WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered “decisive and powerful” U.S. airstrikes on Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen and issued a new warning in response to the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
The strikes mark the largest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since Trump‘s return to the White House for a second term.
Trump warned the Houthis in a social media post that “HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE” if they don’t cease their attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
“To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He warned the Iranians if they continue to back Houthi attacks on shipping then “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”
The strikes resulted in the initial deaths of at least nine civilians and nine injured in Sanaa, the largest city in Yemen, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
Residents in Sanaa said the strikes hit a building in a Houthi stronghold. “The explosions were violent and shook the neighborhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” one of the residents, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia, told Reuters.
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Houthis have launched more than 100 attacks in Red Sea
The Houthis have carried out more than 100 attacks on merchant vessels and war ships in the Red Sea beginning in November 2023, claiming the attacks were in support of Palestinians amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Biden administration responded with multiple U.S.-led counterstrikes in Yemen and relisted the Houthis as a “specially designated global terrorist” group.
“Joe Biden’s response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going,” Trump said in his statement. “It has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden.”
The airstrikes comes just days after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected a letter from Trump to begin negotiations on a nuclear deal. In 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed sanctions that crippled Iran’s economy. Tehran reacted a year later by violating the deal’s nuclear curbs.
Contributing: Reuters
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