US, UK defend strikes on Yemen's Houthis as legal under international law

The United States and Britain on Thursday defended as legal under international law military strikes carried out against the Houthis in retaliation for the Yemeni group's attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The strikes launched overnight were "to disrupt and degrade the Houthis' ability to continue the reckless attacks against vessels and commercial shipping," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.N. Security Council.

She said more than 2,000 ships had been forced by the attacks to divert from the Red Sea since November.