Written by by FRANCES MARTEL at breitbart.com
The government of Saudi Arabia issued a statement calling for “restraint and avoiding escalation” on Friday in response to American and British airstrikes in Yemen against the Shiite Houthi terrorists controlling that country.
“While the Kingdom stresses the importance of preserving the security and stability of the Red Sea region, in which freedom of navigation is an international demand [and of] interest of the entire world,” a statement from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs reads, “[Saudi Arabia] calls for restraint and avoiding escalation in light of the events the region is witnessing.”
The statement described the Saudi government as watching the developments with “great concern.”
Saudi Arabia has engaged in military action against the Houthis in Yemen for nearly a decade, since the eruption of a civil war there in 2014. Riyadh has faced years of global condemnation from human rights organizations for its operations in the country, which some activists have labeled “war crimes.”
The U.S. and U.K. armed forces confirmed dozens of strikes within Yemeni territory between Thursday and Friday on strategic targets including “radar systems, air defense systems, and storage and launch sites for one-way attack unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles,” according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). CENTCOM published a video of the strikes, which are a response to the Houthis severely disrupting global commercial shipping by randomly attacking container vessels attempting to transit through the Red Sea.