WASHINGTON DC - The United States claimed on Wednesday that its recent attacks against the Houthis in Yemen are continuing to yield results, adding that Tehran has certainly taken notice as well.
“President Trump has an approach that he's committed to because he wants a result. And we are seeing some of those results now, and we will continue to see more. Certainly the Houthis are seeing the results of what we are committed to do to make sure that things change in this planet, and I have no doubt, Iran has noticed that,” Tammy Bruce, US State Department spokesperson, told Rudaw during a press briefing.
Iran is a staunch supporter of Houthis.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his call on Tehran to end its support for the Yemeni group.
“Tremendous damage has been inflicted upon the Houthi barbarians, and watch how it will get progressively worse — It’s not even a fair fight, and never will be,” said Trump in a social media post.
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and the Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek discussed Washington's maximum pressure policy on Iran on Wednesday.
Shortly after his return to the White House, Trump in early February restored his “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran, arguing that it is “too close” to a nuclear weapon. Despite this, the US President expressed openness to negotiating a new deal with Iran, though Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei deemed such negotiations as “unwise.”
The latest strikes come after the US State Department announced on Tuesday the designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) due to their “activities [which] threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East,” as well as “the safety of our [US’s] closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade.”
Ansarullah, a key member of the Iran-led "Axis of Resistance," intensified attacks on Israeli commercial vessels or vessels affiliated with Israel in the Red Sea since October 2023, during the Israel-Hamas War. The Houthis claimed these attacks were intended to alleviate pressure on their Palestinian allies in Gaza.
