US vows to keep hitting Houthis until shipping attacks stop

WASHINGTON/ADEN, Yemen — The United States will keep attacking Yemen’s Houthis until they end attacks on shipping, the U.S. defense secretary said on Sunday, as the Iran-aligned group signaled it could escalate in response to deadly U.S. strikes the day before.

The airstrikes, which the Houthi-run health ministry said killed at least 53 people, are the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January. One U.S. official told Reuters the campaign might continue for weeks.

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Sunday that his militants would target U.S. ships in the Red Sea as long as the U.S. continues its attacks on Yemen. “If they continue their aggression, we will continue the escalation,” he said in a televised speech.

The Houthi movement’s political bureau described the attacks as a “war crime,” while Moscow urged Washington to cease the strikes.

The Houthis’ military spokesperson on Sunday said, without offering evidence, that the group had targeted U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its warships in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones in response to the U.S. attacks.

U.S. warplanes shot down 11 Houthi drones on Sunday, none of which came close to the Truman, a U.S. official told Reuters. U.S. forces also tracked a missile that splashed down off the coast of Yemen and was not deemed a threat, the official said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”: “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.”

“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,” he said. “They better back off.”

The Houthis, who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, said last week they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea if Israel did not lift a block on aid entering Gaza.

They had launched scores of attacks on shipping after Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.

Trump also told Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, to stop supporting the group immediately. He said if Iran threatened the United States, “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”