Australia has supported the US and UK militaries as they launched more than a dozen airstrikes against sites used by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
The US president, Joe Biden, confirmed the strikes, which are the most significant military response to the Houthis’ campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, said the decision to launch the strikes “was not taken lightly”.
“On 4 January Australia was part of [a group of] 14 countries which issued a statement warning the Houthi rebels that if they continue to attack maritime activity in the Red Sea, there would be consequences,” he said on Friday.
“They have continued their attacks on maritime and naval assets. As a result the attacks today have occurred.”
Marles confirmed Australia’s contribution was in the form of “personnel in the … headquarters for this activity”.
Asked if the US-led attacks risked escalating tensions in the region, Marles said defending freedom of navigation and global trade routes was “utterly central to Australia’s national interest”.
Biden earlier said: “Today, at my direction, US military forces – together with the United Kingdom and with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands – successfully conducted strikes against a number of targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels to endanger freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most vital waterways.”
Australia’s support included defence personnel in a non-operational role. Australia does not have ships in the Middle East. It has 16 personnel deployed as part of a multinational combined maritime force based in Bahrain.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in a joint statement issued earlier in January, said: “The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.”
In mid-December, Marles said Australia would not be sending a ship or a plane to the Red Sea.
“That said, we will be almost tripling our contribution to the combined maritime force [from five to 16 personnel],” he told Sky News at the time.
The Albanese government was criticised by the Coalition opposition for not sending military hardware to the region. Marles said in the interview that Australia’s “strategic focus” was on the Pacific.
The acting defence minister, Matt Thistlethwaite, told the ABC on Monday that Australian personnel in Bahrain were “working in leadership roles there and working in coordination roles” regarding the Yemen operation.
The Australian government said in a joint statement on Friday with nine other countries: “The Houthis’ more than two dozen attacks on commercial vessels since mid-November constitute an international challenge. Today’s action demonstrated a shared commitment to freedom of navigation, international commerce and defending the lives of mariners from illegal and unjustifiable attacks.”
Biden said he would “not hesitate” to launch further attacks if necessary.
Australia’s specific role in supporting the airstrikes has not been revealed.
Initial reports suggested that as many as a dozen military sites in Yemen had been targeted with fighter jets and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.
A Houthi official said that “American-Zionist-British aggression against Yemen” had seen raids launched on the capital, Sana’a, in the area of the port city of Hodeidah and the cities of Saada and Dhamar.
The Houthis are supporting Hamas in the war in Gaza.
Shortly after the Hamas massacre of Israelis on 7 October, the Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, said his forces were “ready to move in the hundreds of thousands to join the Palestinian people and confront the enemy”.
The Red Sea is one of the world’s busiest shipping channels, carrying 15% of the world’s global seaborne trade. It lies south of the Suez Canal, the most significant waterway connecting Europe to Asia and east Africa, with Yemen on the sea’s south-east coast, where it meets the Gulf of Aden.
The Australian Greens defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said it was hypocritical of the US and Australian governments to launch airstrikes while claiming they wanted to avoid the conflict in Gaza spreading.
“Supporting the bombing of one of the only ports in a country that desperately needs to receive medicine, food and supplies is horrific,” he said. “In the context of Yemen, it is an effective death sentence for thousands of people.”
Shoebridge said the only way to stop the spread of violence was to secure an “immediate, just and enduring ceasefire in Palestine”.
