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United States President Donald Trump has launched military strikes against Yemen’s Houthis over the group’s attacks against Red Sea shipping, warning “hell will rain down upon you” if the Houthis do not abandon their campaign.
Trump on Sunday AEDT also warned Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, that it needed to immediately halt support to the group.
He said if Iran threatened the US, “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”
At least nine civilians were killed and nine injured in US strikes on Yemen’s Sanaa, according to the health ministry.
Residents in Sanaa said the strikes hit a building in a stronghold of the militant Houthi group.
“The explosions were violent and shook the neighbourhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” one of the residents, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia, told Reuters.
The Houthis launched more than 100 attacks targeting shipping from November 2023, saying they were in solidarity with Palestinians over the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.
During that period, the group sank two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers in an offensive that disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.
The previous US administration of president Joe Biden had sought to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels off its coast but limited the US actions.
“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Trump wrote on Sunday.
The attack marks the first strikes to hit Yemen since the Gaza ceasefire deal took effect in January.
It also came a few days after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.
