At least 10 U.S. strikes hit targets in various areas in Yemen, including Sanaa, the capital, and Hodeidah, Yemen’s Houthi media reported early on Wednesday.
The U.S. launched a wave of strikes in areas of Yemen controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorists, who said last week they were resuming attacks on Red Sea shipping to support Palestinians in Gaza.
Yemen’s Houthi terrorists say they will not “dial down” their action against Israeli shipping in the Red Sea in response to U.S. military pressure or appeals from the group’s allies such as Iran, the Yemeni militant group’s foreign minister said.
Jamal Amer spoke to Reuters late on Monday after the U.S. launched a wave of strikes in areas of Yemen controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorists, who said last week they were resuming attacks on Red Sea shipping to support Palestinians in Gaza.
Two senior Iranian officials told Reuters that Iran had delivered a verbal message to the Houthi envoy in Tehran on Friday to cool tensions and that Iran’s foreign minister asked Oman, which has mediated with the Houthi terrorists, to convey a similar message to the group when he visited Muscat on Sunday. Both officials asked not to be named.
Iran has not made any public comment about recent outreach to the Houthi terrorists over their renewed action. Tehran says the group takes decisions independently.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would hold Iran responsible for any attacks carried out by the Houthi terrorists.
“There will be no talk of any dialling down of operations before ending the aid blockade in Gaza. Iran is not interfering in our decision but what is happening is that it mediates sometimes but it cannot dictate things,” Amer said, in his first comments on the issue to a foreign news agency.
Speaking from Yemen’s capital Sanaa, which has been hit by U.S. strikes, he said he had not been informed of any message Iran delivered to the Houthi envoy in Tehran.
There were messages from other powers to dial down, he said, but added: “Now we see that Yemen is at war with the U.S. and that means that we have a right to defend ourselves with all possible means, so escalation is likely.”
Iran, whose network of proxies and allies across the Middle East has taken a hammering since the war in Gaza erupted in 2023, has shown increasing concern it could be drawn deeper into conflict with the United States. Iran and Israel exchanged direct strikes for the first time last year as the Gaza war escalated.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal between Iran and six major powers that curbed its sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief, has stepped up a “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions on Iran since returning to office for a second term in January.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
