The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the U.S. strikes killed at least 53 people.
“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," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS on Sunday.
President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks, and warned that Tehran would be held “fully accountable” for their actions.
The U.S. airstrikes were one of the most extensive attacks against the Houthis since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.
Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, on Sunday told ABC that the strikes “actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.” He didn't identify them or give evidence. Rubio said some Houthi facilities had been destroyed.
In a speech aired Sunday night, the rebels’ secretive leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, warned: “We will confront escalation with escalation.”
The rebels on Sunday claimed to have targeted the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group with missiles and a drone.
According to a U.S. official, the Houthis did fire drones and at least one missile in response to the U.S. attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide updated information on operations, said that beginning at about midnight local time in Yemen, the Houthis fired 11 drones and at least one missile over about 12 hours. Ten of the drones were intercepted by U.S. Air Force fighter jets and one was intercepted by a Navy F/A-18 fighter jet. The missile fell into the water far from the ship, and nothing came close to hitting either the carrier or the warships in its strike group.
Rubio said that over the past 18 months the Houthis had attacked the U.S. Navy “directly” 174 times and targeted commercial shipping 145 times using “guided precision anti-ship weaponry.”
The attacks sparked the most serious combat the U.S. Navy had seen since World War II.
