After Red Sea Barrage by Houthis, U.S. and Allies Weigh Retaliation

The United States and its allies are weighing how to stop attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea after American and British officials said on Wednesday that their navies had intercepted one of the largest barrages yet of drones and missiles fired from an area controlled by the Houthis, an Iranian-backed group in Yemen.

The attacks, which the Houthis say will go on until Israel ends its campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, are threatening maritime traffic in one of the world’s most crucial shipping lanes.

They have also raised concerns in the Middle East, Europe and the United States about the prospect of the war in Gaza spreading to new fronts, and with new combatants. On his latest tour through the region, the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, on Wednesday warned of repercussions for the Yemeni-based militants while still trying to prevent the conflict from growing.

“What I can tell you is that, as we made clear, and many other countries made clear, there’ll be consequences for the Houthis’ actions,” Mr. Blinken said at a news conference in Manama, Bahrain, though he declined to say what the Biden administration was considering.