March 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump vowed Monday to hold Iran responsible after fighting between the United States and Houthi militants escalated following U.S. airstrikes over the weekend.
“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 warned Monday in a post on Truth Social.
“They’re dictating every move, giving them weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated military equipment and even so-called ‘intelligence,'” the president added. “Any further attack or retaliation by the Houthis will be met with great force and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there.”
On Sunday, National security adviser Mike Waltz confirmed that weekend airstrikes took out “multiple Houthi leaders.”
The Houthis have been targeting military and commercial shipping for the past two years in the Red Sea, a critical route for global commercial trade. Waltz has said he would not rule out military action against Iran over its backing of the Houthis or its nuclear aspirations.
On Saturday, Trump warned Houthi terrorists, “Your time is up.”
“The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Trump wrote in a statement.
“The Houthis have choked off shipping in one of the most important waterways of the world, grinding vast swaths of global commerce to a halt and attacking the core principle of Freedom of Navigation upon which international trade and commerce depends.”
“To all Houthi terrorists,” Trump added, “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!”
President Trump ordered the U.S. military attack on Saturday.
“I have ordered the United States military to launch decisive and powerful military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen,” Trump said.
“They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism against American and other ships, aircraft and drones,” he added. “President Joe Biden‘s response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going.”
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Houthi-led Yemen health ministry said in a statement that 53 people, including five children and two women, had been killed in the Yemen airstrikes.
The Houthis later claimed they had targeted the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the northern Red Sea with drones and missiles, according to Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree. It is unclear if any of the Houthi strikes hit the carrier.