The U.S. military carried out a series of airstrikes targeting the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen on Saturday. The strikes killed at least 53 people and wounded another 98, according to the Houthis.
Rewind: The Houthis began attacking commercial vessels traveling along Yemen’s coasts about a month after Hamas launched its attack on Israel in October 2023. For more than a year afterward, the terrorists used drones, missiles, and boats to attack or harass vessels transiting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis had not announced any attacks on naval targets since Jan. 19, when a ceasefire began in Gaza. The group did fire a missile at a U.S. fighter jet in late February, but missed, U.S. officials told Reuters at the time. The Houthis also reportedly shot down another American MQ-9 Reaper drone about two weeks later. (The Houthis have shot down at least a dozen U.S. drones flying across various parts of Yemen over the past several years.)
President Trump: “It has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden,” the president wrote Saturday on social media. “The last American Warship to go through the Red Sea, four months ago, was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times,” he said.
CENTCOM released a 48-second video showing jets taking off from an aircraft carrier (likely the USS Harry S. Truman) presumably to carry out the strikes. You can view that here.
“We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” Trump said, and emphasized Houthi attacks on U.S. ships “will not be tolerated.” He then posted an all-caps threat to the Iran-backed militants, writing, “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!”
For what it’s worth, the Houthis claim to have carried out two different response attacks on the U.S. Navy off the Yemeni coast on Sunday. A U.S. official told Task and Purpose those drones and at least one ballistic missile were shot down before reaching their presumed target, the USS Harry Truman and other ships in the strike group.
Trump also insisted Iran stop helping the Houthis. For the past several years, the Iranians have supplied them weapons, gear, and military trainers and experts. Should Tehran ignore his demand, Trump wrote, “America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”
From the region: The U.S. military claims it killed the second-in-command of ISIS, or as U.S. officials at Central Command described him, “the Global ISIS #2 leader, chief of operations and the Delegated Committee Emir— Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, alias ‘Abu Khadijah.’”
CENTCOM says he was killed from a precision airstrike over Iraq’s al-Anbar province on Thursday, and his identity was allegedly confirmed through DNA analysis. Another suspected ISIS fighter perished alongside Abu Khadijah. “Both terrorists were wearing unexploded ‘suicide vests’ and had multiple weapons” when their moving car was struck by an aerial munition, according to CENTCOM, which also posted video of the purported strike.
Worth noting: One of Abu Khadijah’s deputies was captured alive in Syria one month ago, Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute reports. That raid was allegedly linked to U.S. intelligence-sharing with the new regime in Syria, Lister said. Were the two raids linked? While it seems possible, it’s also not yet entirely clear.
Additional reading: “U.S. Military Brokers Deals to Bring Syrian Factions Together,” the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1973, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph “Burst of Joy” was snapped on the tarmac of California’s Travis Air Force Base. The photo showed recently-released Vietnam war prisoner U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Stirm reuniting with his children as well as his wife, who had just sent him a letter announcing an end to their marriage.
Border forces
New task force to lead U.S. military’s border efforts. Joint Task Force-Southern Border, stood up at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, is taking over coordination of efforts “to secure and seal the southern border” from Joint Task Force-North, another U.S. Northern Command group, DOD officials said in a Friday statement. More than 9,600 troops were supporting border operations as of March 11, the statement said.
A warship honed in aerial combat has been sent to help. Last year, the guided missile destroyer Gravely was shooting down Houthi missiles aimed at shipping in the Red Sea. On Saturday, it was dispatched to the Gulf of Mexico, waters more usually patrolled by Coast Guard vessels, NORTHCOM officials said in a statement.
Several Coasties are aboard the Gravely, suggesting a potential law-enforcement mission, writes the Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe, who adds: “U.S. defense officials, including Pentagon spokesmen John Ullyot and Sean Parnell, did not respond to questions about whether the Gravely’s deployment is meant to address a possible shortfall in available Coast Guard vessels, or if it is intended to send a signal to drug cartels in the region.”
Trump 2.0
Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts have hurt America’s top-secret National Nuclear Security Administration, costing the agency scientists, engineers, safety experts, project officers, accountants and lawyers, the New York Times reported Monday. And the cuts have come “in the midst of its most ambitious endeavors in a generation” for the NNSA.
The agency and its workers “not only manages the nation’s 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads, it is modernizing that arsenal — a $20-billion-a-year effort that will arm a new fleet of nuclear submarines, bomber jets and land-based missiles,” the Times reports.
Why it matters: “Since the last year of the first Trump administration, the agency has been desperately trying to build up its staff to handle the added workload. Though it was still hundreds of employees short of what it had said it needed, it had edged up to about 2,000 workers by January. Now, with the Trump administration’s buyouts and firings, the agency’s trajectory has gone from one of painstaking growth to retraction.” Read on, here.
Related reading: Are we nearing “The end of nonproliferation?” former U.S. intelligence officials Glenn Chafetz and Zachary Davis ask in a commentary for Defense One.
European developments
French President Macron leads “buy Europe” effort for aircraft and air defense systems, shunning U.S. products under Trump, Politico reported Sunday from Paris after Macron spoke to French media Nice-Matin and Le Parisien on Saturday.
“Those who buy Patriot should be offered the new-generation Franco-Italian SAMP/T. Those who buy the F-35, should be offered the Rafale. That’s the way to increase the rate of production,” Macron advised his allies across Europe.
Context: “This month, the Netherlands and Belgium confirmed they would still buy American-made F-35 fighter jets, while Portugal is wobbling about replacing its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets with more modern F-35s,” Politico writes.
Macron also called Russia’s maximalist aims to annex nearly 20% of Ukraine “unacceptable” as talks proceed between Moscow and Trump’s negotiators in Washington. “This would mean a partial invasion of Ukraine and a freeze on the conflict, without offering any security or guarantees for the future,” Macron said.
Update: Trump now says he was being “a little bit sarcastic” when he claimed he could end Russia’s war on Ukraine in 24 hours, as he alleged repeatedly during last year’s campaign season. “Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that,” Trump said in an interview clip released Friday. “What I really mean is I’d like to get it settled and, I’ll, I think, I think I’ll be successful.” The Associated Press has more.
By the way: Trump says he’ll talk to Putin on Tuesday. “We’ll be talking about land. We’ll be talking about power plants,” the president said, and added, “We’re already talking about that, dividing up certain assets,” he told reporters while traveling from his golf resort in Florida. Reuters has more.
He also says he’s appointed his close aide and retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as his Ukraine envoy. According to Trump, Kellogg “will deal directly with President Zelenskyy, and Ukrainian leadership” during future talks involving the U.S. under Trump.
Notable: Kellogg was removed from negotiations with Russia, Reuters pointed out on Saturday. As recently as last week, Kellogg was serving as Trump’s special envoy for both Ukraine and Russia. Now it’s just Ukraine. “Some high-ranking former Russian officials have complained that Kellogg was, in their view, too sympathetic to Kyiv,” the wire service notes.
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