The US has launched airstrikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, killing at least 31 people and injured up to 100 more, in Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.
US officials have said the airstrikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, may continue for weeks.
The US president on Saturday warned Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, to immediately halt support for the group and said if Iran threatened the US: “America will hold you fully accountable and we won’t be nice about it!”
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!”
The Houthis say they have targeted international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians and Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
The Yemeni group has also launched missiles, drones and rockets at Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
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.
Washington has already increased sanctions pressure on Iran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme. A key question for regional observers is whether Trump might use military means against Tehran, possibly after pressure from Israel.
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.”
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump had authorised a more aggressive approach.
The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, are seen as key actors in the “axis of resistance”, a loose regional coalition of militant groups built up by Iran over recent years to project force and pressure Israel.
The group is seen as the only member of the coalition not to have been significantly weakened by Israel during the war in Gaza since October 2023 and the short conflict in Lebanon last year. Both Hamas and Hezbollah, once the most powerful member, have suffered significant losses.
Most of the casualties in the US strikes were women and children, said Anees al-Asbahi, the spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, 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.
A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis had attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023.
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.
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 negotiations with the US.
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 and air defence capabilities, according to US officials.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon but 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 said.
-
Reuters contributed to this report
