All posts tagged "Houthis"

President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that Houthi rebels in Yemen "don't want to fight anymore," but that may be news to Israel, which has been engaging in retaliatory bombing of Yemen's main airport.

According to The New York Times, Tuesday's strikes that killed at least three people and injured more than 30, "came days after the Iran-backed Houthi militia fired a missile that struck near Israel’s main airport."

During a question-and-answer session with reporters in the Oval Office with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said, "The Houthis have announced that they are not, or they announced to us at least, that they don't want to fight anymore... but, more importantly, we will take their word."...

When news broke of the leaked Signal group chat detailing an impending strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen, critics called for heads to roll for potentially putting U.S. service members at risk. But instead of expressing concern over soldiers who could have been killed due to the leak, President Donald Trump immediately went on the defensive, standing firmly behind his national security adviser and secretary of defense, with no mention of American soldiers.

West Point graduate Lucian K. Truscott IV wrote in a new column for Salon that the Signal chat incident proved just how little the Trump administration cares about the fate of soldiers who have no choice but to follow Trump's commands.

"Trump's national security team cared so little about the pilots they sent into combat against the Houthis that they used the insecure civilian Signal app to plan the mission," Truscott wrote....

New reporting in Politico says President Donald Trump wasn't just "upset" with Mike Waltz for being involved in the leaked war plans chat to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg — Trump was "suspicious."

Publicly, Trump gave his full-throated support of his national security advisor, who inadvertently added Goldberg to the chat detailing an upcoming air strike on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, telling NBC's Garrett Haake, "Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he's a good man."

"Despite spending Monday questioning whether Waltz needed to resign, the White House and its allies on Tuesday sought to downplay the sensitivity of the information shared in the group chat," the report stated. "Officials suggested the national security community, in collaboration with the media, was making a bigger deal out of the issue than it was, arguing the material was not classified and suggesting Goldberg had sensationalized the content."...

A Trump official's account on the Signal messaging app has been tagged as the one that added a journalist to a highly sensitive war plans chat involving the bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote in a shocking article of his inadvertent inclusion in a Signal messaging chat revealing war plans about an imminent strike on Yemen. Goldberg wrote that he believed top officials on the chat included National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard.

"Mike Waltz, who's the security advisor, is the one who apparently added Jeffrey Goldberg onto the thread, or someone using the Mike Waltz account," Zeleny reported Monday from the White House. "That is certainly going to be something for him to respond and answer to." ...

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta vehemently asserted Monday that the person who created the Signal chat revealing war plans about an attack on Houthi terrorists to a journalist with The Atlantic should be fired.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote in a stunning article of his inadvertent inclusion in a Signal messaging chat revealing war plans about an imminent strike on Yemen. Goldberg wrote that he believed top officials on the chat included National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Vice President J.D. Vance, among others.

At first, Goldberg thought the messaging chain was fake, but Panetta, who served in several Democratic administrations including as Defense Secretay under President Barack Obama, told CNN, "there's no question this is legitimate." ...

Yemen's Houthi rebels have threatened to target ships bound for Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea, as the group on Friday announced further escalation in what they say is retaliation for Israeli attacks in Gaza. The Houthis would target all ships "heading to the ports of occupied Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea in any area within our reach," Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement. The Iran-backed militia, which has controlled parts of Yemen since 2014, has been targeting ships bound for Israeli ports or those owned by Israeli companies in the Red and Arabian seas a......