US officials have said airstrikes launched against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis will continue indefinitely, after a first round on Saturday killed at least 53 people and injured almost 100 more.
The strikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, are Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.
Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told Fox News: “The minute the Houthis say ‘we’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones’, this campaign will end, but until then it will be unrelenting.”
Hegseth was among several senior officials underlining that the strikes were designed to signal a new assertive approach to Iran, and more generally in the Middle East.
Michael Waltz, the US national security adviser, said in separate interviews that the strikes “targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out” and had involved “overwhelming force [that] put Iran on notice that enough is enough”.
Earlier, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”
He added: “To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!”
Official White House photos showed the president, wearing a Trump-branded golf shirt, watching the airstrikes on a display screen identified as being in Florida; video posted by social media users suggested Trump had earlier in the day been at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and at the nearby Trump International golf club.
On Sunday Anees Alsbahi, spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry, said five children and two women were among the 53 people killed in the US strikes. Another 98 people were injured, the ministry said.
The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, say they have targeted international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians and Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
The Yemeni group has also launched missiles, drones and rockets at Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Israeli officials said on Sunday they were investigating a missile launched from Yemen that landed in Egypt close to the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to check if it had been aimed at Israel.
Fighter aircraft shot down a combined 11 drones on Sunday fired by the Houthis, a US official told Reuters, following Houthi claims of an attempt to attack a US aircraft carrier off Yemen’s coast.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the drones did not come close to the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which has played a key role in Trump’s strikes on Yemen.
The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded to the US threats by saying the Houthis were independent and took their own strategic and operational decisions.
“We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they take their threats into action,” Maj Gen Hossein Salami told state media.
In a statement shared by state media, Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes on Yemen as a “gross violation of the principles of the United Nations charter and the fundamental rules of international law”.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the US government had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy”. “End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop killing of Yemeni people,” he said in a post on X early on Sunday.
Washington has already increased sanctions pressure on Iran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme. A key question for regional observers is whether Trump may use military means against Tehran, possibly after pressure from Israel.
The US military’s central command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described Saturday’s strikes as the start of a large-scale operation across Yemen. The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by fighter aircraft from the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea. They could continue for weeks, one Pentagon official said.
The Houthis are seen as key actors in the “axis of resistance”, a loose regional coalition of militant groups built up by Iran over recent years to project force and put pressure on Israel.
The group is considered the only member of the coalition not to have been significantly weakened by Israel during the war in Gaza since October 2023 and the short conflict in Lebanon last year. Both Hamas and Hezbollah, once the most powerful member, have suffered significant losses.
The Houthis’ political bureau described the attacks as a “war crime”. “Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation,” it said in a statement.
Residents in Sana’a said the strikes hit a neighbourhood known to host several members of the Houthi leadership.
“The explosions were violent and shook the neighbourhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” said one resident, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia.
A crane and bulldozer were used to remove debris at one site in the city and people used their bare hands to pick through the rubble. At a hospital, medics treated the injured, including children, and the bodies of several casualties were placed in a yard, wrapped in plastic sheets, Reuters footage showed.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Sunday called for “utmost restraint and a cessation of all military activities” in Yemen. A new escalation could “fuel cycles of retaliation that may further destabilise Yemen and the region, and pose grave risks to the already dire humanitarian situation in the country”, his spokesperson said in a statement.
The previous administration in Washington, under Joe Biden, had sought to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels off Yemen’s coast but had limited US actions.
On Tuesday, the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.
A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis had attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed reporting
