Washington: US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that he has ordered the military to launch a “decisive and powerful” action against the Houthis in Yemen.
“Today, I have ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen,” the US president wrote on Truth Social. “They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.
Trump also warned Iran, the Houthis main backer, that it needed to immediately stop supporting the group. He said if Iran threatened the United States “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”
The US president said that any attack on American vessels by the Houthis will not be tolerated.
He also criticised former US President Joe Biden for being “pathetically weak” in dealing with the attacks on vessels by the Houthis.
“Joe Biden’s response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going. It has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden,” Trump said.
He added: “The last American Warship to go through the Red Sea, four months ago, was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times.”
The Houthis carried out more than 100 attacks on ships off Yemen since November 2023 in support of Gaza’s Palestinian militants fighting Israel, disrupting global shipping, according to Reuters.
The military action by the United States comes just days after the Houthi militant group vowed to resume attacking Israeli ships if more aid doesn’t reach Gaza.
Nine killed in Yemen
Nine people were killed in strikes on Yemen’s capital on Saturday after US President Donald Trump announced an attack, the Houthi rebels said, reported AFP.
“Nine civilians were killed and nine others were wounded, most of them seriously,” the Huthis’ health and environment ministry said in a statement on their Saba news agency.
