The Houthi militia in Yemen vowed to retaliate after President Trump ordered large-scale military strikes on targets controlled by the group that it said killed at least 31 people.
The Iran-backed group said 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 allies Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza.
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,” said Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry.
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.
The U.S. Central Command, which posted a video of a bomb leveling a building compound in Yemen, said that the United States 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, in Saada Province, causing a nightlong electricity blackout, residents said.
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 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 hit. Others posted anguished messages as the airstrikes hit.
Abdul Rahman al-Nuerah, a resident of Sana, said the blasts 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 the social media platform 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 announced that 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.
In a statement on his Truth Social platform, Mr. Trump said 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!”
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.
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