Mohammed Ali Kalfood is a freelance Yemeni journalist. The former managing editor of The Yemen Observer, he has written for The New York Times, The Intercept, The New Humanitarian , The Telegraph and Al Jazeera.
On his third day back in the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order re-designating Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization. He ordered the Pentagon to start preparing military plans against the militant group and imposed sanctions on Houthi leaders, along with their main backer, Iran. Then, on March 15, Trump announced a new U.S. bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen that has now continued for 10 days.
"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!" Trump ranted on social media when the U.S. airstrikes began. He described the attack as a response to Houthi "piracy" in the Red Sea, where they have targeted ships with drones and missiles, disrupting a key international shipping lane. Trump made clear who he really blamed for Houthi maritime attacks, saying they "all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN."
Trump's vow to use "overwhelming lethal force" against the Houthis has translated into more than 18 waves of intense U.S. air and naval strikes in at least eight Yemeni governorates so far. U.S. strikes have hit residential areas, mostly in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, and Sa'adah, the Houthi bastion. On the first day of the bombing campaign, Yemeni governorates were hit with 47 airstrikes, one of the heaviest days of American strikes on Yemen over the past two years, killing at least 53 people and wounding over 100 others.
The Houthi strikes on Red Sea shipping began in late 2023 in response to Israel's punishing war in Gaza, following the Hamas-led attacks into southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Along with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis also launched missiles and drones at Israel in stated solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza who were under increasingly brutal Israeli bombardment. Houthi missiles and drones hit vessels in the Red Sea linked to Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom, disrupting one of the world's most important shipping lanes to the Suez Canal over the past 15 months.
The Houthis have withstood aerial bombardments against them for over 20 years and are likely to be able to continue to launch attacks with minimal disruption.
- Sarah G. Phillips, Professor of global conflict and development, the University of Sydney
A campaign of U.S.-led airstrikes by the Biden administration did not deter the Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, including U.S. naval vessels. The Trump administration has justified the new and expanded round of U.S. bombing as a response to what it sees as Biden's failures in Yemen. In the extraordinary Signal chat of senior Trump officials who discussed and shared war plans for the Yemen strikes, including apparently unwittingly with an American journalist, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth advocated for the strikes as a way to "reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered."
Yet Yemen experts warn that Trump's bombing campaign is just as unlikely to deter the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and beyond, or to influence Iran, as Trump claims. The Houthis, who control Sana'a and much of northern Yemen after years of civil war, have endured airstrikes for decades—under the Saudi-led military intervention that was launched 10 years ago this week and, before that, under Yemen's previous government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, which fought a Houthi insurgency for years in Yemen's northern highlands.
"The Houthis have withstood aerial bombardments against them for over 20 years and are likely to be able to continue to launch attacks with minimal disruption," Sarah G. Phillips, a professor of global conflict and development at the University of Sydney, told Democracy in Exile. "They are also unperturbed by civilian casualties on their side."
Philips added that "the U.S. airstrikes only strengthen the Houthi narrative that they are leading the resistance against Israel and the U.S., which will help them to mobilize further at home. As usual, it will be Yemeni civilians that bear the brunt of further escalation, not the Houthis." The day they were launched on March 15, U.S. airstrikes killed as many as 53 Yemenis.
The Houthi response came the next day, when 18 missiles and drones were fired at the USS Harry Truman, an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea. The Houthis have also fired long-range missiles toward Israel since then. The group's leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, has declared that the Houthis would "confront any American aggression" and would "escalate their operations against Israel to the highest levels in support of Gaza."
"Trump doesn't have a Yemen policy," Fernando Carvajal, who served on the United Nations Security Council's Panel of Experts on Yemen, told Democracy in Exile. Trump, he said, "is not interested in the decade-old civil war." Instead, as Trump's own rhetoric makes clear, the Houthi strikes—and the foreign terrorist organization re-designation—are really about targeting Iran in Yemen. With both moves, the Trump administration has abruptly upended the prospects of U.N.-mediated peace talks in Yemen, while its halting of foreign aid risks a host of dire humanitarian consequences for the Yemenis, 80 percent of whom rely on foreign aid.
After a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel finally went into force on January 19—one day before Trump returned to office—the Houthis halted their attacks on ships in the Red Sea. But in response to Israel cutting off aid to Gaza, the Houthis issued a four-day ultimatum on March 7, threatening to resume their maritime attacks if aid deliveries to Gaza were not permitted. On March 11, one day after the deadline, the Houthis announced they would again impose a "blockade" on Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. Four days later, Trump's aerial bombing campaign began.
Trump doesn't have a Yemen policy. He is not interested in the decade-old civil war.
- Fernando Carvajal, former member of the U.N. Security Council's Panel of Experts on Yemen
The Houthis have grown stronger in the last year, capitalizing on growing regional clout from their Red Sea attacks, especially in contrast to Hezbollah in Lebanon and other regional militias that form part of the so-called axis of resistance backed by Iran. But as Farea al-Muslimi and Thomas Juneau recently wrote for Chatham House, "It is a mistake to characterize the Houthis as merely an extension of Iran. That perception cannot form the basis of an effective policy."
Juneau, who is also non-resident fellow at the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies, has argued that the Trump administration's terrorist designation and airstrikes on the Houthis "could even backfire, especially because of its second-order effects on the humanitarian side and its inevitable emboldening of the Houthis."
"The sense I'm getting is that this operation will be primarily over-the-horizon, resembling a counterterrorism strategy," Mohammed al-Basha, the founder of the Basha Report, a U.S.-based risk advisory, told Democracy in Exile. The Trump administration, he said, has been clear that it "sees Biden's approach as having weakened deterrence, with responses to Houthi aggression being largely defensive and reactive."
While the Trump administration claims it will "cooperate with regional partners to eliminate the Houthis' capabilities and operations, as well as to deprive the Houthis of resources," this new bombing campaign is likely to prompt Houthi attacks against U.S. allies or partners in the region, only a limited number of whom were notified in advance. On March 18, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates' national security adviser and brother of the president, visited the White House for meetings and a dinner with Trump and other senior U.S. officials. Tahnoon's visit came two weeks after Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's defense minister—and the younger brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—made his own high-profile trip to Washington to meet with various Trump officials. Tahnoon and bin Salman oversee the Yemen file in their respective governments.
While Riyadh and Abu Dhabi "are watching from the sidelines," al-Basha said, "the Houthis could attempt to drag them into the war by launching missiles and drones at their territories, hoping to either pressure them directly or force them to push Washington to end the conflict." Al-Basha sees that as "a very plausible scenario," which would abruptly end the fragile truce between the Houthis and Saudi-led coalition fighting them.
"Trump is a hawk, focused on Iran, in partnership with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," said Carvajal, which "is a double-edged sword" for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. "If Trump pushes Iran too hard, then the Houthis could shift from the Gaza propaganda to targeting U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, which is very bad news for MBS," he added, referring to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
However, "if Trump manages to pressure Iran enough to force the Houthis to de-escalate," Carvajal said, "then this is an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to re-start talks with the Houthis under more favorable terms." But based on Trump's own statements, and now the Signal chat of senior White House officials who haphazardly discussed their plans for the Yemen strikes, it is an open question if anyone in the Trump administration has thought that far ahead.
