American officials promised on Sunday more strikes in Yemen until the Houthi rebels decide to end their attacks against the sending of the Red Sea, while threatening the measures against the sponsor of the group, Iran.
In a wave of strikes on Saturday, the first against the rebel group since the president of the United States, Donald Trump, returned to office in January, several Huti leaders were killed, said the White House.
Air attacks “they actually went to multiple Huti leaders and took them out,” said National Security Advisor Michael Waltz ABC News. He added that the United States “will hold the hutíes responsible not only, but we are going to hold Iran, their sponsors, responsible.”
“And if that means their guidance ships they have put to help, their Iranian coaches … Other things they have put to help Hutis attack the global economy, those goals will also be on the table.”
In a separate appearance in Fox NewsHe said the strikes “put Iran in warning that enough is enough.”
American strikes killed at least 31 people and wounded 101, said the Ministry of Health of Yemeni’s rebel group on Sunday.
The group, which has controlled a large part of Yemen for more than a decade, opposes Israel and the United States and says that shipping attacks are protesting Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
The hutis have launched dozens of attacks with drones and missiles against ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Adén from the outbreak of the fight, which was stimulated by Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel.
American warships have been attacked 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023, according to the Pentagon, which puts great pressure on a marine route that normally transports about 12 percent of the world shipping traffic.
Trump, in a long social publication on Saturday announcing the last attacks, warned Houthi’s leaders: “Your attacks must stop, as of today. If they do not, hell will rain on you as nothing you have seen before!
The head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegesh, echoed that message on Sunday, promising a “implacable” missile campaign until Houthi’s attacks stop.
“I want to be very clear, this campaign deals with the freedom of navigation and the restoration of deterrence,” Hegseth said on a televised Fox business interview.
“At the moment when the hutis say: ‘We will stop shooting at your ships, we will stop shooting your drones,’ this campaign will end. But until then, it will be implacable.”
Yemen has seen more than a decade of civil war, with the hutis controlling the Sanaa capital since 2014.
Hegesh, in forceful terms, said that the United States was not trying to get involved in a long war of the Middle East.
“We don’t care what happens in Yemeni Civil War,” he said. “It is about stopping the shooting in the assets in that critical river route, to reopen the freedom of navigation, which is a central national interest of the United States.”
Last month, Trump sent a letter to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatolá Ali Khamenei, proposed nuclear conversations and saying that, in the absence of an agreement, the matter could be handled “militarily.”
Tehran was confused with that suggestion, saying that he would not negotiate while he was “threatened.”
Waltz, in its alphabet Interview, he said flatly: “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. All options are on the table to make sure you don’t have one. “
He added: “They can deliver it and renounce in a verifiable way, or they can face a complete series of other consequences, but in any case, we cannot have a world with the Ayatolás with the finger in the nuclear button.”
