White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said in an interview on Sunday airstrikes against Houthi terrorists in Yemen had resulted in the elimination of their “head missileer,” among other important terror officials.
The U.S. military launched an anti-terror air campaign against the Houthis, formally known as “Ansarullah,” on March 15 in response to group leaders announcing they would soon resume engaging in acts of terrorism against random commercial ships attempting to navigate the waters around Yemen. The Houthis had paused such attacks in late January, responding to ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas.
President Donald Trump posted multiple messages on his social media outlet, Truth Social, in the past week expressing his desire to see the destruction of the Houthis, one of the world’s most barbaric terrorist organizations. On March 15, he wrote, “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”
The terrorists, including leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, have vowed to “escalate” attacks on American allies in response to Trump’s threats, rather than seek a way to peace. As a result, Trump has authorized significant kinetic activity against the Houthis.
Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, National Security Advisor Waltz affirmed that Trump has approved significant attacks on Houthi resources in the past week.
“Well, we’ve taken out key Houthi leadership, including their head missileer,” Waltz said. “We’ve hit their headquarters. We’ve hit communications nodes, weapons factories, and even some of their over the water drone production facilities.”
Houthi leaders have not confirmed the elimination of any senior missile expert in their ranks, but they have also offered little meaningful public assessment of the airstrikes they are facing. They have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that American airstrikes are aiming to hit Yemeni civilians, rather than amply-supplied Houthi military targets.
On Monday, the Iranian state propaganda outlet PressTV reported, citing the Houthis’ “ministry of health,” that U.S. airstrikes had killed one civilian in San’aa this weekend and injured five, described as three children and two women.
“Targeting civilians, civilian objects is a full-fledged war crime and a blatant violation of international laws and treaties,” the Houthis, who regularly starve Yemeni civilians and abduct children to be used as cannon fodder, denounced.
PressTV listed the alleged strikes in Sana’a alongside several other American military actions.
“US warplanes also launched five strikes on the Majzar district in central Ma’rib province, and further attacks targeted Sahar and Kitaf wa al-Boqe’e districts in northwestern Sa’ada,” the outlet claimed.
Al Mayadeen, an outlet associated with the Iranian-backed jihadist organization Hezbollah, also reported several other suspected American attacks this weekend:
US warplanes targeted the Hodeidah International Airport in 3 separate airstrikes, in addition to the Al-Manzar area, south of the coastal city of Hodeidah in western Yemen, while 5 airstrikes targeted the Manzar directorate in northeastern Yemen.
In his interview on Sunday, Waltz explained the urgency of the situation by describing the Houthis as “like al-Qaeda or ISIS with advanced cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and some of the most sophisticated air defenses, all provided by Iran.” He noted that Houthi terrorists have particularly endeavored to threaten American ships.
“Just to- so everybody understands the impact here, the last time one of our destroyers went through the straits there, it was attacked 23 times,” Waltz explained. “75% of our U.S. flag shipping now has to go around the southern coast of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal. And keeping the sea lanes open, keeping trade and commerce open, is a fundamental aspect of our national security.”
The Houthis are a Shiite jihadist terror organization with close ties to Iran that has controlled Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, since 2014, when they triggered a civil war against the legitimate government of the country. That government is now headquartered in the southern city of Aden, recognized at the United Nations and other international platforms, but significantly less powerful within Yemen than the Houthis.
Ansarullah claims to be the government of Yemen. As such, it declared war on the nation of Israel in late October 2023 as a gesture of solidarity with Hamas, a fellow Iran-backed terrorist group that orchestrated one of the deadliest and most gruesome jihadist attacks in Israeli history that month. The Houthis have largely failed to target Israel but have devastated global commerce through attacks on ships attempting to transit through the Red Sea. Houthi leaders initially claimed they were targeting only ships associated with Israel or its allies, in particular the United States, but have been known to attack ships with no relationship to Israel and even some with ties to Houthi allies, including Iran.
Houthi “foreign minister” Jamal Amer said in remarks last week that the Houthis will seek to continue escalating violence against the United States, Israel, and global shipping generally even if their Iranian patrons urge them to do otherwise.
“There will be no talk of any dialing down of operations before ending the aid blockade in Gaza. Iran is not interfering in our decision but what is happening is that it mediates sometimes but it cannot dictate things,” Amer affirmed.
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