WASHINGTON — President Trump warned that the US may join Saudi Arabia in its upcoming retaliatory attacks against the Houthis after the Iran-backed terror group carried out the deadliest attack on Riyadh and has threatened even more attacks on civilian enclaves.
A Houthi spokesperson warned over the weekend that airports have become “a theatre of operations for our forces” and urged “everyone to take our warnings seriously,” while accusing the Saudis of bearing “responsibility for any failed interceptions.”
Until now, Trump had seemingly refrained from attacking the Yemen-based terror group due to a sense that the Houthis have adhered to their end of a May cease-fire in which it committed to not attack vessels in the Red Sea and a broader desire to stay out of a messy conflict that predated the Iran war.
“We may. We’re going to look at it,” Trump told reporters on Saturday when asked about joining the attacks against the Houthis.
“We just found out about the recent attack, so we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly,” he said.
“I think it’s terrible,” Trump added at another point Saturday. “The Saudis are good fighters, but I think the attack was a terrible thing. We have communication with the Houthis, and we’ll see what happens. But what they did was very bad.”
Joining the Saudi retaliation against the Houthis after the bloody attack on King Khalid International Airport has the potential to significantly widen the ongoing conflict in the Middle East over Iran and its proxies.
The Houthi attack on Saturday killed 12, including one American, a Palestinian, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian, a Sudanese, and two Bangladeshi nationals. It injured over 300 people,
Saturday’s attack had drawn widespread international condemnation of the Houthis.
“The United States strongly condemns the recent attacks on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the terrorist Houthis,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday.
“These reprehensible attacks demonstrate a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life. They must stop now,” Rubio added. “We stand with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its people and extend our condolences to the victims and their families.”
Tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, a country of 35 million people, have been escalating rapidly over recent weeks, with Riyadh allegedly intercepting a drone from the terror group near the Islamic holy city of Mecca last month, outraging the Muslim world.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has reportedly been pushing Trump to take military action against the Houthis, as the US did between March and May of this year.
Already, Saudi Arabia launched two airstrikes on Yemen’s capital of Sanaa in retaliation, the Houthis claimed.
The Houthi-run Health Ministry has also claimed that some 91 Yemenis have died and 168 have been injured in attacks by the Saudi-led coalition’s campaign against the terror group in the past five weeks or so.
The conflict between Riyadh and the Houthis largely stems from the civil war in Yemen, which is Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor. The Saudis have long backed the internationally recognized Yemeni government, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim.
Iran has backed the Houthis, who are Shia Muslims and took the capital of Sanaa in 2014. A year later, the Saudis intervened militarily in an effort to restore the internationally recognized Yemeni government to power.
Fighting between the two sides has continued on and off ever since.
