Iran denies aiding Houthi rebels as US air strikes on Yemen kill 31
Us President Donald Trump has vowed to use ‘overwhelming lethal force’ until Houthis cease attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
Iran has once again denied aiding Yemen’s Houthi rebels after the United States launched a wave of air strikes against them and President Donald Trump warned Tehran will be held “fully accountable” for their actions.
The Houthi-run health ministry said the strikes killed at least 31 people, including women and children, and injured more than 100. The rebels said one strike hit two homes in northern Saada province, killing four children and a woman.
The Houthis’ political bureau has said the rebels will respond to the US strikes and “meet escalation with escalation”.
The rebels on Sunday claimed to have targeted the USS Harry S Truman carrier strike group with missiles and a drone, but two US officials told The Associated Press they were not tracking anything. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
The Houthis have repeatedly targeted international shipping in the Red Sea and launched missiles and drones at Israel in what the rebels said were acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been at war with Hamas – another Iranian ally.
The attacks stopped when a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in Gaza in January, but the Houthis had threatened to renew them after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month.
There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.
The US and others have long accused Iran of providing military aid to the Houthis and the US Navy has seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry it said were bound for the militant group, which controls Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and the country’s north.
General Hossein Salami, head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, denied his country is involved in the Houthi attacks, saying it “plays no role in setting the national or operational policies” of the militant groups it is allied with across the region, according to state-run TV.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, in a post on X, urged the US to halt the strikes and said Washington cannot dictate Iran’s foreign policy.
On Saturday, Mr Trump vowed to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks on shipping along the vital maritime corridor.
Mr Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told ABC on Sunday that the strikes “actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out”.
And US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS on Sunday: “We’re not going to have these people controlling which ships can go through and which ones cannot. And so your question is, how long will this go on? It will go on until they no longer have the capability to do that.”
He said these are not the one-off retaliation strikes the Biden administration carried out after Houthi attacks.
The Houthis had targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, during their campaign targeting military and civilian ships between the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in late 2023 and January of this year, when this ceasefire in Gaza took effect.
The United States, Israel and Britain have previously hit Houthi-held areas in Yemen. Israel’s military declined to comment.
