WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Britain struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in a second wave of attacks to further alienate Iranian-backed groups that have relentlessly attacked American and international interests in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas to put in combat. But Washington has again not directly targeted Iran as the country tries to strike a balance between a forceful response and worsening the conflict.

The latest attacks against the Houthis were launched by US warships and American and British warplanes. The attacks follow an airstrike in Iraq and Syria on Friday that targeted other Iran-backed militias and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan last weekend.

The Houthi targets were located in 13 different locations and were attacked by U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, British Typhoon FGR4 fighter jets, and the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and USS Carney, the Tomahawk Missiles fired attacks from the Red Sea, according to US officials and the British Defense Ministry. The U.S. officials were not permitted to speak publicly about the military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The US warned that its response after the deaths of soldiers at the Tower 22 base in Jordan last Sunday would not be limited to one night, one target or one group. Although there is no indication that the Houthis are directly responsible, they have been one of the US’s main adversaries since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, which killed more than 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. The Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said more than 26,000 people have been killed and more than 64,400 injured in the Israeli military operation since the start of the war.

The Houthis carry out almost daily missile or drone attacks on commercial and military vessels transiting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and they have made it clear that they have no intention of resuming their campaign despite pressure from the US and Britain to go back.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi official, said: “Military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are ended and the siege of its residents is lifted, no matter what sacrifices it costs us.” He wrote online that ” “The US-British aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered and we will meet escalation with escalation.”

The Biden administration has indicated that this is unlikely to be the last of its attacks. The US has blamed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias, for the attack in Jordan. Iran has sought to distance itself from the drone strike, saying the militias would act regardless of its direction.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the military action, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand, “sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to face further consequences if they do their illegal actions.” Do not stop attacks on international shipping and naval vessels.”

He added: “We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways.”

According to the Defense Ministry, the attacks targeted sites linked to the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons caches, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, radars and helicopters. The British military said it attacked a ground control station west of the Yemeni capital Sanaa that was used to control Houthi drones launched against ships in the Red Sea.

According to an administration official, President Joe Biden was briefed on the attacks before he left Delaware on Saturday for a campaign trip to the West Coast.

The recent strikes marked the third time the US and Britain conducted a major joint operation to target Houthi weapons launchers, radars and drones. The attacks in Yemen are intended to underscore the larger message to Iran that Washington holds Tehran responsible for arming, funding and training numerous militias – from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen are behind attacks across the Middle East against U.S. and international interests.

In a video shared online by people in Sanaa, the sound of explosions could be heard, and at least one explosion lit up the night sky. Local residents described the explosions as occurring near buildings linked to Yemen’s presidential compound. The Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA reported strikes in the provinces of al-Bayda, Dhamar, Hajjah, Hodeida, Taiz and Sanaa.

Hours before the latest joint operation, the United States carried out another self-defense attack on a site in Yemen, destroying six anti-ship cruise missiles, as it has done repeatedly when it detected a missile or drone ready to launch. The day before the attacks, the U.S. destroyer Laboon and the Eisenhower F/A-18 shot down seven drones that were fired into the Red Sea from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, and the destroyer Carney shot down a drone that was fired in the Gulf of Aden and the United States. The armed forces took out four other drones that were ready to be shot down.

The Houthis’ attacks have led shipping companies to reroute their ships from the Red Sea and send them around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope – a much longer, more costly and less efficient passage. The threats have also prompted the U.S. and its allies to launch a joint mission in which warships from participating nations will form a protective air defense umbrella for ships traveling the crucial waterway from the Suez Canal to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

During normal operations, around 400 merchant ships transit the southern Red Sea at any given time.

After Friday’s attacks in Iraq and Syria, Hussein al-Mosawi, spokesman for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of Iraq’s main Iranian-backed militias, said Washington “must understand that every action provokes a reaction.” But in an AP interview in Baghdad, he also struck a more conciliatory tone. “We do not want to escalate or increase regional tensions,” he said.

Iraqi officials have tried to rein in the militias. At the same time, they condemned the US retaliation as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and called for the withdrawal of the 2,500 US troops who are in the country as part of an international coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Last month, Iraqi and U.S. military officials began formal talks to end the coalition’s presence, a process that is likely to take years.

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Associated Press writers Ahmed al-Haj in Sanaa, Yemen, Abdulrahman Zeyad and Ali Jabar in Baghdad, Abby Sewell and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Jon Gambrell in Jerusalem and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.