Iran to face ‘ dire consequences’ if Houthis continue attacks, Trump threatens

Donald Trump has said he would hold Iran responsible for any future attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea, after ordering large-scale strikes in recent days against the militants.

The ship Cordelia Moon was one of the vessels targeted by the Houthis.

President Trump said Monday he would hold Iran responsible for any future attacks by the Houthis in Yemen, threatening unspecified consequences against the Islamic Republic after ordering large-scale strikes in recent days against the militants.

“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 posted to social media.

The U.S. message and strikes expand Trump’s efforts to halt Houthi attacks on shipping, potentially putting the US in direct confrontation with Tehran. The threat raises questions about the extent of Iran’s control over the Houthis and whether Trump would risk a wider Middle East war over the Yemeni group’s disruptions to global commerce.

Trump ordered attacks against the Houthis in Yemen over the weekend, shortly after the U.S.-designated terrorist group said it would resume attacks on ships transiting the Red Sea near the Yemeni coastline unless Israel allowed humanitarian aid back into Gaza. U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz said in television interviews Sunday that several Houthi leaders were killed in the barrage, adding that a secondary goal was “holding Iran responsible.”

The US said it resumed aerial attacks on Monday evening for a third day, destroying an iron factory in the Red Sea province of Hodeida, according to Houthi-controlled media.

A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment. Senior Houthi politician Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, in a public rally Monday in the Yemeni capital San’a, decried the U.S. strikes as terrorism and threatened to escalate.

“To Trump, we say: You have failed, and you do not scare us,” he said. “Do as you wish – we fear no one but God.”

To evade U.S. air strikes, senior Houthi officials are going into hiding in Yemen, people familiar with their plans said Monday. Buses with tinted windows carried the families of some Houthi leaders out of al-Jarraf, a neighbourhood in the capital San’a where many of them live, late Sunday and headed north to mountainous areas perceived as safer, one of the people said. Party members charged with administering Houthi-held areas have vanished from public view in the city, the person added.

Since 2023, the Houthis have targeted the U.S. Navy 174 times and commercial shipping 145 times, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” The Houthis have used missiles and drones in their attacks, sinking two ships and killing four sailors. They recently claimed to have downed a U.S. surveillance drone and fired a missile at a U.S. jet fighter.

Iran has provided the Houthis with weapons, including missiles, but their relationship is a complex one. Tehran may pressure the group to halt attacks on shipping in the short term, yet constraining them may prove difficult.

Iranian officials have voiced support for the Houthi cause but denied U.S. allegations that it funds and arms them. U.S. officials believe Iran has also provided training to the rebels, but some of them say Tehran doesn’t exercise full control over the group.

After emerging from a long conflict with a Saudi-led military coalition, the Houthis in late 2023 started attacking Israeli cities and ships passing by the Yemeni coast into the Red Sea in response to Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Those attacks hobbled commerce through one of the world’s busiest commercial waterways, diverting many ships around the southern coast of Africa.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Monday that was unacceptable. “It’s going to end, and we’re going to help make it end,” she said on Fox Business.

The new Iran-focused strategy to end the Houthis’ aggression may escalate tensions with Tehran even further.

Iran already rejected Trump’s overtures for a negotiation over dismantling its nuclear work, including a letter he sent to the country’s supreme leader. A failure to engage in diplomacy might lead Trump to consider greenlighting Israeli strikes on Iran, or even having U.S. forces participate in a joint operation.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. All options are on the table to ensure it does not have one. And that’s all aspects of Iran’s program. That’s the missiles, the weaponization, the enrichment,” Waltz said Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week.” Trump has often brandished military force to compel adversaries to the table. Before meeting three times with North Korean Kim Jong-un over tearing down that nuclear program – efforts that failed to convince Kim to part with his weapons – Trump wielded the threat of dropping America’s nuclear bombs on the isolated country. The threats against Iran, which doesn’t have nuclear weapons, haven’t been as explicit, but it fits into the president’s playbook of making maximalist statements to compel a diplomatic breakthrough.

Mohammed Albasha, founder of U.S.-based Middle East security advisory Basha Report, said senior Houthis leaders went silent since the air strikes began this weekend. He said they likely have hide-outs and redundancy plans for communicating without using cellphones, which U.S. surveillance can track.

“The big ones have been pretty quiet for now,” he said.

The Houthis are used to hunkering down when the bombs start falling. People who have studied the insular group say its leaders have an almost messianic belief that God is on their side in an epic battle between good and evil, while its enemies have consistently underestimated it.

The question now is whether the Houthis will emerge in a few days defiant or face a sustained campaign driven by large-scale intelligence collection that finally threatens their grip on power.

“The Houthis have never been subjected to a long-term strike campaign that targets their leadership,” said Bernard Hudson, a former counter-terrorism chief for the Central Intelligence Agency. The group was able to ride out previous campaigns, which were limited and tactical, he said.

“There’s probably a period of time after which if they can’t exercise authority, some other group of people decide to switch alliances and move against them,” said Hudson.

In response to a call for protests by Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, thousands of people marched across Houthi-controlled areas Monday in condemnation of the U.S. strikes.

Crowds in San’a waved banners and assault rifles and chanted, “Death to America, death to Israel.”

Dow Jones