(Bloomberg) — US military strikes on Yemen’s Houthi militants will be “unrelenting” until the group stops shooting at civilian and military vessels in the Red Sea, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said on Sunday, a day after President Donald Trump ordered new operations in the Middle East.
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“This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence. The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end,” Hegseth said in an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “But until then, it will be unrelenting.”
On Saturday, Trump said he ordered “decisive and powerful” action against the Houthis. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said the group has “choked off shipping in one of the most important Waterways of the World, grinding vast swaths of Global Commerce to a halt.” He added that attacks on American vessels “will not be tolerated.”
The Houthi health ministry said 53 people, including five children and two women, were killed and 98 injured in strikes on Sana’a and other provinces, according to Saba.
On Sunday, the Yemeni Armed Forces said it retaliated by launching missile and drone attacks against the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier twice in 24 hours. The statement couldn’t be immediately verified.
The Yemeni statement followed a promise by the Houthis’ ruling political council to counter US “aggression,” saying its operations would continue until a renewed Israeli blockade on aid to Gaza is lifted, according to the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency.
Israel reimposed the ban on aid last week following disagreements with Hamas over a ceasefire.
Hegseth said the latest US strikes were also a warning to Iran, which backs the Houthis.
“Iran has been enabling the Houthis for far too long. They better back off,” he said.
White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said the attacks were successful.
“We hit the Houthi leadership, killing several of their key leaders last night — their infrastructure, the missiles,” Waltz said on Fox News Sunday. “We just hit them with overwhelming force and put Iran on notice that enough is enough.”
Speaking in a separate appearance on ABC’s This Week, Waltz said Iranian targets in and around Yemen — including ships near the coast that provide intelligence and trainers — “will be on the table, too.”
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