US airstrikes live: Fresh strikes on Houthi anti-ship missiles as America refuses to rule out Iran targets

Up to six Kurdish fighters have been killed in a drone attack hitting a base housing US troops in Syria, according to a rebel group.

The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said the attack hit a training ground at al-Omar base in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour.

The group accused “Syrian regime-backed mercenaries” of carrying out the attack. No casualties were reported among US troops

An umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias, dubbed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, released a video claiming responsibility for the attack which showed them launching a drone from an unspecified location.

The Houthi, formed in the late 1990s, developed as political-religious Shia movement and launched a series of guerrilla wars against Yemen’s national army.

The group seized the country’s capital of Sana’a when the Yemen civil war started in 2014, which caused neighbouring Sunni Islam Saudi Arabia to intervene at the head of a western-backed coalition over fears of growing Shia influence on its border. Since then, the civil war is estimated to have killed almost 400,000 people.

The takeover of the capital prompted Saudi Arabia to intervene in a bid to restore the internationally recognised government, which has a Sunni majority.

A Saudi and UAE bombing campaign against Houthi targets was launched in 2015 and drew criticism over civilian deaths, leading to calls for the UK to cease arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

The UN Security Council will meet today to discuss America’s retaliatory airstrikes on Iraq and Syria.

The “urgent” meeting was requested by Russia amid the escalating crisis in the Middle East.

“We just demanded an urgent sitting of the UN Security Council over the threat to peace and safety created by US strikes on Syria and Iraq,” Moscow’s UN mission said in a post on X.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Saudi Arabia on his fifth visit to the region since October in the next few hours amid hopes of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Blinken will visit Israel as well as Egypt and Qatar, the key go-between with Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip and maintains an office in Doha.

His visit comes after the US carried out retaliatory strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria, and on Houthi rebel sites in Yemen, in the latest escalation of the conflict that is spreading across the Middle East.

This footage shows the moment US warships launch missile strikes on Iranian-backed Houthi targets in the Red Sea.

The video, shared by the US Central Command on Sunday (4 February), shows missiles being launched from USS Gravely and USS Carney hitting targets that posed an “imminent threat” to American ships in the Red Sea.

A US F/A-18 fighter jet can also be seen taking off from the USS Dwight D Eisenhower aircraft carrier.

The US Central Command said on Sunday they had carried out another strike “in self-defence.”

RAF Typhoon aircraft took off to conduct further strikes against Houthi targets on Saturday, 3 February.

The UK has joined the US for a third time in further strikes in a bid to prevent further attacks on international shipping along a major trade route.

Strikes were against Houthi locations in Yemen involved in the campaign targeting the southern Red Sea and the Bab al Mandab, the Ministry of Defence said.

Fresh assaults were “not an escalation” but were designed to “protect innocent lives and preserve freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea, defence secretary Grant Shapps said.

Italy will become a target if it takes part in attacks against Yemen, a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said.

Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthi’s supreme revolutionary committee, said Italy must be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and put pressure on Israel to stop attacks on Gaza, adding that would be the only way to achieve peace in the region.

Italy said on Friday it would provide the admiral in command of a European Union Red Sea naval mission it has joined to protect ships from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia.

The mandate of the mission, which will be launched in mid-February, will be to protect commercial ships and intercept attacks, but not take part in strikes against the Houthis, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said.

The Houthis, formed in the late 1990s, developed as political-religious Shia movement and launched a series of guerrilla wars against Yemen’s national army.

The group seized the country’s capital of Sana’a when the Yemen civil war started in 2014, which caused neighbouring Sunni Islam Saudi Arabia to intervene at the head of a western-backed coalition over fears of growing Shia influence on its border. Since then, the civil war is estimated to have killed almost 400,000 people.

The takeover of the capital prompted Saudi Arabia to intervene in a bid to restore the internationally recognised government, which has a Sunni majority. A Saudi and UAE bombing campaign against Houthi targets was launched in 2015 and drew criticism over civilian deaths, leading to calls for the UK to cease arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis have developed an arsenal including ballistic missiles and armed drones capable of hitting Israel more than 1,000 miles from Sana’a.

Saudi Arabia and the US have accused Iran of “fully enabling” the rebel group to attack Israel and Western ships in the Red Sea. Iran denies the allegations, and says the Houthis are autonomous.

But experts say the Houthis, along with Gaza’s Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, form part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” – a military alliance built over four decades to oppose Israeli and American power in the Middle East.

Britain will hold Iran accountable for attacks by Tehran’s proxies, foreign secretary David Cameron has said, as the UK launched a third wave of strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

President Joe Biden has directed further response in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the deaths of three American soldiers, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.

“President Biden was clear that what you saw on Friday night in the strikes in Iraq and Syria was the beginning not the end of our response so there will be more steps in the coming days,” Mr Sullivan told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki.

Mr Sullivan did not clarify what those responses could look like or when they would occur but said the US was prepared for Tehran to potentially respond directly to the US.