The United States carried out another strike against the Houthi militia in Yemen, the U.S. Central Command said on Friday night, bombing a radar facility as part of an effort to further degrade the Iran-backed group’s ability to attack ships transiting the Red Sea. It was the second straight day that the U.S. military fired on a Houthi target, after an American-led barrage of military strikes early Friday local time that was aimed at securing critical shipping routes between Europe and Asia. The strikes come amid fears of a wider escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. The strike, carried out at 3:45 a.m. Saturday local time by the U.S.S. Carney using Tomahawk missiles, was “a follow-on action on a specific military target,” the Central Command said in a statement posted on social media . A Pentagon official said on Friday night that the strike was meant to further the job begun by the widespread coordinated air and naval assault on a number of Houthi targets in Yemen the night before. Houthi forces in Yemen vowed earlier on Friday to retaliate for the previous strikes, which involved missiles and warplanes launched by the United States and Britain , and came in response to intensifying attacks on commercial vessels and warships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, which has said it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas. Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff, told reporters on a conference call before the new strike that the Pentagon was more than ready for a response from the Houthis. “I would expect that they will attempt some sort of retaliation,” said General Sims, adding that doing so would be a mistake. “We simply are not going to […]