A new American airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels appears more intense and more extensive, as the US moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in city neighbourhoods, a PTI review of theoperation shows.
The pattern under US President Donald Trump reflects a departure from the Biden administration, which limited its strikes as Arab allies tried to reach a separate peace with the group. It comes after the Iran-backed Houthis threatened to resume attacking “any Israeli vessel” over the country’s refusal to allow aid into the Gaza Strip.
The Houthi attacks and the response to them have drawn new scrutiny in Washington after security officials in Trump’s administration shared plans for the first round of strikes on the rebels in a group chat that included a journalist. But bombing alone may not be enough to stop the Houthis, whose earlier barrage of missile fire toward the US Navy represented the most intense combat it had seen since World War II.
“Folks that say, ‘We’ll go in there and take out everyone with the last name Houthi and we’ll win.’ The Houthi leadership has been taken out in history in the past, and they are resilient,” retired US Navy Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan said. “They came back and they grew stronger. So this isn’t something that is a one-and-done.” Meanwhile, concerns are growing over civilians being caught in the middle of the campaign. While the US military has not acknowledged any civilian casualties since the strikes began over a week ago, activists fear strikes may have killed noncombatants already in territory tightly controlled by the Houthis.
“Just because you can’t see civilian harm doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” warned Emily Tripp, the director of the UK-based group Airwars, which studies Western airstrike campaigns.
A new, intense US airstrike campaign shakes Yemen The Trump campaign began March 15.
American warships fired cruise missiles while fighter jets flying off of the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier dropped bombs on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, a nation on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula that is the Arab world’s poorest. “No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the Waterways of the World,” Trump said in a social media post announcing the campaign, days after his administration reimposed a “foreign terrorist organisation” designation on the Houthis. So far, the Houthis say the airstrikes have killed 57 people.
That’s just over half the 106 people the Houthis’ secretive leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, claimed the US and UK killed during all of 2024. He provided no breakdown of combatants versus noncombatants. Houthi fighters often aren’t in uniform.
Al-Houthi said the two countries launched over 930 strikes last year. The US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED, has recorded 305 strikes.
