in Iraq and Syria, followed by a joint operation with the U.K. on Saturday that hit 36 Houthi targets at 13 sites in Yemen. Since those strikes in Yemen, U.S. forces have carried out strikes against five Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles prepared to launch on Sunday in two separate responses, a strike the same day on a land attack cruise missile, and a strike against two Houthi explosive uncrewed surface vehicles on Monday.
Ryder said the Defense Department was still evaluating the effects of the strikes, including the casualties incurred during them.
The U.S. does not anticipate a “full-scale war” against the Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria despite the back-and-forth.
“Our goal is not to OK, game on, let’s just do this and go full-scale war against Iranian proxy groups in Iraq and Syria,” Ryder said. “That’s not what we’re there for. We’re there to conduct the mission and supporting the defeat of [the Islamic State].”
The militias have carried out roughly 170 attacks on U.S. forces since mid-October 2023, while the Houthis have carried out more than 35 attacks on commercial vessels transiting the bodies of water off Yemen’s coast since mid-November. Multiple commercial shipping companies have decided to reroute their vessels on longer routes to avoid the region, threatening to raise the cost of goods over time.
Both entities, which have Iran’s support and assistance, have linked their attacks to Israel’s war in Gaza and the U.S. support for the Jewish state, while administration officials dismiss the link.
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“The U.S.-British coalition’s bombing of a number of Yemeni provinces will not change our position, and we affirm that our military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are stopped and the siege on its residents is lifted, no matter the sacrifices it costs us,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed al-Bukhaiti wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Despite receiving weapons and training from Iran, the U.S. opted not to strike within Iranian borders, which would have been a significant escalation.
