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Houthis Warn US Against Striking Yemen: ‘The Hell of Vietnam Will Be a Walk in the Park’
Houthi policemen ride on the back of a patrol pick-up truck during the funeral of Houthi terrorists killed by recent US-led strikes, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The so-called “foreign minister” of the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist group in Yemen has warned that if the US takes military action against the western Yemeni port of Al-Hudaydah on the Red Sea, it will suffer consequences severe enough to make the “hell” experienced by American soldiers during the Vietnam War feel like a “walk in the park.”
Jamal Ahmed Ali Amer wrote on X/Twitter on Sunday that the “American administration” was plotting to harm Yemen, where the Houthis have controlled a significant portion of the country’s land in the north and along the Red Sea since 2014, when they captured it in the midst of the country’s civil war.
Amer then claimed that the US began “leaking” information about its alleged plan to “invade” Al-Hudaydah “all in support of the entity and to force the leadership to stop supporting Gaza.” It was unclear what leaked information and supposed invasion plans he was referencing.
If the US “acts rashly,” the top Houthi official continued, “the hell of Vietnam will be just a walk in the park. Free people do not kneel and the American regime is not the ruler by the command of God.”
About 58,000 US service members died during the Vietnam War.
Amer’s tweet came four days after the US carried out a round of strikes in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthis, a US-designated terrorist group, hitting five underground storage facilities housing weapons used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region.
“This was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened, or fortified,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement after last week’s military strikes. “The employment of US Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate US global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”
The Houthis began disrupting global trade in a major way with their attacks on shipping in the busy Red Sea corridor after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, arguing their aggression was a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza.
The Houthi rebels — whose slogan is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam” — have said they will target all ships heading to Israeli ports, even if they do not pass through the Red Sea, and claimed responsibility for attempted drone and missile strikes targeting Israel.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, which launched the ongoing war in Gaza, Houthi terrorists in Yemen have routinely launched ballistic missiles toward Israel’s southern city of Eilat. In July, they hit the center of Tel Aviv with a long-range Iranian-made drone.
Then last month, the Houthis reached central Israel with a missile for the first time. Israeli air defenses intercepted fragments of a surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen that exploded over Israel’s central region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the Houthis for the attack.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report in July revealing how Iran has been “smuggling weapons and weapons components to the Houthis.”
The report noted that the Houthis used Iranian-supplied ballistic and cruise missiles to conduct over a hundred land attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and within Yemen, as well as dozens of attacks on merchant shipping.
Iran also backs Hamas, providing the Islamist terror group with weapons, funding, and training.
While the Houthis have increasingly targeted Israeli soil in recent months, they have primarily attacked ships in the Red Sea, a key trade route, having a major economic impact by disrupting global shipping and raising the cost of shipping and insurance. Shipping firms have been forced in many cases to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa to avoid passing near Yemen.
Last month, the Houthis’ so-called “defense minister,” Mohamed al-Atifi, said that the Yemeni rebels were prepared for a “long war” against Israel and its allies.
“The Yemeni Army holds the key to victory, and is prepared for a long war of attrition against the usurping Zionist regime, its sponsors, and allies,” he was quoted as saying by Iranian state-owned media
“Our struggle against the Nazi Zionist entity is deeply rooted in our beliefs. We are well aware of the fact that this campaign is a sacred and religious duty that requires tremendous sacrifices,” added Atifi, who has been sanctioned by the US government.
Beyond Israeli targets, the Houthis have threatened and in some cases actually attacked US and British ships, leading the two Western allies to launch retaliatory strikes multiple times against Houthi targets in Yemen.
For over a year, the Houthis have “recklessly and unlawfully attacked US and international vessels transiting the Red Sea, the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden,” Austin said in his statement. “The Houthis’ illegal attacks continue to disrupt the free flow of international commerce, threaten environmental catastrophe, and put innocent civilian lives and US and partner forces’ lives at risk.”
Austin said he authorized the strikes “to further degrade the Houthis’ capability to continue their destabilizing behavior and to protect and defend US forces and personnel in one of the world’s most critical waterways.” The American defense chief added that the US “will continue to make clear to the Houthis that there will be consequences for their illegal and reckless attacks.”
Another top US official also called out the Houthis last week.
Samantha Power, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, lambasted the terrorist group for holding around 20 Yemeni employees of the US embassy in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, for the past three years. The embassy suspended operations in 2014.
“It’s been 3 years since the Houthis unlawfully detained US government local staff,” Power posted on X/Twitter on Saturday. “Several of our Yemeni colleagues may now face prosecution on false charges. We fear for their safety—& will not rest until these individuals & all detained UN, NGO & diplomatic staff are released.”
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Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says
An Israeli flag flies in Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, as seen from Metula, northern Israel, Dec. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
Israel said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold talks to demarcate its border with Lebanon, adding it would release five Lebanese detainees held by the Israeli military in what it called a “gesture to the Lebanese president.”
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had agreed with Lebanon, the US, and France to establish working groups to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire deal agreed in November, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area with airstrikes in southern Lebanon citing what it described as Hezbollah activity.
The ceasefire deal ended more than a year of conflict between Israel‘s military and the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah that was playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting peaked in a major Israeli air and ground campaign in southern Lebanon that left Hezbollah badly weakened, with most of its military command killed in Israeli strikes.
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UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The United Nations Security Council will meet behind closed doors on Wednesday over Iran’s expansion of its stock of uranium close to weapons grade, diplomats said on Monday.
The meeting was requested by six of the council’s 15 members – France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain, and the US.
They also want the council to discuss Iran’s obligation to provide the UN nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – with “the information necessary to clarify outstanding issues related to undeclared nuclear material detected at multiple locations in Iran,” diplomats said.
Iran’s mission to the UN in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned meeting.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian program and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran reached a deal in 2015 with Britain, Germany, France, the US, Russia, and China – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Washington quit the agreement in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term as US president, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments.
Britain, France, and Germany have told the UN Security Council that they are ready – if needed – to trigger a so-called snap back of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 this year when the 2015 UN resolution on the deal expires. US President Donald Trump has directed his UN envoy to work with allies to snap back international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.
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Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says
A man inspects a damaged car in Latakia, after hundreds were reportedly killed in some of the deadliest violence in 13 years of civil war, pitting loyalists of deposed President Bashar al-Assad against the country’s new Islamist rulers, Syria, March 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Haidar Mustafa
Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria’s coastal region as part of a series of sectarian killings by the army against an insurgency by Bashar al-Assad loyalists, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
Pressure has been growing on Syria’s Islamist-led government to investigate after reports by a war monitor of the killing of hundreds of civilians in villages where the majority of the population were members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
“In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families – including women, children, and individuals hors de combat – were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular,” UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said, using a French term for those incapable of fighting.
So far, the UN human rights office has documented the killing of 111 civilians and expects the real toll to be significantly higher, Al-Kheetan told a Geneva press briefing. Of those, 90 were men; 18 were women; and three were children, he added.
“Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis,” Al-Kheetan told reporters. In some cases, men were shot dead in front of their families, he said, citing testimonies from survivors.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk welcomed an announcement by Syria’s Islamist-led government to create an accountability committee and called for those investigations to be prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial, the spokesperson added.
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