Houthis vows to retaliate after attacking Yemen

Yemeni Hooty militia vowed to retaliation after ordering a massive military strike against targets managed by groups that President Trump said had killed at least 31 people.

The Iran-backed group said that women and children were among the women and children killed in Saturday's strike, the most important US military action in the Middle East since Trump took office in January.

For more than a year, Houthis launched an attack on Israel, threatening commercial transport in the Red Sea on October 7, 2023 in solidarity with allies who led the attack on Israel that sparked war in Gaza. Houthis suspended its campaign in January after reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, but vowed to bolster its attack once again after Israel began aid to the Enclave this month.

According to a report by the Houthi-run Media Channel, US airstrikes have targeted Yemen's Hauti-controlled areas, including the capital, Sana, Sadah, Albaida, Hajija and Damar provinces. Anis Al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-Run Health Ministry, said late Saturday that the strike killed at least 31 people and injured 101 people, saying “most of them were children and women.”

The victim figures cannot be independently verified, and the US does not give estimates on the number of people killed or injured on strikes.

On Sunday, Trump's national security adviser Michael Waltz explained that the US weekend attack on Yemen was both successful and effective. “We killed some of their main leaders, their infrastructure, their missiles and hit the Houthi leaders last night,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” He cast Houthis as “essentially al-Qaeda with sophisticated Iran-backed air defense and anti-fleet missiles and drones” that attacked the entire global economy.

The US Central Command, which posted a video of a bomb leveling the compounds in Yemeni buildings, said Washington “employed a precision strike to protect American interests, block the enemy and restore freedom of navigation.

The US airstrikes also targeted power facilities in the northwestern town of Dahyan, causing overnight power outages, residents said.

The Houthi-Run Al-Masirah Television channel reported that 13 people were killed and nine were injured in an airstrike in Al-Jeraf, a Sana district that is considered the group's home. In the northwest state of Sada, 10 people were killed, including four children, when airstrikes struck two buildings, the report said.

Sana residents share images and videos on social media, indicating that stolen windows and fireballs are rising from the site where they were attacked. Others posted messages they struggled when the airstrike was hit.

Sana resident Abdul Rahman al-Nura said the explosion shattered the windows of his house and terrorized his four children. “I quickly accepted them and comforted them,” Alnula said over the phone. “The child and mother are afraid and still shocked.”

Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, a senior leader at Houthi, vowed retaliation against the United States and called the strike unfair. “We respond to escalations through escalations,” he wrote to X.

The Hoothi ​​rebels, which control most of northern Yemen, temporarily halted attacks in the Red Sea when a ceasefire came into effect in Gaza in January. However, last week they said Israeli ships would target those violating the ban on Israeli ships through the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Bab el Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden.

Bab el Mandev is a strait between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

In his statement on his true social platform, Trump said the strike was also intended as a warning to Iran, the main supporter of Houthis.

“Houthi's support for terrorists must end soon!” he wrote. He also warned Iran about threatening the US, saying, “America will hold you completely accountable and we're not good about it!”

Some military analysts and former US commanders said Sunday that a more aggressive campaign against the Hoosis, particularly against Hoosis, is necessary to reduce the group's ability to threaten international shipping. “This will be delayed for a long time,” Kenneth F. Mackenzie Jr., retired head of the Pentagon Central Command, said in a phone interview Sunday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegses said on Sunday that the US will run a “relentless” campaign against the Hoosis until extremist groups stop acting in the Red Sea.

“This isn't overnight, and this continues until they say, 'We've finished filming on the boat.' We've finished filming on the property,” Heggs told Fox News on Sunday. “This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoration of deterrence.”

Iran strongly condemned the strike.

Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called them a violation of international law regarding the use of national sovereignty and respect.

Hossein Salami, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Security Forces, denied on Sunday that Yemeni rebels were making policy decisions. Houthi Militia made “its own strategic decisions,” and Tehran was quoted as saying by Iranian state presses that he “played no role in setting the group's national or operational policies.”

A few days after taking office, Trump issued an executive order to redesignate Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization,” calling the group a threat to local security.

The order restored the designation given to the group later in the first Trump administration. The Biden administration lifted its designation shortly after taking office to promote peace talks in Yemen's civil war.

Last year, the Biden administration named Houches the “specially designated global terrorist” group (a less severe category) in response to attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov on Saturday told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that all sides should stop Yemen's “use of force” and enter “political dialogue.” Moscow denounced us past Yemen.

Another Iranian armed agent in the region, Hezbollah, expressed his condemnation of the US attack on Yemen, describing it as a “war crime,” according to a statement on Sunday.

Carol Rosenberg, Eric Schmidt and Leelee Nikounazar reported.