Suspected U.S. airstrikes targeted an area around Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeida on Tuesday night, killing at least six people, Iran-backed Houthi rebels said.
The airstrikes hit around Hodeida's al-Hawak district, the rebels said, adding that they also wounded 16 people. The area is home to the city's airport, which the rebels have used in the past to target Red Sea vessels.
Since its start, the intense campaign of U.S. airstrikes targeting the rebels over their attacks on shipping in Mideast waters – related to Israel's genocidal attacks on the Palestinians that have killed over 50,000 people – has killed at least 79 people, according to casualty figures released by the Houthis.
Footage aired by the rebels' al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying the wounded to waiting ambulances and rescuers searching by the light of their mobile phones. The target appeared in the footage to be a home in a residential neighborhood, likely part of a wider decapitation campaign launched by the Trump administration to kill rebel leaders.
Other strikes targeted Yemen's mountainous Amran governorate, north of the rebel-held capital of Sanaa. There, the Houthis described American strikes hitting telecommunication equipment. Previous U.S. strikes also targeted telecommunications gear in Amran near Jebel Aswad, or the "Black Mountain.”
Strikes later apparently targeted Jebel Nuqum near Sanaa. Others hit Dhamar and Ibb governorates, wounding three. The U.S. military's Central Command oversees American military operations and did not immediately acknowledge the strikes. That follows a pattern for the command, which now has authorization from the White House to conduct strikes at will in the campaign that began March 15.
The American military has also not provided any information on targets hit in the campaign, although the White House has said over 200 strikes have been conducted so far. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking in the Oval Office on Monday during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that America was "not going to relent" in its campaign targeting the Houthis.
"So we have a lot more options and a lot more pressure to apply," Hegseth said. "And we know, because we see the reports, how devastating this campaign has been in them. And we will not relent," he added.
An AP review has found the new U.S. operation against the Houthis under President Donald Trump appears more extensive than those under former President Joe Biden, as Washington moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel and dropping bombs on cities.
The new campaign of airstrikes started after the rebels threatened to begin targeting "Israeli" ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. The rebels have loosely defined what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning many vessels could be targeted.
The Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors from November 2023 until January of this year. They also launched attacks targeting American warships without success.
The U.S. campaign shows no signs of stopping, as the Trump administration has linked its airstrikes on the Houthis to an effort to pressure Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program as well.
