has seen houthis would be unable to do that level of magnitude based what they have seen. joining us now, new york times white house and national security correspondent david sanger. david, good saturday to you. let s start here with the question i asked colonel lleyton in a purely military perspective, i now want this in a geopolitical perspective considering the tensions in the region, the administration says that this is avoiding an escalation. is this indeed an escalation what we have seen over these last two days? well, victor, thanks and good morning. it s a really interesting question because, you know, one country s effort to restore deterrence, which is what the u.s. says it s doing, is the receiving end country s escalatory activity. there s no science here.
campaign, is now how do you deal with iran? it s iran that is behind financing the houthis. they re not calling the shots with every attack but they re certainly enabling this. it s iran behind the hezbollah militias in lebanon, attacks in syria and the ones coming out of iraq. and my guess is, as the campaign goes forward, you re going to hear them on the question of what s he doing to go deal with the source. of course, an attack on iran would by its nature be escalatory and the president wants to do everything he can to avoid that. david sanger, thanks so much. we ll be right back.
reversed the trump administration s classification of the houthis as a foreign terror organization. but he also said this, from pennsylvania. let s watch. it s irrelevant whether they re designated. we put together a group of nations that will say they continue to act and behave as they do, we ll respond. he says it s irrelevant. it s immaterial whether it s declared a national foreign terror organization. is it? from a political perspective he s exactly right. from a legal perspective maybe not. once you declare a country to be a foreign terror or a group to be a terror organization, that kicks in a whole bunch of sanctions and so forth. it s not as if the houthis are big players in the world economy, so whether or not they are designated is less important
the houthis have vowed to retaliate. cnn s oren lieberman has the latest now from the pentagon. oren? reporter: victor and amara, the u.s. carried out further strikes against houthi targs in yemen on friday night local time. this time targeting radar facilities used by the houthis. much smaller set of strikes than we saw one night previously where the u.s. led a coalition of countries that targeted nearly 30 houthi sites across the country with more than 150 precision-guided missiles. those included radar sites, command and control nodes as well as storage and launch facilities for anti-ship ballistic missiles, anti-cruise ship missiles as well as drones. those are the sorts of weapons the houthis have used to target international shipping lanes in the red sea. one of the most critical international water ways in the world. following that series of strikes, we saw, according to the pentagon, the houthis launch an anti-ship ballistic missile into the gulf of aidan. it didn t hit anyth
been able to retaliate at the same intensity level that weaver seen in the past we have seen in the past. it remains to be seen how successful these strikes have been in diminishing that threat. we did see the u.s. carrying out further strikes overnight. these were unilateral strikes by the u.s. again, with the support of international allies, but not carried out alongside the united kingdom crucially. mounting concern around the potential for this to escalate tensions around the region. the houthis have vowed to continue retaliating. we ve heard condemnation from authorities in iran, of course backing the houthi rebels. as we ve seen in the past the houthis have been able to launch attacks against the likes of saudi arabia and the united arab emirates. there was concern around the broadening, potential broadening of this conflict, particularly as we continue to see tensions in the region mounting. of course we ve heard from officials in the internationally recognized government in y