The Houthi militia in Yemen promised to retaliate after President Trump ordered large -scale military strikes on targets controlled by the group which, according to him, killed at least 31 people.
The group supported by Iran said that women and children were one of the people killed in strike on Saturday, the most important American military action in the Middle East since Trump took office in January.
For more than a year, the Houthis launched attacks on Israel and threatened the commercial expedition to the Red Sea in solidarity with their Hamas allies, which led on October 7, 2023, attacking Israel which sparked the war in Gaza.
The American air strikes have targeted the areas controlled by the Houthi through Yemen, notably the capital, Sana, as well as the provinces of Saada, Al-Bayda, Hajjah and Dhamar, according to reports from the media channels managed by Houthi. The strikes killed at least 31 people and injured 101, “most of whom were children and women”, ” said Anis al-AsbahiSpokesperson for the Ministry of Health managed by the Houthi.
Victims’ figures could not be checked independently and the United States has given no estimate for the number of people killed or injured in strikes.
The central American order, which published a video A bomb leveling a building compound in Yemen, said the United States had used precision strikes to “defend American interests, dissuade enemies and restore freedom of navigation”.
US air strikes have also targeted an electricity installation in the northwest city of Dahyan, in Saada province, causing a breakdown of the night, said residents.
The television channel in Houthi Al-Masirah reported that 13 people had been killed and nine others injured in air strikes on Al-Jeraf, a Sana district considered a bastion of the group. In the province of Saada, in the northwest, 10 people, including four children, were killed when air strikes hit two buildings, according to the report.
Sana residents have shared images and videos on social networks showing broken windows and fireballs riding sites that have been affected. Others have published anxious messages as the air strikes struck.
Abdul Rahman Al-Nuerah, a resident of Sana, said that the explosions had broken the windows of his house and terrified his four children. “I instantly adopted and comforted them,” said Mr. Al-Nuerah by phone. “Children and mothers are afraid and always in shock.”
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi official, promised reprisals against the United States, qualifying unjustified strikes. “We will respond to climbing by increasing”, written on the social media platform X.
The Houthis rebels, which control most of northern Yemen, had temporarily interrupted attacks in the Red Sea when a ceasefire entered into force in Gaza in January. But last week, they announced that they would target all Israeli ships which violated their ban on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea, the Oman 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 which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which opens onto the sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean.
In a declaration on his Truth social platform, Trump said that strikes were also designed as a warning to Iran, the main donor of the Houthis.
“Support to Houthi terrorists must end immediately!” He wrote. He also warned Iran not to threaten the United States, saying: “America will keep you fully responsible, and we will not be nice about it!”
A few days after taking office, Trump published an executive decree to rethink the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organization”, calling the group to threaten regional security.
The order restored a designation given to the group at the end of the first Trump administration. The Biden administration has raised the designation shortly after taking office, in part to facilitate peace talks in the Yemen civil war.
Last year, the Biden administration qualified the group Houthis “specially designated global terrorist” – a less severe category – in response to attacks on the Red Sea ships.
