A senior official of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, widely known as the Houthi movement, has ridiculed reports of Iranian forces withdrawing from the Arab nation due to a United States air campaign the rebel group says has failed to achieve any meaningful objectives.
Quoting a senior Iranian official, The Telegraph reported on Thursday that Iran had begun pulling military personnel out of Yemen, believing its Ansar Allah ally “will not be able to survive” the coming months, or even days. The senior Iranian official was cited as saying that President Donald Trump’s position was the top concern for the Islamic Republic following the U.S. leader’s direct threats to Iran over Ansar Allah’s campaign of missile and drone strikes against Israel and ships accused of doing business with Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Speaking with Newsweek on Friday, a senior Ansar Allah official mocked the very assertion that Iran had deployed personnel to Yemen in the first place.
“There are no Iranian forces in Yemen to withdraw from,” the Ansar Allah official said. “So the matter does not require denial but rather laughing out loud.”
The Ansar Allah official also disputed the impact of the U.S. strikes that Trump has referred to as “tremendously successful,” allegedly killing scores of senior leaders. Trump’s claim was backed by Moamar al-Eryani, information minister of Yemen’s internationally recognized government that was ousted from the capital by Ansar Allah a decade ago. Al-Eryani said earlier on Friday that up to 70 Ansar Allah personnel had been killed in U.S. strikes, including prominent field commanders, along with members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“All this information is inaccurate, and the information published since the beginning of the American escalation against Yemen is misleading and far from reality, whether that is regarding the destruction of military capabilities or targeting leaders, all of which are far from the truth,” the senior Ansar Allah official said.
“We in Sanaa, thanks to God, from the beginning, have obtained sufficient and detailed information about the first American strikes and their targets, and we took all preventive measures to avoid any harm, and we succeeded in that with God’s grace and help,” the senior Ansar Allah official added. “Therefore, we consider the American aggression a failure from its first day and did not achieve any goal other than killing civilians.”
Why This Matters
The U.S. has conducted a sustained campaign against Ansar Allah under Trump orders since March 15. The attacks mark the most intensive U.S. military operations since he took office in January promising to oversee peace in the Middle East.
Trump has also threatened to retaliate against Iran directly, even as he seeks to revive negotiations with Tehran regarding its nuclear program. Nearly seven years after Trump abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear accord with Iran during his first administration, the president reportedly issued Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a 60-day deadline in a letter delivered last month.
Ansar Allah, however, has pressed on with its offensive against Israel and maritime traffic in the Red Sea and surrounding waters. The group had paused attacks in January after Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement reached a ceasefire in Gaza but has resumed strikes in the wake of Israel scrapping the truce.
“As for our military operations, they are continuing and have not stopped, and we have not allowed the passage of any Israeli ship since we announced preventing it from passing against the backdrop of the Israeli enemy’s renunciation of the agreement in Gaza, and until now, no ship has passed.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) for comment.
What to Know
Exactly a decade before Trump initiated military action against Ansar Allah, Saudi Arabia led a coalition to attempt to unseat the group from power in Sanaa in March 2015. The group had taken advantage of the chaos surrounding the ousting of longtime Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh amid the Arab Spring protest movement in 2012 and subsequent instability to make lightning advances, ultimately taking control of about a third of the country and 80 percent of its population.
As the Saudi-led intervention failed to defeat the group, Yemen’s civil war largely came to a halt with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in April 2022. Hopes for peace came the following year as Iran and Saudi Arabia resumed ties under a China-mediated agreement, but new tensions arose in October 2023 as Ansar Allah joined a multi-front effort by the Iran-aligned Axis of Resistance to support Hamas in its war with Israel.
The Trump administration has since counted more than 145 attacks by Ansar Allah on commercial vessels and 174 on U.S. Navy ships. While the Pentagon has dismissed claims of any successful strikes against U.S. warships, U.S. officials have acknowledged the downing of numerous military drones.
Ansar Allah military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced earlier Friday the downing of an F360 Shark unmanned aerial vehicle “operated by the American-Israeli enemy” over Yemen’s Saadah governorate, as well as the targeting of a military base in the Israeli city of Yaffa, using a drone also called “Yaffa.”
The group has claimed dozens of strikes against Israel throughout the war in Gaza, some of which have managed to evade the country’s state-of-the-art air defense systems. Israel has also targeted Ansar Allah in several rounds of strikes.
Thus far, Ansar Allah has yet to announce the deaths of any senior commanders. Days before Trump commenced strikes against the group, a senior Ansar Allah official had told Newsweek that it was “proceeding with extreme caution” to protect top officials, including its leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
What People Are Saying
Yemeni Information Minister Moamar el-Eryani in an X post on Friday: “Despite the Houthis’ strict secrecy about the human losses, sources confirm that these operations have caused confusion within the ranks of the Houthi militia, which seeks to minimize their repercussions by maintaining a media blackout and preventing the publication of the names and photos of the dead.”
“However, the clear fact remains that these operations represent a major shift in the course of the confrontation, and a clear message that any threat to regional security and maritime corridors will not pass without a decisive response.”
Ansar Allah military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree in a statement Friday: “The Yemeni Armed Forces call on all free people of our nation to act quickly to support the oppressed Palestinian people and stop the genocidal war being perpetrated against them.”
“These horrific crimes are being committed today in Gaza, and tomorrow they could be committed in other Arab and Islamic cities, capitals and countries. The consequences of silence, inaction and failure to fulfill one’s religious, moral and humanitarian duties will be dire for all.
“The armed forces reiterate their commitment to continuing to fulfill their duties toward the oppressed Palestinian people until the aggression stops and the siege imposed on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during a call Thursday with Yemen’s Ansar Allah-led Supreme Political Council Chair Mahdi al-Mashat to commemorate the Islamic holy feast of Eid al-Fitr: “This month is a good opportunity to realize that if Muslims are united and cohesive, the enemies will not be able to oppress any of the Muslim nations.”
What Happens Next?
Ansar Allah continues to prove itself undeterred by U.S. or Israeli military action despite Trump’s threats of a looming escalation.
Meanwhile, as officials and experts debate the cost of open-ended U.S. action against Ansar Allah, which is nearing $1 billion, according to three sources cited Friday by CNN, the campaign has also come under separate scrutiny for being at the center of an early intelligence scandal. The Trump administration continues to face backlash after Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently added to a Signal chat in which top Trump administration officials discussed their plans to strike Ansar Allah last month.
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