Trump says US troops have committed massive air raids against Yemen’s Houtis | News

Yemeni health officials say nine civilians killed in the US bombing were killed in the US bombing days after the Houtis vowed to resume maritime attacks if Israel did not lift the Gaza blockade.

President Donald Trump has announced a series of strikes over the targets of Houthi in Yemen, in his most important military action of his second term so far.

At least nine civilians were killed and nine injured in a strike in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Saturday, according to Yemen’s Houthi-Run Health Ministry.

“Your time is over and your attacks must stop from today. If they don’t, hell will rain over you like something you’ve never seen before,” Trump said in a statement on his social media site Truth Social.

“I have ordered the US military today to launch a decisive and powerful military operation against the Hooty terrorists in Yemen,” Trump added.

“We will use overwhelming lethal force until we reach our goal,” he said in the Post, accusing Iran of threatening the allied transport of the Red Sea.

The Houtis, which controls much of the Arabian Peninsula country, launched a campaign to target busy sea routes supporting the Palestinians in Gaza after Israel began bombing the besieged enclaves.

Trump also told Iran that he needs to stop supporting the Houtis soon. He said if Iran threatened the US, “America will take full responsibility for you and we won’t be good about it!”

Previously, Houthi-Afileated Al Masirah TV reported an attack on Sana. The Houthi Media Office said the US strike struck a “residential area” in Sanaa’s northern Shouab district.

Sana residents said at least four airstrikes have rocked the eastern Geraf district of Shouab district, scaring women and children in the area. “The explosion was very strong,” Abdallah al-Al-Fai said. “It was like an earthquake.”

The strike comes as armed groups announced this week that they would resume attacks on Israeli ships after Israel failed to stop blockade of punishment for delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The Yemeni group said it would “reopen the ban on passing all Israeli ships” in the Red Sea.

“Any Israeli ship attempting to violate this ban shall be targeted in the declared operational zone,” the statement said in a statement Tuesday. The “ban” also covers the Arabian Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden, the group said.

The strikes affected world trade, forcing massive maritime traffic between Asia and Europe away from the Suez Canal, and took much longer trips around Africa.

The US and some of its allies have carried out a series of cruise missile attacks on Yemen since January 2024, as Israeli wars in Gaza and the Houtis maintained its sustained maritime campaign.

The group halted drone and missile attacks targeting ships with Israeli links when the Gaza ceasefire was declared in January.

However, in the hopes of putting pressure on Hamas to release the remaining prisoners of war taken in the attack on October 7, 2023, they threatened to resume the attack when Israel blocked all aid in war-covered Gaza on March 2.

Earlier this month, the US designated the Hooti movement, officially known as Ansal Allah, as a “foreign terrorist” organization.