Houthis Vow Retaliation After U.S. Strikes in Yemen

The Houthi militia in Yemen has vowed to retaliate after President Trump ordered large-scale military strikes on targets controlled by the group that it says killed at least 31 people.

The group, which is backed by Iran, said that women and children were among those killed in the strikes on Saturday, the most significant U.S. military action in the Middle East since Mr. Trump took office in January.

For more than a year, the Houthis have launched attacks against Israel and threatened commercial shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with their ally Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza. The Houthis suspended the campaign in January after a cease-fire was reached in Gaza, but have vowed to step up attacks again after Israel instituted a blockade on aid to the enclave this month.

The U.S. airstrikes targeted Houthi-controlled areas across Yemen, including the capital, Sana, as well as Saada, al-Bayda, Hajjah and Dhamar Provinces, according to reports from Houthi-run media channels. The strikes killed at least 31 people and wounded 101, “most of whom were children and women,” Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry, said late Saturday.

The casualty figures could not be independently verified, and the United States has not given any estimates for the number of people killed or wounded in the strikes.

On Sunday, Michael Waltz, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, described the U.S. weekend attacks on Yemen as both successful and effective. “We hit the Houthi leadership, killing several of their key leaders last night, their infrastructure, the missiles,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” He cast the Houthis as “essentially Al Qaeda with sophisticated Iranian-backed air defenses and anti-ship cruise missiles and drones” that have attacked the entire global economy.