Houthi leaders warned Friday that the US and UK will pay a “heavy price” for striking more than two dozen targets in Yemen – as President Biden threatened to continue the bombardment.

“America and Britain will undoubtedly have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences of this blatant aggression,” Senior Houthi official Hussein al-Ezzi wrote on X.

The US-led strikes Thursday involved more than 150 precision-guided munitions and hit 28 locations, officials said.

The retaliatory strikes came after the Iran-backed rebels began firing on shipping vessels in the Red Sea, a critical shipping lane, last year. It is the first time the US has deployed strikes against the Houthis in Yemen since 2016.

The attack killed five of the group’s fighters and wounded six, according to Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree.

“The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished,” he warned in a recorded address Friday.

Iranian officials also released a statement saying the attacks “are a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and a breach of international laws.

“These attacks will only contribute to insecurity and instability in the region,” Tehran threatened.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the chief negotiator and spokesman for the Iran-backed group, said the strikes wouldn’t stop Yemen from “supporting Palestine and Gaza” and they would continue to target “Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine.”

But for the past few weeks, the extremist group has targeted ships that have little to no connection to Israel.

Their activities have ground commerce in the region to a halt and led some of the world’s largest shipping companies to cease operations in the Red Sea, through which about 12% of the world’s trade passes.

President Biden, meanwhile, vowed Friday that the US and its allies would continue to strike the Tehran proxies if they didn’t back down.

“We will make sure that we respond to the Houthis if they continue this outrageous behavior along with our allies,” Biden told reporters during a stop in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.

Asked if he believes the Houthis are a terrorist group, Biden responded, “I think they are.”

The Biden administration formally delisted the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization” and “specially designated global terrorists” in 2021, undoing a move by former President Donald Trump.

Lt. Gen. Douglas A Sims told reporters that they are “prepared” for the Houthis to respond, but “hope that they don’t retaliate.”

He added that the US has been monitoring the Red Sea situation since mid-November and it is “prepared to execute operations as necessary.”

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also spoke out for the first time since his secret hospitalization to warn of “further costs” if Houthi terrorists do not stop attacking ships on the Red Sea.

”Today’s coalition action sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will bear the costs if they do not end their illegal attacks,” he said in a statement.

“The United States maintains its right to self-defense and, if necessary, we will take follow-up actions to protect US forces,” he added.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave rare praise to the Biden administration in a statement Thursday night, calling the bombardment “overdue.”

“I welcome the US and coalition operations against the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists responsible for violently disrupting international commerce in the Red Sea and attacking American vessels,” McConnell said.

“President Biden’s decision to use military force against these Iranian proxies is overdue.”

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat and former US intelligence official, also welcomed the strikes.

“Iran uses groups like the Houthis to fight their battles, maintain plausible deniability and prevent a direct conflict with the U.S. or others. … It needs to stop, and my hope is they’ve gotten the message,” Slotkin wrote on X.

However, not everyone was convinced.

Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemen expert at Chatham House, told the Wall Street Journal that the strikes were largely just symbolic.

“The targeted areas and military sites are really only peanuts in the wider context of Houthi weapons and military capabilities—especially their maritime weapons,” he said.

“They are savvier, more prepared, and more equipped than anyone is really acknowledging.”

The strikes were mostly in low-populated areas and hit weapons, radar and targeting sites, including in remote mountain areas, Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of the Joint Staff, said.

Before and after photos show the precise targeting used by the US and UK, as individual structures near the Sanaa International Airport and Hodeida airfield, among other places, can be seen obliterated, while surrounding structures and greenery still stand.

Yemeni analysts argued that the attack would only serve to strengthen Houthi popularity in the region and its support for the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which started a war with Israel on Oct. 7.

Hundreds of people in Yemen gathered Friday for a rally chanting, “God is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.”

British analyst, Hannah Porter, who works for ARK Group, said it was the Houthi’s goal to push the American and British forces to retaliate.

“This was not a miscalculation by the Houthis,” she told the New York Times. “They hope to see an expanded regional war, and they are eager to be on the front lines of that war.”

Abdullah Baabood, a scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, told the Times that the group has “calculated that there aren’t many valuable targets” in Yemen, as the “country is already in ruins” and will use that advantage to “keep testing the situation and escalating the conflict.”