President Trump on Monday vowed to hold Iran responsible for shots fired by the Houthis, after U.S. airstrikes took out multiple leaders from the military group this weekend.
“Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN. Any further attack or retaliation by the ‘Houthis’ will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there. Iran has played ‘the innocent victim’ of rogue terrorists from which they’ve lost control, but they haven’t lost control,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The Houthis are backed by Iran, which Trump warned on Saturday to stop supporting the rebel group, saying he would hold the country “fully accountable” for the proxy group’s actions. When he ordered the airstrikes over the weekend, Trump said the U.S. would use an “overwhelming lethal force” to take out the group.
“They’re dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, ‘Intelligence.’ Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” Trump continued on Monday.
The president’s statement came just after the U.S. launched new airstrikes on Monday in Yemen, Reuters reported, citing the Houthis’ Al Masirah TV.
National security adviser Mike Waltz confirmed on Sunday that weekend airstrikes took out “multiple Houthi leaders” and said the difference between these strikes and those during the Biden administration, “is, one, going after the Houthi leadership and, two, holding Iran responsible.”
Nasr el-Din Amer, a spokesperson for the Houthis, told NBC News that the group plans to retaliate and said they would not stop until the “blockade on Gaza” is lifted.
