{"id":130288,"date":"2025-03-17T15:11:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/what-to-know-about-yemens-houthi-rebels-as-the-us-steps-up-attacks-on-iran-backed-group-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T15:11:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:11:05","slug":"what-to-know-about-yemens-houthi-rebels-as-the-us-steps-up-attacks-on-iran-backed-group-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/what-to-know-about-yemens-houthi-rebels-as-the-us-steps-up-attacks-on-iran-backed-group-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels as the US steps up attacks on Iran-backed group – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
The United States under President Donald Trump has launched a new campaign of intense airstrikes targeting Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels — and this is how they fit into the wider tensions in the Middle East.
This image taken from video provided by the U.S. Navy shows an aircraft launching from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea before airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (U.S. Navy via AP)
Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo\/Osamah Abdulrahman)
In this photo taken from video released by Ansar Allah Media Office via Al Masirah TV channel shows a wounded child being taken for treatment at a hospital in Saada, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025 following airstrikes over multiple targets in the country. The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the overnight strikes killed at least 31 people, including women and children, and wounded over 100 in the capital of Sanaa and the northern province of Saada, the rebels\u2019 stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.( Al Masirah TV via AP)
Yemenis clean debris in front of their shops after a U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP Photo\/Osamah Abdulrahman)
The United States under President Donald Trump has launched a new campaign of intense airstrikes targeting Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels — and this is how they fit into the wider tensions in the Middle East.
This image taken from video provided by the U.S. Navy shows an aircraft launching from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea before airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (U.S. Navy via AP)
This image taken from video provided by the U.S. Navy shows an aircraft launching from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea before airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (U.S. Navy via AP)
Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo\/Osamah Abdulrahman)
Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo\/Osamah Abdulrahman)
In this photo taken from video released by Ansar Allah Media Office via Al Masirah TV channel shows a wounded child being taken for treatment at a hospital in Saada, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025 following airstrikes over multiple targets in the country. The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the overnight strikes killed at least 31 people, including women and children, and wounded over 100 in the capital of Sanaa and the northern province of Saada, the rebels\u2019 stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.( Al Masirah TV via AP)
In this photo taken from video released by Ansar Allah Media Office via Al Masirah TV channel shows a wounded child being taken for treatment at a hospital in Saada, Yemen, Saturday, March 15, 2025 following airstrikes over multiple targets in the country. The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the overnight strikes killed at least 31 people, including women and children, and wounded over 100 in the capital of Sanaa and the northern province of Saada, the rebels\u2019 stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.( Al Masirah TV via AP)
Yemenis clean debris in front of their shops after a U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP Photo\/Osamah Abdulrahman)
Yemenis clean debris in front of their shops after a U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP Photo\/Osamah Abdulrahman)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 The United States under President Donald Trump<\/a><\/span> has launched a new campaign of intense airstrikes targeting Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels<\/a><\/span>.
This weekend\u2019s strikes killed at least 53 people<\/a><\/span>, including children, and wounded others. The campaign is likely to continue, part of a wider pressure campaign by Trump now targeting the Houthis\u2019 main benefactor, Iran, as well.
Here\u2019s what to know about the U.S. strikes and what could happen next:
The Houthi rebels attacked over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels<\/a><\/span> and killing four sailors, from November 2023 until January this year. Their leadership described the attacks as aiming to end the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The campaign also greatly raised the Houthis\u2019 profile in the wider Arab world and tamped down on public criticism against their human rights abuses and crackdowns on dissent and aid workers<\/a><\/span>.
Trump, writing on his social media platform Truth Social, said his administration targeted the Houthis over their \u201cunrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism.\u201d He noted the disruption Houthi attacks have caused through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, key waterways for energy and cargo shipments between Asia and Europe through Egypt\u2019s Suez Canal.
\u201cWe will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n

Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. and the United Kingdom began a series of airstrikes against the Houthis<\/a><\/span> starting in January 2024. A December report by The International Institute for Strategic Studies said the U.S. and its partners struck the Houthis over 260 times up to that point.
U.S. military officials during that period acknowledged having a far-wider target list for possible strikes. While the Biden administration didn\u2019t go too far into explaining its targeting, analysts believe officials largely were trying to avoid civilian casualties and not rekindle Yemen\u2019s stalemated war, which pits the Houthis and their allies against the country\u2019s exiled government and their local and international allies, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Trump administration, however, appears willing to go after more targets, based on the weekend\u2019s strikes and public remarks made by officials.
\u201cWe\u2019re doing the entire world a favor by getting rid of these guys and their ability to strike global shipping,\u201d U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS News\u2019 \u201cFace The Nation\u201d on Sunday. \u201cThat\u2019s the mission here, and it will continue until that\u2019s carried out.\u201d
Rubio added: \u201cSome of the key people involved in those missile launches are no longer with us, and I can tell you that some of the facilities that they used are no longer existing, and that will continue.\u201d
Israel also launched its own airstrikes on Houthi-held sites<\/a><\/span>, including the port city of Hodeida, over the rebels\u2019 missile and drone attacks targeting Israel.
In two words: More attacks.
The Houthis said last week they\u2019ll again target \u201cIsraeli\u201d ships traveling through Mideast waterways<\/a><\/span> like the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, because of Israel\u2019s blocking of aid to the Gaza Strip. No rebel attack targeting commercial shipping has been reported as of Monday morning.
However, the new U.S. campaign likely could inspire Houthi attacks at sea or on land beyond American warships. The rebels previously targeted oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia<\/a><\/span> and the UAE<\/a><\/span>, two countries deeply involved in Yemen\u2019s war since 2015.
\u201cAlthough the U.S. has been striking at Houthi targets for over a year, the scope and scale of this new campaign, including the targeting of senior Houthi figures, marks a significant escalation in the conflict,\u201d analysts at the Eurasia Group said Monday.
Gulf Arab countries \u201cwill distance themselves from ongoing hostilities but now face threats to their major oil infrastructure. The Houthis will want to hit President Donald Trump where it hurts, oil prices.\u201d
Meanwhile, the Houthis likely will expand their possible targets for ship attacks, meaning shippers will continue to stay out of the region, said Jakob P. Larsen, the head of maritime security for BIMCO, the largest international association representing shipowners.
Iran long has armed the Houthis, who are members of Islam\u2019s minority Shiite Zaydi sect, which ruled Yemen for 1,000 years until 1962. Tehran routinely denies arming the rebels, despite physical evidence, numerous seizures and experts tying the weapons back to Iran<\/a><\/span>. That\u2019s likely because Tehran wants to avoid sanctions for violating a United Nations arms embargo on the Houthis.
The Houthis now form the strongest group within Iran\u2019s self-described \u201cAxis of Resistance.\u201d Others like Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah<\/a><\/span> and the Palestinian militant group Hamas<\/a><\/span> have been decimated by Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas<\/a><\/span> that sparked Israel\u2019s war of attrition in the Gaza Strip<\/a><\/span>. Allied Shiite militias in Iraq largely have kept their heads down since the U.S. launched retaliatory attacks last year over a drone attack<\/a><\/span> that killed three American troops<\/a><\/span> and injured at least 34 others at a military base in Jordan.
While Iranian state television aired footage of civilian casualties from the weekend strikes in Yemen, top political leaders stayed away from suggestion Tehran itself would get involved in the fight. Revolutionary Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami notably underscored the Houthis made their own decisions \u2014 while not offering any warning over what would happen if the strikes killed any members of the Guard\u2019s expeditionary Quds Force, who are believed to actively support the rebels on the ground.
\u201cWe have always declared \u2014 and we declare again today \u2014 that the Yemenis are an independent and free nation in their own land, with an independent national policy,\u201d Salami said.
Trump\u2019s national security adviser Mike Waltz, speaking to ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d on Sunday, warned Guard officials training the Houthis \u201cwill be on the table too\u201d as possible targets for attack.
Meanwhile, Iran is still trying to determine how to respond to a letter from Trump aiming to restart negotiations over Tehran\u2019s rapidly advancing nuclear program<\/a><\/span>. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Monday officials continue to review the letter and will respond \u201cafter investigations are completed.\u201d
Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi separately traveled Sunday to Oman, which long has been an interlocutor between Tehran and the West. The Houthis also operate a political office in the sultanate.
The attacks on the Houthis are \u201ca not-so-subtle signal to Iran, as President Trump has been unequivocal in his insistence that Iran return to the negotiating table to deal with its nuclear program,\u201d the New York-based Soufan Center said in an analysis Monday. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.The United States under President Donald Trump has launched a new campaign of intense airstrikes targeting Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels — and this is how they fit into the wider tensions in the Middle East.This image taken from video provided by the U.S. Navy shows an aircraft launching from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}