Overview

U.S. Strikes on Houthi Rebels in Yemen

Background and Trigger

Two days after he was sworn in for his second term, Donald Trump signed an executive order redesignating the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization. The move signaled a harder line than the Biden administration's posture, which had itself launched strikes on Houthi targets under Operation Poseidon Archer beginning in January 2024. That earlier campaign carried out strikes in collaboration with the United Kingdom from January 12, 2024, until a Gaza ceasefire came into effect on January 19, 2025. The Houthis temporarily paused their shipping attacks during the ceasefire, but following the expiration of a deadline they had set for Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, Houthi forces resumed attacks on March 12, 2025. That resumption provided the immediate trigger for Operation Rough Rider.

The Campaign

On March 15, 2025, almost two months into his second term, President Trump launched Operation Rough Rider. Trump declared that the strikes were in retaliation for the Houthis' "unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft and drones," and he warned Iran to stop supporting the Houthis immediately. In 53 days, from March 15 to May 6, the U.S. carried out 339 strikes — surpassing the number of strikes in the year-long U.S.-UK Operation Poseidon Archer under President Biden. By the Pentagon's own count, the campaign struck over 1,000 targets in total. From a military standpoint, the campaign leveraged significant assets, including bombers flying from Diego Garcia and two U.S. aircraft carriers operating in the region. The UK's Royal Air Force reportedly supported the bombing campaign with air-to-air refueling before carrying out a direct strike on April 29.

The campaign targeted Houthi leaders, weapons systems, and other military infrastructure across Yemen. Early strikes killed senior Houthi officials, including security commanders, and hit infrastructure ranging from airports to fuel depots. On April 18, a U.S. strike on Yemen's Ras Isa fuel port killed at least 80 people and wounded 150 others, one of the deadliest attacks on the country by U.S. forces. Ten days later, U.S. forces struck a migrant detention center in Saada housing about 115 people, mainly from African nations, reportedly killing at least 68 people.

On May 6, Trump announced that the U.S. would stop bombing the Houthis after the group agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East, with Oman mediating the ceasefire. However, the agreement covered only U.S. warships — the Houthis did not pledge to end attacks on other vessels allegedly linked to Israel.

Significance and Impact

The air campaign was the most intense and deadly period of bombing in Yemen since the peak of the Saudi-led air war. Its cost was also substantial: the six-week-long operation cost well over $1 billion, according to U.S. media, and had not been approved by Congress. The campaign's strategic value, however, remains a matter of dispute. The White House argued it successfully deterred the Houthis and restored a measure of freedom of navigation for American vessels, pointing to the ceasefire as evidence of coercive success. The show of force, combined with diplomatic signaling, appears to have catalyzed the ceasefire — at least for a time.

The civilian toll is where the campaign's record is most contested. A Pentagon review submitted to Congress found that U.S. military strikes targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 others in 2025, marking the Trump administration's first public acknowledgment that its military operations caused significant harm to noncombatants in any conflict. The report assessed that three operations "more likely than not" resulted in civilian harm, and another 15 remain under review. Independent monitors put the toll higher: Airwars and the Yemen Data Project counted at least 238 civilians killed and 467 injured, with one official describing the Pentagon figures as "lowball numbers."

The campaign also intersected with a domestic institutional question. An investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon had cut staffing and funding for congressionally mandated efforts to reduce harm to civilians during military operations, with the number of employees at the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence dropping from approximately 40 personnel to nine by the end of fiscal 2025. Those cuts came under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who had vowed to focus on "lethality" rather than "tepid legality."

Reactions and Debate

The operation generated significant debate along several distinct lines. On the question of legal authority, critics noted that Operation Rough Rider was launched without congressional authorization and against a group that Congress has never provided an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against. The official justification was to secure shipping, but critics argued the Houthis were not attacking U.S. ships at the time, and pointed to a leaked Signal chat in which Defense Secretary Hegseth appeared to suggest the strikes could easily be delayed, undermining the administration's claim of an imminent threat. That leaked chat — published by The Atlantic — became its own controversy, adding to congressional unease about the administration's conduct of military affairs.

Human rights organizations raised serious concerns about specific strikes. Amnesty International concluded that the strike on the migrant detention center in Saada constituted an indiscriminate attack under international humanitarian law and should be investigated as a war crime. Human Rights Watch similarly said the April 17 strike on the Ras Isa port should be investigated as a war crime. The administration did not accept those characterizations and the military defended its targeting practices.

Supporters of the operation, including some national security analysts, argued that the Biden-era approach had failed to deter Houthi behavior and that a more assertive posture was overdue. They credited the ceasefire as evidence that sustained military pressure — rather than the limited, episodic strikes under Poseidon Archer — could produce results. Still, not all analysts viewed the Houthis as a grave threat or the campaign as a necessary use of force.

Outlook

The durability of the May 2025 ceasefire proved limited. The Houthis' attack on a Greek-owned, Liberia-flagged ship in the Red Sea in July 2025 appeared to violate at least the spirit, if not the letter, of the ceasefire with the Trump administration. In July 2025, the Houthis attacked and sank two commercial vessels in the southern Red Sea, killing four seafarers. In November 2025, the Houthi leadership declared it would end its campaign against maritime interests connected to Israel, following a broader Gaza ceasefire, but that pause also proved temporary. A brief reprieve ended when the Houthis signaled an imminent return to targeting commercial vessels, with senior Houthi officials telling international media that the group decided to restart missile and drone operations in response to U.S.-Israeli military strikes on Iran.

The convergence of the Pentagon's civilian casualty admission and Yemen's renewed civil war fighting places the Trump administration's Red Sea campaign under fresh scrutiny at a politically sensitive moment. The Pentagon's report to the Senate Armed Services Committee — submitted in August 2026 — confirms the administration's civilian toll for the first time but leaves fifteen additional incidents unresolved. CENTCOM was still assessing 15 other incidents in response to reports gathered through nongovernmental organizations, meaning the final accounting of civilian harm from Operation Rough Rider remains incomplete. Meanwhile, broader U.S. military involvement in the broader Middle East has since expanded, making it harder to evaluate the Yemen campaign in isolation. Whether Operation Rough Rider will be remembered as a successful application of coercive force or as a legally and morally costly exercise that produced only a temporary pause in Houthi attacks is a question that remains genuinely open.