U.S.-led airstrikes on Thursday and Friday against Houthi militia-controlled sites in Yemen damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets hit, but the group retained about three-quarters of its ability to fire missiles and drones at ships that do so land crossing the Red Sea, two US officials said on Saturday.
The damage estimates are the first detailed assessments of attacks by American and British attack aircraft and warships on nearly 30 locations in Yemen, highlighting the major challenges facing the Biden administration and its allies as they try to deter the Iran-backed Houthis from retaliating , secure important shipping routes between Europe and Asia and contain the spread of regional conflicts.
A senior U.S. military officer, Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the military's director of the Joint Staff, said Friday that the attacks had achieved their goal of impairing the Houthis' ability to launch the type of complex drone and missile attacks that they had carried out on Tuesday.
But the two U.S. officials warned Saturday that even after striking more than 60 missile and drone targets with more than 150 precision-guided munitions, the strikes had only damaged or destroyed about 20 to 30 percent of the Houthis' offensive capability, much of it mounted on mobile platforms and can be easily moved or hidden.
The two U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal military assessments.
The search for Houthi targets is proving more difficult than expected. American and other Western intelligence agencies have not spent much time or resources in recent years collecting data on the locations of Houthi air defenses, command centers, ammunition depots and storage and production facilities for drones and missiles, the officials said.
That changed after Hamas' attacks on Israel on October 7 and the Israeli military's subsequent ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis have attacked merchant ships transiting the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and have said they will continue until Israel withdraws. U.S. analysts were rushing to survey and catalog more potential Houthi targets every day, the officials said.
The air and sea fire Thursday night illustrated that approach, military officials said. The first wave of US-led strikes hit 60 pre-planned targets in 16 locations with more than 100 precision-guided bombs and missiles. About 30 to 60 minutes later, a second wave of attacks was carried out against twelve additional targets identified by analysts as threats to aircraft and ships.
Hitting pop-up targets at short notice, a practice the military calls “dynamic targeting,” would likely be an important part of any additional strikes President Biden might order, one of the U.S. officials said.
A senior Defense Department official said Saturday that Friday's attack by a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile on a radar site in Yemen was a “backstrike” on a target originally hit in Thursday's barrage and did not sufficiently impact it or was destroyed.
Other U.S. military officials said there could be further setbacks as analysts assess the damage from Thursday night's airstrikes.
Despite their fiery rhetoric and promises of retaliation, the Houthis' military response to Thursday night's attack has so far been muted: Only a single anti-ship missile fired harmlessly into the Red Sea, far from passing ships, General Sims said on Friday.
But the general and the two U.S. officials said Saturday they were prepared for action by the Houthis once they figured out how much firepower they had left and agreed on a plan of attack.
One of the two U.S. officials said the Houthis appeared internally divided over how to respond.
“I expect they will attempt some sort of retaliation,” Gen. Sims said Friday, adding that that would be a mistake. “We simply won’t let ourselves be messed with here.”