WASHINGTON/ADEN: US President Donald Trump launched large-scale military strikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday over the group’s attacks against Red Sea shipping, killing at least 24 people at the start of a campaign expected to last many days.

Trump also warned Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, that it needed to immediately halt support for the group. He said if Iran threatened the United States, “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”

The unfolding strikes — which one US official told Reuters might continue for weeks — represent the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January. It came as the United States ramps up sanctions pressure on Tehran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear program.

“To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

At least 13 civilians were killed and nine injured in US strikes on Yemen’s capital Sanaa, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.

At least 11 others, including four children and one woman, were killed and 14 were injured in a US strike on the northern province of Saada, the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported.

The Houthis’ political bureau described the attacks as a “war crime.”

“Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation,” it said in a statement.

Residents in Sanaa said the strikes hit a building in a Houthi stronghold.

“The explosions were violent and shook the neighborhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” one of the residents, who gave his name as Abdullah Yahia, told Reuters.

Another strike on a power station in the town of Dahyan in Saada led to a power cut, Al-Masirah TV reported early on Sunday. Dahyan is where Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, the enigmatic leader of the Houthis, often meets his visitors.

The Houthis, an armed movement that took control of most of Yemen over the past decade, have launched scores of attacks on ships off its coast since November 2023, disrupting global commerce and setting the US military on a costly campaign to intercept missiles and drones that have burned through stocks of US air defenses.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the Houthis have attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023. The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war in Gaza with Hamas militants.

Iran’s other allies, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have been severely weakened by Israel since the start of the Gaza conflict. Syria’s Bashar Assad, who was closely aligned with Tehran, was overthrown by rebels in December.

But throughout, Yemen’s Houthis have remained resilient and often on the offensive, sinking two vessels, seizing another and killing at least four seafarers in an offensive that disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to reroute to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.

The US administration of then-President Joe Biden had sought to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels off its coast but limited the US actions.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Trump has authorized a more aggressive approach.

Strikes across Yemen

The strikes on Saturday were carried out in part by fighter aircraft from the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, which is in the Red Sea, officials said.

The US military’s Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, described Saturday’s strikes as the start of a large-scale operation across Yemen.

“Houthi attacks on American ships & aircraft (and our troops!) will not be tolerated; and Iran, their benefactor, is on notice,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X. “Freedom of Navigation will be restored.”

Trump held out the prospect of far more devastating military action against Yemen.

“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Trump wrote.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the US government had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy.”

“End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop killing of Yemeni people,” he said in an X post on early Sunday.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab Al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden, ending a period of relative calm starting in January with the Gaza ceasefire.

The US attacks came just days after a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from Trump was delivered, seeking talks over Iran’s nuclear program.

Khamenei on Wednesday rejected holding negotiations with the United States.

Still, Tehran is increasingly concerned that mounting public anger over economic hardships could erupt into mass protests, four Iranian officials told Reuters.

Last year, Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, in retaliation for Iranian missile and drone attacks, reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, according to US officials.

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 UN nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — 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.

In an apparent sign of US efforts to improve ties with Russia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on Saturday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to inform him about the US strikes in Yemen, the State Department said.

Russia has relied on Iranian-provided weaponry in its war in Ukraine, including missiles and drones, US and Ukrainian officials say.

LONDON: Camps and prisons housing Daesh-linked detainees in the northeast of the Syrian Arab Republic have become a ticking time bomb, amid the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Assad regime and cuts to aid from the US.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which helped the US defeat Daesh in 2019, has since then been overseeing Ghuwayran prison, Al-Hol camp and Al-Roj camp, which hold about 56,000 Daesh fighters, their wives and their children.

US assistance has been critical in efforts to secure the camps, which are widely considered to be breeding grounds for extremism and a regional security concern. But last month, Washington told the UN Security Council its support “cannot last forever.”

Dorothy Shea, the acting US ambassador to the UN, said: “The US has shouldered too much of this burden for too long. Ultimately, the camps cannot remain a direct US financial responsibility.”

Without a replacement for American aid, the resources of the SDF-affiliated Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria risk being stretched thin, leaving the camps and prisons vulnerable to revolt or mass escape attempts.

“If US financial assistance is cut without a replacement, it will create significant challenges,” Polat Can, a researcher in international relations and Middle Eastern security, told Arab News.

Even with US support, the camps and prisons had been starved of sufficient funding and manpower.

“External financial support has never fully covered the costs of maintaining prison security, managing detainees and sustaining camp residents,” said Can.

Other foreign donors have helped support the maintenance of camps and prisons but the US remains the largest contributor.

In 2021, the UK provided $20 million to expand a prison in Hasakah, according to the Iraq-based Rudaw news network. Meanwhile, the US spent the much larger sum of $155 million in 2022 alone to train, equip and pay the personnel guarding detainees.

The Syrian National Army offensive that began on Dec. 8 — which has displaced tens of thousands of civilians, many of them ethnic Kurds, from the Shebha region — has placed further strain on the SDF.

The Syrian National Army is backed by Turkiye, apparently as a bulwark against the perceived threat posed by Kurdish militants linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which recently declared a ceasefire in its decades-old conflict with Ankara.

Washington-based Kurdish affairs analyst Mutlu Civiroglu told Arab News that the SDF has redeployed about half of its personnel that was guarding the prisons to “defend the region from Turkish attacks.”

These developments have made it increasingly difficult for the SDF to contain the threat of a potential Daesh resurgence. As recently as November, a Daesh operative reportedly infiltrated Al-Hol camp and helped fighters to escape.

“The region’s resources are limited, and without external funding the ability to maintain security at these facilities will be increasingly strained,” Can said.

“In the worst-case scenario, this could lead to security vulnerabilities that Daesh cells may attempt to exploit, particularly as the group remains active in the Syrian desert and continues efforts to infiltrate” northeastern areas controlled by the autonomous administration.

The SDF has warned in recent months that the Daesh threat is greater than ever, citing the presence of active sleeper cells in Al-Hol camp and concerns about detainees escaping from Ghuwayran prison.

These fears have intensified since US President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw US troops from northeastern Syria. “Syria is its own mess,” he said in late January. “They got enough messes over there. They don’t need us involved in every one.”

The SDF has also warned that Daesh is attempting to infiltrate the eastern Deir ez-Zor province from the western bank of the Euphrates River. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has recorded at least 37 Daesh operations in the province since the start of the year, including armed attacks and bombings targeting security forces in areas controlled by the autonomous administration

Until Dec. 11, Deir ez-Zor was under SDF control. However, after a coalition led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham ousted the Assad regime on Dec. 8, it seized the oil-rich eastern city. The SDF remains a presence in parts of the countryside.

In a historic move on March 10, the SDF’s commander-in-chief, Mazloum Abdi, and Syria’s new president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, signed a deal to integrate SDF-controlled civilian and military institutions with the new Damascus administration.

The agreement, signed as Al-Sharaa faced international pressure over the killing of Alawites by government-linked militias in western Syria, could ease the pressure on the SDF, particularly by securing a nationwide ceasefire.

However, the accord, which is set to be implemented by the end of this year, is unlikely to bring any immediate changes to the situation in the Daesh camps and prisons, said Can.

“The issue of detainees — both militants in prisons and their families in camps — remains a major financial, logistical and security challenge in northeastern Syria,” he added.

The US aid freeze will not only affect prison management but also many humanitarian and civilian infrastructure projects, which had long eased some of the financial pressure on the autonomous administration.

Civiroglu said the suspension of aid from the US could create “further uncertainty, especially for initiatives related to displaced persons, refugees, rehabilitation and health services.”

He added: “Syria has long been under siege, embargo and civil war, and Rojava — Kurdish Syria — has been affected even worse. On one side, there’s the opposition group; on the other, the Turkish border, which stretches 910 kilometers and has been closed for years.”

He warned that projects in northeastern Syria established by the US Agency for International Development “have been negatively affected, with many halted.” But Washington’s aid freeze will impact Syria as a whole, he added.

USAID was one of the first targets of the Department of Government Efficiency, which was established by the Trump administration to root out what it views as waste and fraud in the federal bureaucracy.

As a result, the organization and all of its programs essentially have been shut down, creating a massive black hole in the international humanitarian aid budget, with major consequences for fragile states such as Syria.

The Syrian economy is reeling after 14 years of civil war and sanctions. The interim government said the country owes between $20 billion and $23 billion in external debt, a figure that far exceeds its 2023 gross domestic product of $17.5 billion, according to the World Bank.

After the civil war broke out in 2011, Daesh exploited the chaos to expand, attracting tens of thousands of fighters from around the globe. By 2014, the group had conquered an area about the size of Great Britain, spanning Iraq and Syria, where it declared a caliphate.

However, US-led coalition efforts, an SDF ground offensive, and Russian airstrikes wore the group down until its eventual territorial defeat in Baghuz, eastern Syria, in March 2019.

After Daesh’s collapse, foreign fighters and their families were detained. Even now, at least 42,000 women and children — about 80 percent of all detainees — from 110 countries remain in overcrowded, squalid conditions in Al-Hol and Al-Roj, according to the UN.

Rights groups have consistently urged countries to repatriate their nationals who are detained in the camps. New York-based Human Rights Watch has said the continuing detention of these foreign nationals is “unlawful,” noting that they are held under “life-threatening conditions.”

Civiroglu said that “despite the US push and the SDF’s appeal to the international community, there has been little progress in that regard.”

Since 2017, Iraq has repatriated more than 17,796 of its nationals from Syria, according to the Rojava Information Center, but Western countries remain reluctant to do the same.

“The responsibility for these detainees extends beyond the region, as it is an international issue that should involve the UN, the UN Security Council, the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh, the US, and the governments of the detainees’ home countries,” said Can.

Harout Ekmanian, an international lawyer at Foley Hoag in New York, also believes that during this critical transitional period in Syria, countries with citizens in the camps have an obligation to repatriate them and ease the pressure on local authorities.

“Third states with citizens in these camps should take responsibility by facilitating the repatriation of their nationals, providing consular assistance, and ensuring that they are either prosecuted in accordance with fair trial standards or rehabilitated and reintegrated,” he told Arab News.

“With the collapse of the Syrian regime, the restoration of diplomatic channels has become more feasible, leaving no justifiable reason for countries in Europe and beyond to continue delaying the repatriation of their citizens and their families.

“This should not be seen as a favor or charity for Syria, but rather an international obligation for all states with citizens in these camps.”

UN Security Council Resolutions 2178 and 2396 explicitly call on states to prosecute, rehabilitate or reintegrate foreign terrorist fighters, underscoring the responsibility of countries to take action on this matter.

“These prisons house individuals responsible for some of the most egregious international crimes, including the Yezidi Genocide between 2014 and 2017,” said Ekmanian.

“Syria is not adequately equipped to manage the accountability mechanisms and legal procedures required for such a large number of Daesh members. Therefore, third states must ensure criminal accountability via their national courts for those responsible for these crimes, as part of their repatriation and reintegration efforts.

“Additionally, it would be ideal for Syria to collaborate with international partners to develop the necessary capabilities and mechanisms to prosecute Daesh members held in these camps. This issue is also closely tied to the broader need for transitional justice in Syria.”

Can said that while local authorities in northeastern Syria have engaged with international actors to seek long-term solutions, including efforts to repatriate foreign detainees, “many governments remain reluctant to take responsibility for their citizens.”

He added: “At this stage, there is no fully sufficient alternative plan that could compensate for the loss of international support,” and warned that “any major funding gap could deepen existing security risks and create further instability.

“Given the global implications of this issue, sustained international attention and responsibility-sharing are critical.”