A B-2 Spirit Bomber is prepped for a training mission at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, in 2019. It is unclear why the DoD elected to employ B-2s to strike Yemen but their use may be a signal to deter future Iranian strikes on Israel. (US Air Force)
The US Air Force (USAF) has employed multiple Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to hit five “hardened underground weapons storage locations” in Yemen, according to a 16 October statement by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Much of Yemen is controlled by the Ansar Allah (commonly known as Houthis) rebel group. The group has used ballistic anti-ship missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned surface vessels to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait since 2022. The US has repeatedly accused Iran of supplying the Houthis with technologically advanced weapons. The statement did not describe or provide target locations, beyond that they were buried bunkers “housing various weapons components.” The Department of Defense (DoD) told reporters on 17 October that the targets had not been struck before and that bomb damage assessments were ongoing.
The US, United Kingdom, and other countries have since conducted periodic attacks on Houthi missile and radar sites with aircraft and cruise missiles. However, the 16 October attack marks the first use of a large bomber in the Yemen conflict, and it is unclear whether its capabilities – large munitions capacity, and in the B-2's case, the ability to penetrate integrated air-defence networks – were required.
“This was a unique demonstration of the United States' ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” said the statement.
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