U.S. warplanes began striking targets across Yemen on March 15, resuming a campaign to deter Houthi attacks on vessels in the surrounding waterways.
As the sun set on the Red Sea on March 15, several F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets launched from the deck of the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, on their way to strike Houthi targets across western Yemen for the first time in two months.
Those U.S. fighter jets delivered the first salvo in a renewed military campaign against the Houthis—a U.S.-designated terrorist group currently controlling significant portions of the country, including its capital city Sana’a.
Since March 15, U.S. forces have conducted several additional rounds of airstrikes across Yemen.
In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said that the latest U.S. strikes killed several key Houthi leaders, and destroyed some of their missiles and other critical infrastructure.
In a March 16 press statement, spokesman for the Houthi movement’s military arm Yahya Saree said some 47 separate U.S. strikes had hit areas of Sana‘a, Sa’dah, Al Bayda, Hajjah, Dhamar, Ma’rib, and Al Jawf. That same day, Yemen’s Houthi-run Health Ministry reported that 31 unarmed civilians had been killed and 101 more injured in the recent U.S. strikes.
The casualty assessments cannot be independently verified at this time.
Speaking at a Pentagon press briefing on March 17, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said initial U.S. estimates indicated recent strikes have inflicted dozens of casualties on legitimate combatants. Grynkewich said U.S. military leaders had seen no indications of civilian casualties, despite the claims from within Yemen.
Regarded in Washington as a key regional proxy of Iran’s Islamist regime, the Houthis have been on and off the U.S. list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. Most recently, President Donald Trump ordered the Houthis to be re-designated as a foreign terrorist organization, noting their campaign of drone and missile strikes on Israel and on vessels transiting Middle Eastern waterways that began in October 2023.
Announcing the renewed campaign of strikes on Yemen in a March 15 social media post, Trump told the Houthi leaders their attacks must immediately stop, warning that if they don’t, “hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before!”
Despite Trump’s warning message, the Houthis have claimed to have targeted the Truman Carrier Strike Group with return fire on multiple occasions. Saree said that Houthi forces had launched a total of 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and an attack drone at U.S. warships operating in the northern Red Sea by March 16 and at least two more cruise missiles and two more drones by March 18.
Houthis Link Standoff to Gaza
The Houthis began attacking vessels through the Middle Eastern waterways shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on southern Israel. From the start, Houthi leaders claimed solidarity with Hamas, which it sees as representing the Palestinian cause, and vowed they would conduct their attacks as a way to pressure Israel to discontinue its military operations against Hamas’s capabilities in the Gaza Strip.
Between October 2023 and January 2025, the Houthis launched several barrages of drones and missiles directly at Israel and targeted more than 100 vessels in the surrounding waterways, damaging dozens of vessels and sinking two. The Houthis also led a helicopter-borne assault on the Bahamas-flagged vehicle carrier Galaxy Leader in November 2023, hijacking the ship and taking its 25 crew members hostage.
The Biden administration initially deployed U.S. warships to help intercept the Houthi drones and missiles on shipping traffic through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. As the attacks continued, the Biden administration stepped up its military action, ordering direct U.S. strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
Despite the earlier rounds of U.S. bombardment, the Houthis continued their attacks until January of this year, when Israel and Hamas entered into the first phase of a cease-fire framework to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip. In addition to halting their attacks, the Houthis also released the crew of the Galaxy Leader after 459 days.
The temporary Gaza cease-fire has faltered in recent weeks as Israeli and Hamas negotiators have disagreed on how the peace process should advance. Israel has supported an extension of the first cease-fire phase to allow more time to work out the details, but Hamas representatives rejected that idea and demanded all parties proceed to the second phase, wherein Israeli forces would withdraw from the Gaza Strip altogether.
With Israeli and Hamas negotiators split, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an order on March 2, cutting off all supplies entering into the Gaza Strip.
On March 11, the Houthis announced they would resume their pressure campaign against Israel by targeting any and all Israeli vessels in the Red Sea.
Michael Horton, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation who has studied the Red Sea region, said that the Houthis effectively used the Gaza conflict to rally their base of support.
“It plays very well in Yemen. It’s bought them a lot of support, so I think they’ll continue to use it,” Horton said in a phone interview with The Epoch Times.
While the Houthis seek to justify their attacks on commercial ships by tying them to the situation in the Gaza Strip, Heritage Foundation senior policy analyst Daniel Flesch said the Trump administration should not be persuaded to let up.
“We should not let what they have done the last 18 months go unanswered,” Flesch told The Epoch Times.
Trump Raises Stakes For Iran
The Houthis, a predominantly Zaidi Shia Islamist movement, first emerged in opposition to the internationally-recognized Yemeni government. In 2014, the rebel Houthi faction seized Sana’a, leading the then-Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to resign and flee the Yemeni capital city. Hadi later revoked his resignation and formed a government in exile in the Yemeni port city of Aden.
Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014. This Yemeni internal conflict has also become one proxy battle in a broader contest for regional influence between the West-aligned Saudi-led Arab coalition, which is focused on preventing the spread of extremist ideologies, and Iran’s anti-West Islamist regime.
Shortly after Hadi relaunched his government in Aden, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition of Arab Gulf states, including United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Sudan, and Kuwait, to back Hadi’s government militarily. By 2015, the United States also began supplying arms, intelligence, and logistical support for the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen.
Since 2015, U.S. forces have repeatedly seized vessels carrying weapons off the coast of Yemen, which they’ve assessed are being directed by Tehran to areas of Houthi control. Tehran has routinely denied any such military assistance to the Yemeni rebel faction.
In a March 17 social media post, Trump indicated that his administration will consider the actions of the Houthis to be inextricably linked to Tehran.
“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences,” he wrote. “And those consequences will be dire!”
Flesch said the warning to Iran marks a key change in the U.S. approach to the Red Sea standoff.
“The [Trump] administration is coming out forceful and stating clearly, first off, to the Houthis, ‘Continued disruption of international shipping will not stand.’ And more importantly, ‘We see you Iran, and your connection to the Houthis,’” Flesch said.
In a March 18 letter to the U.N. Security Council, Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani again insisted that Iran has not armed the Houthis and is not directing their actions.
Horton said that Tehran provides intelligence and likely advises the Houthis on some aspects of target selection, but Yemeni commanders most often make their own decisions when it comes to which targets to attack.
Battle Plans and Next Steps
In President Joe Biden’s final year in office, the U.S. military cycled four different carrier strike groups into position to intercept Houthi attacks and strike targets in Yemen. The U.S. military also deployed B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to destroy underground weapon storage sites.
As Grynkewich discussed the latest U.S. strikes at the March 17 Pentagon press briefing, he faced questions about how these new operations differ from those seen under Biden. The Air Force general said he wouldn’t get into too many specifics due to operational security concerns, but said U.S. forces now have a broader set of targets in Yemen.
Grynkewich said Trump had also delegated authorities down to operational commanders on the scene, lowering the approval requirement for ordering new attacks.
“That allows us to achieve a tempo of operations where we can react to opportunities that we see on the battlefield, in order to continue to put pressure on the Houthis,” he said.
The Houthis control much of northwest Yemen, where nearly 80 percent of the country’s population of 32 million resides.
Horton warned that civilian casualties from intensifying U.S. strikes could drive more Yemenis to support the Houthis. He argued that any viable plan to counter, contain, and defeat the Houthis would have to be driven by Yemenis themselves.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.