Houthis
Vow Retaliation Against U.S., Saying Yemen Strikes Killed at Least 31
The
Iran-backed rebels, who have targeted Israel and shipping in the Red Sea, said
children were among those killed in the strikes ordered by President Trump.
By Ismaeel
Naar and Saeed Al-Batati
Ismaeel Naar
reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Saeed Al-Batati from Al Mukalla,
Yemen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/world/middleeast/houthis-us-airstrikes-yemen-response.html
March 16,
2025
Updated 4:05
p.m. ET
The Houthi
militia in Yemen has vowed to retaliate after President Trump ordered
large-scale military strikes on targets controlled by the group that it says
killed at least 31 people.
The group,
which is backed by Iran, said that women and children were among those killed
in the strikes on Saturday, the most significant U.S. military action in the
Middle East since Mr. Trump took office in January.
For more
than a year, the Houthis have launched attacks against Israel and threatened
commercial shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with their ally Hamas, which
led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza. The
Houthis suspended the campaign in January after a cease-fire was reached in
Gaza but have vowed to step up attacks again after Israel instituted a blockade
on aid to the enclave this month.
The U.S.
airstrikes targeted Houthi-controlled areas across Yemen, including the
capital, Sana, as well as Saada, al-Bayda, Hajjah and Dhamar Provinces,
according to reports from Houthi-run media channels. The strikes killed at
least 31 people and wounded 101, “most of whom were children and women,” Anis
al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry, said late Saturday.
The casualty
figures could not be independently verified, and the United States has not
given any estimates for the number of people killed or wounded in the strikes.
On Sunday,
Michael Waltz, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, described the U.S.
weekend attacks on Yemen as both successful and effective.
“We hit the
Houthi leadership, killing several of their key leaders last night, their
infrastructure, the missiles,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” He cast the
Houthis as “essentially Al Qaeda with sophisticated Iranian-backed air defenses
and anti-ship cruise missiles and drones” that have attacked the entire global
economy.
The U.S.
Central Command, which posted a video of a bomb leveling a building compound in
Yemen, said that Washington had employed precision strikes to “defend American
interests, deter enemies and restore freedom of navigation.”
U.S.
airstrikes also targeted a power facility in the northwestern town of Dahyan,
causing a nightlong electricity blackout, residents said.
A United
Nations spokesperson expressed concern about the American strikes while also
noting recent Houthi threats to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
The
Houthi-run Al-Masirah television channel reported that 13 people were killed
and nine others wounded in airstrikes on al-Jeraf, a district in Sana that is
considered a stronghold of the group. In Saada Province, in the northwest, 10
people, including four children, were killed when airstrikes hit two buildings,
the report said.
Residents in
Sana shared images and videos on social media showing shattered windows and
fireballs rising from sites that were struck. Others posted anguished messages
as the airstrikes hit.
Abdul Rahman
al-Nuerah, a resident of Sana, said the blasts had shattered the windows of his
home and terrified his four children. “I instantly embraced and comforted
them,” Mr. al-Nuerah said by telephone. “Children and mothers are afraid and
still in shock.”
Mohammed
al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi leader, vowed retaliation against the United
States, calling the strikes unjustified. “We shall respond to the escalation by
escalating,” he wrote on X.
The Houthi
rebels, who control most of northern Yemen, had temporarily halted attacks in
the Red Sea when a cease-fire took effect in Gaza in January. But last week,
they said they would target any Israeli ships violating their ban on Israeli
vessels passing through the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb and the
Gulf of Aden.
The Bab
el-Mandeb is a strait between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East that
connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which opens into the Arabian Sea and
the Indian Ocean.
Mr. Trump
said in a statement on his Truth Social platform that the strikes were also
intended as a warning to Iran, the Houthis’ main backer.
“Support for
the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote. He also warned Iran
against threatening the United States, saying, “America will hold you fully
accountable, and we won’t be nice about it!”
Some
military analysts and former American commanders said on Sunday that a more
aggressive campaign against the Houthis, particularly against the Houthi
leadership, was necessary to degrade the group’s ability to threaten
international shipping. “This is long, long overdue,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie
Jr., a retired head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, said in a telephone
interview on Sunday.
Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that the United States would conduct an
“unrelenting” campaign of strikes against the Houthis until the militant group
ceased its actions in the Red Sea.
“This isn’t
a one-night thing. This will continue until you say, ‘We’re done shooting at
ships. We’re done shooting at assets,’” Mr. Hegseth told Fox News on Sunday.
“This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence.”
Iran
strongly condemned the strikes.
Esmaeil
Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, called them a violation of
international law regarding the use of force and respect for national
sovereignty.
And Hossein
Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards force, denied on
Sunday that his country was making policy decisions for the rebels in Yemen.
The Houthi militia “makes its own strategic decisions” and Tehran plays “no
role in setting the national or operational policies” of the group, he was
quoted as saying by Iranian state news agencies.
Days after
taking office, Mr. Trump issued an executive order to redesignate the Houthis a
“foreign terrorist organization,” calling the group a threat to regional
security.
The order
restored a designation given to the group late in the first Trump
administration. The Biden administration lifted the designation shortly after
taking office, partly to facilitate peace talks in Yemen’s civil war.
Last year,
the Biden administration labeled the Houthis a “specially designated global
terrorist” group — a less severe category — in response to attacks against
vessels in the Red Sea.
Russia’s
foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Saturday told Secretary of State Marco
Rubio that all sides should cease the
“use of force” in Yemen and enter a “political dialogue,” according to the
Russian foreign ministry. Moscow has condemned past U.S. and British strikes on
Yemen.
Hezbollah,
another armed proxy for Iran in the region, voiced its condemnation of the U.S.
strikes on Yemen and described it as a “war crime,” according to a statement on
Sunday.
Carol
Rosenberg, Eric Schmitt and Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
Ismaeel Naar
is an international reporter for The Times, covering the Gulf states. He is
based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. More about Ismaeel Naar
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