Trump orders airstrikes on Houthis in Yemen over shipping attacks
Donald Trump launched large-scale military strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group’s attacks against Red Sea shipping, killing at least 31 people at the start of a campaign expected to last many days.
The US president also warned Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, that it must immediately halt support for the group. He said if Iran threatened the US: “America will hold you fully accountable and we won’t be nice about it!”
The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded on Sunday by saying the Houthis were independent and took their own strategic and operational decisions.
“We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they take their threats into action,” Maj Gen Hossein Salami told state media.
The unfolding strikes, which one US official told Reuters might continue for weeks, represent the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January. It came as Washington ramped up sanctions pressure on Tehran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”
At least 31 were killed and 101 others injured in the US strikes, mostly women and children, said Anees al-Asbahi, the spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, in an updated toll on Sunday.
The Houthis’ political bureau described the attacks as a “war crime”. “Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation,” it said in a statement.
People in Sana’a said the strikes hit a building in a Houthi stronghold. A man who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia told Reuters: “The explosions were violent and shook the neighbourhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children.”
Strikes also targeted Houthi military sites in Yemen’s south-western city of Taiz, two witnesses in the area said on Sunday. Another strike, on a power station in the town of Dahyan in Saada, led to a power cut, al-Masirah TV reported early on Sunday. Dahyan is where Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis, often meets his visitors.
The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, have launched scores of attacks on ships off its coast since November 2023, disrupting global commerce and setting the US military on a costly campaign to intercept missiles and drones that have burned through stocks of US air defences.
A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis had attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023. The Houthis have said the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The previous administration in Washington, under Joe Biden, had sought to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels off Yemen’s coast but limited US actions.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump had authorised a more aggressive approach.
The US military’s central command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described Saturday’s strikes as the start of a large-scale operation across Yemen. The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by fighter aircraft from the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea, officials said.
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, wrote on X: “Houthi attacks on American ships & aircraft (and our troops!) will not be tolerated; and Iran, their benefactor, is on notice.”
In a statement shared by state media, Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes on Yemen as a “gross violation of the principles of the United Nations charter and the fundamental rules of international law”.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the US government had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy”. “End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop killing of Yemeni people,” he said in a post on X early on Sunday.
On Tuesday, the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.
The US attacks came days after the delivery of a letter from Trump to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seeking talks over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Khamenei on Wednesday rejected holding negotiations with the US.
Nevertheless, Tehran is increasingly concerned that mounting public anger over economic hardships could erupt into mass protests, four Iranian officials told Reuters.
Last year, Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defences, in retaliation for Iranian missile and drone attacks, reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, according to US officials.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it has dramatically accelerated the enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the weapons-grade level of approximately 90%, the UN nuclear watchdog has warned.
About The Author
