[Source: Reuters]

U.S. President Donald Trump launched large-scale military strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group’s attacks against Red Sea shipping, killing at least 24 people at the start of a campaign expected to last many days.

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

The unfolding strikes – which one U.S. official told Reuters might continue for weeks – represent the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January. It came as the United States ramps up sanctions pressure on Tehran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear program.

At least 13 civilians were killed and nine injured in U.S. strikes on Yemen’s capital Sanaa, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.

At least 11 others, including four children and one woman, were killed and 14 were injured in a U.S. strike on the northern province of Saada, the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported.

The Houthis’ political bureau described the attacks as a “war crime.”

Residents in Sanaa said the strikes hit a building in a Houthi stronghold.

Another strike on a power station in the town of Dahyan in Saada led to a power cut, Al-Masirah TV reported early on Sunday. Dahyan is where Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the enigmatic leader of the Houthis, often meets his visitors.

The Houthis, an armed movement that took control of most of Yemen over the past decade, have launched scores of attacks on ships off its coast since November 2023, disrupting global commerce and setting the U.S. military on a costly campaign to intercept missiles and drones that have burned through stocks of U.S. air defenses.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis have attacked U.S. warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023. The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war in Gaza with Hamas militants.

Iran’s other allies, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have been severely weakened by Israel since the start of the Gaza conflict. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who was closely aligned with Tehran, was overthrown by rebels in December.

But throughout, Yemen’s Houthis have remained resilient and often on the offensive, sinking two vessels, seizing another and killing at least four seafarers in an offensive that disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to reroute to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.

The U.S. administration of then-President Joe Biden had sought to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels off its coast but limited the U.S. actions.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Trump has authorized a more aggressive approach.

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