US conducts airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi as escalated military campaign begins

The US military conducted an airstrike against the Houthis in Yemen tonight, US officials familiar with the operation said.

Several US strikes targeted missile and drone systems as well as Houthi air defense capabilities, officials say.

This is the beginning of an escalated military campaign against the group, which threatened to resume its attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

Shortly after the strikes, US President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social that if Houthi attacks did not stop “hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before.”

In the post, Trump also warned Iran, the Houthis main backer, that it needed to immediately stop supporting the group. He said if Iran threatened the United States “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”

The Houthi-run Al Masirah TV earlier said that an attack targeted the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

The Houthis control much of Yemen, including the capital, and have launched missile and drone attacks at Israel since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023.

They have also repeatedly targeted merchant vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden – waterways vital to global trade.

Trump signed an executive order in late January to return the Houthis to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), where he placed them during his first term.

The redesignation means that anyone who engages or works with the Houthis, whose territory is home to most of Yemen’s population, will risk being prosecuted by the United States.

Former President Joe Biden removed the Houthis from the list after humanitarian groups protested that they could not get aid to Yemen’s needy without dealing with the militia.

Already the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country before the war broke out a decade ago, Yemen is now suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with about two-thirds of its 34 million people in need of aid.