US strike on Houthis: Pentagon warns ‘attack will be unrelenting’, Yemen rebels vow escalation - Latest updates

The US military will continue to strike on Yemen's Houthi militants until they stop targeting ships in the Red Sea, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said, only a day after President Donald Trump ordered new operations in the Middle East. Catch the latest updates here:

• “This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence. The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end,” Hegseth said in an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “But until then, it will be unrelenting.”
• Hegseth said the latest strikes were also a warning to Iran, which backs the Houthis. “Iran has been enabling the Houthis for far too long. They better back off,” he said.

• On Saturday, 31 people were killed and at least 191 injured in US strikes on Sana’a, Saada and Albaydha provinces. Most of the casualties were women and children. Speaking about the attack Trump said he ordered “decisive and powerful” action against the Houthis.
• On Truth Social, he accused the group of choking off shipping in a key global waterway, halting vast trade flows. He warned that attacks on U.S. vessels “will not be tolerated.”
• Respoding to it, Yemen's Houthi militants said it will target the US ships in the Red Sea as long as the US continues its attacks on Yemen. The group's leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Sunday, “If they continue their aggression, we will continue the escalation.”

• The Houthis began their attacks shortly after Hamas’s October 7 incursion into Israel sparked war in the Middle East. The Houthis have repeatedly said their missile and drone strikes in the Red Sea, and against Israel, were in solidarity with the Palestinians over the war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The Yemeni group has previously said it would stop their attacks when Israel stopped its war.