Houthis leaders in Yemen are claiming that they attacked an American aircraft carrier, the USS Harry Truman, in response to the Trump administration’s widespread air strikes in the country overnight Saturday, and are pledging more such attacks unless America backs off on the assaults.
A source at the Department of Defense told the New York Sun on Sunday that they have received no reports from American forces about an attack in the area of the Truman. The Houthis have in the past routinely made such assertions and many of them turn out to be sheer fantasy.
In a speech on Yemeni television late Sunday, the group’s leader, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, said his fighters would target American ships in the Red Sea as long as the attacks on Yemen continue. “If they continue their aggression, we will continue the escalation,” he said.
Mr. Trump announced on Saturday a bombing campaign against the Houthis after the terror group’s months-long campaign to disrupt trade routes through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, which accounts for more than ten percent of all global shipping, by attacking civilian cargo vessels.
With the Red Sea and Suez Canal route blocked by the Houthis, many shippers have been forced to divert their goods around the Cape of Good Hope — a route that is about 50 percent longer than the Suez Canal route for a ship traveling from Singapore to western Europe.
“The American enemy launched a blatant aggression against our country in the past hours with more than 47 airstrikes, targeting several areas in the governorates of Sana’a, Sa’dah, Al Bayda, Hajjah, Dhamar, Ma’rib, and Al Jawf, in which The American enemy committed a number of massacres, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of dozens,” a Houthis spokesman, Nasruddin Amer, said in a statement posted on social media Sunday.
“In response to this aggression, the Armed Forces carried out a specific military operation targeting the American aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its warships in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone,” the group added.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” the Houthis said.
Secretary Rubio said during an interview with “Face the Nation” on Sunday that Iran must stop supporting the Houthis in their efforts to disrupt global shipping.
“What we can’t ignore, and the reason why the president mentioned Iran, is because the Iranians have supported the Houthis. They provided them intelligence. They provided them guidance. They provided them [with] weaponry,” Mr. Rubio said. “The Houthis would not have the ability to do this kind of thing unless they had support from Iran.”
“So this was a message to Iran: Don’t keep supporting them because then you will also be responsible for what they are doing in attacking Navy ships and attacking global shipping,” he added.
The Islamic Republic, however, has denied involvement in the latest attacks. According to state-controlled press, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Salami said Sunday that his country “plays no role in setting the national or operational policies” of the Houthis.
The National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, told ABC News on Sunday that the Trump administration, in launching Saturday’s strikes, is taking more forceful action to deter the attacks on shipping routes — something the Biden administration failed to do, he said.
“These were not [the ]kind of pinprick, back and forth — what ultimately proved to be feckless — attacks,” Mr. Waltz said. “This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership, and two, holding Iran responsible.”
The chief spokesman for the Pentagon says there will be no end to the American campaign against the Houthis until normal trade routes through the Red Sea are allowed to reopen. “There is a very clear end-state to this operation and that begins the moment the Houthis pledge to stop attacking our ships and putting American lives at risk,” the spokesman, Sean Parnell, said in a statement. “Our desire is peace but we will not tolerate attacks against our people.”
The Houthis are pledging, however, that no such peaceful agreement is on the table. “The Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip,” the Houthi spokesman said.
During an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, the American Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, reiterated that the strikes were launched because “ships haven’t been able to go through for over a year without being shot at.”
“Freedom of navigation is basic. It’s a core national interest, and President Trump has said we will restore that, and we will be unrelenting,” Mr. Hegseth said in an interview. “I want to be very clear: this campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence. 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.”