Yemen’s Houthi movement said on Sunday it was ready to “meet escalation with escalation” after US strikes targeting the Iran-aligned group over its threat to resume Red Sea shipping attacks triggered a diplomatic backlash from Moscow and Tehran.
The strikes - which killed at least 31 people at the start of a campaign that one US official told Reuters might continue for weeks - are the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January.
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.
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Trump also warned Iran, the Houthis' main backer, that it needed to end support for the group immediately. He said if Iran threatened the United States, “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”
In response, the top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the Houthis took their own strategic and operational decisions and Tehran would react decisively to any action against it.
“We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they take their threats into action,” Hossein Salami told state media.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called US secretary of state Marco Rubio to urge an “immediate cessation of the use of force and the importance for all sides to engage in political dialogue,” Russia’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.
Lavrov’s call to halt the strikes came as Trump has been pressing Moscow to sign a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, which Ukraine accepted last week, but Russia has said needs to be reworked.
Trump is also trying to bring Tehran to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme, while also ramping up sanctions pressure.
Most of the 31 people confirmed killed in the US strikes were women and children, Anees al-Asbahi, spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry said in an updated toll on Sunday. More than 100 were injured, he said.
Residents in Sanaa 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,” one of the residents, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia, told Reuters.
In Sanaa, a crane and bulldozer were used to remove debris at one site 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, wrapped in plastic sheets, were placed in a yard, Reuters footage showed.
Strikes also targeted Houthi military sites in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taiz, two witnesses said on Sunday.
Another strike on a power station in the town of Dahyan in Saada led to a power cut, Al-Masirah TV reported early on Sunday. Dahyan is where Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the enigmatic leader of the Houthis, often meets visitors
The Houthis, an armed movement that took control of most of Yemen over the past decade, have launched more than 100 attacks targeting shipping since November 2023, disrupting global commerce and setting the US military on a costly campaign to intercept missiles and drones that burned through stocks of US air defences.
The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
Iran’s other allies, Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon, have been severely weakened since the start of the conflict. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who was closely aligned with Tehran, was overthrown by rebels in December.
But during this period, Yemen’s Houthis have remained resilient and on the offensive, sinking two vessels, seizing another and killing 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.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Mr Trump has authorised a more aggressive approach.
The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by aircraft from the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea, officials said.
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.
“Houthi attacks on American ships & aircraft (and our troops!) will not be tolerated; and Iran, their benefactor, is on notice,” defence secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X. “Freedom of Navigation will be restored.”
Mr Trump held out the prospect of far more devastating military action against Yemen.
“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Mr Trump wrote.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Tuesday, 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.
The US attacks came just days after a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from Trump was delivered, seeking talks over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mr Khamenei on Wednesday rejected holding negotiations with the United States.
Still, Tehran is increasingly concerned that mounting public anger over economic hardships could erupt into mass protests, four Iranian officials told Reuters.
Last year, Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, in retaliation for Iranian missile and drone attacks, reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, according to US officials.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is dramatically accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 per cent purity, close to the roughly 90 per cent weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian programme and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful. Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. – Reuters
