The U.S. military conducted strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen for the second day in a row March 16, hours after U.S. Air Force fighters helped fend off a drone attack by the Houthis in retaliation for an earlier round of U.S. strikes.
President Donald Trump and top administration officials have promised a renewed campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have waged war against shipping in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait for over a year, launching hundreds of attacks on shipping. U.S. forces have launched several large-scale attacks on Houthi facilities during that time, including under the Biden administration.
The strikes launched by the U.S. military on both March 16 and March 15 included airstrikes launched from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier using F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters and Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles fired from U.S. Navy vessels, a U.S. official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The strikes are the largest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office.
“The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end, but until then it will be unrelenting,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Fox News on March 16, before the second wave of strikes.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, said in a statement the U.S. conducted 47 strikes on March 15 targeting Sanaa, Saada, Al-Bayda, Hajjah, Dhamar, Marib, and Al-Jawf. The group said dozens of people were killed.
“This is not a message. This is not a one-off. This is an effort to deny them the ability to continue to constrict and control shipping,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an appearance on CBS.
In retaliation for the March 15 strikes, the Houthis launched an hourslong drone and missile attack against the USS Harry S. Truman and its accompanying warships on March 16. U.S. Air Force fighter jets defended the Navy ships, shooting down multiple drones over the Red Sea, U.S. officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The Houthis said in a statement they “will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red and Arabian Seas in response to their aggression against our country.”
Trump administration officials have suggested it plans to use the U.S. military to keep striking the Houthis until they end their attacks on commercial shipping and U.S. Navy vessels in the region.
“We basically have a band of pirates with guided precision anti-ship weaponry, and exacting a toll system in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world,” Rubio said. “That’s just not sustainable. We are not going to have these people controlling which ships can go through and which ones cannot. … It will go on until they no longer have the capability to do that.”
A U.S. official told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the U.S. military campaign could consist of a nearly daily series of strikes lasting weeks.
The Houthis have promised to continue to retaliate against the U.S. for its attacks and to continue to attack shipping. The group, which was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department earlier this month, has said its actions are motivated by Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas. The Houthis have launched drones and missiles at Israel, though most of the commercial ships targeted have no affiliation with Israel. The Houthis resumed their attacks on shipping earlier this month after a pause as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is in peril.
The Houthis said in a statement March 16 they “will continue enforcing the naval blockade against the Israeli enemy and impose restrictions on its ships in the announced operational zones until essential aid and necessities are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”
The U.S., too, said it planned to continue its military actions.
“This is about stopping the shooting at assets … in that critical waterway, to reopen freedom of navigation, which is a core national interest of the United States, and Iran has been enabling the Houthis for far too long,” Hegseth said. “They better back off.”