‘We May’: Trump Says US Could Soon Start Bombing Yemen Again to Help Saudi Arabia

This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org

By Jake Johnson

President Donald Trump said Saturday that his administration could soon join Saudi Arabia’s military assault on Yemen following a deadly Houthi attack on Riyadh’s international airport, the latest salvo in a long-running conflict that has intensified since the US launched an illegal war on Iran earlier this year.

Trump told reporters that “we may” join US ally Saudi Arabia in directly attacking Yemen’s Houthis. The president said that “we’re going to look at it,” adding, “We move very quickly.”

The president’s remarks prompted swift pushback from progressives in the US. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is considering a presidential run in 2028, wrote on social media that “Congress never authorized Trump to wage war to defend the Saudi regime.”

“I introduced a Yemen War Powers Resolution (H.Con.Res.124) with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to mandate that the US stay out of war in Yemen,” added Khanna, who has been working for years to stop unauthorized US involvement in Saudi-led attacks on Yemen.

“Trump must honor the US-Yemen ceasefire and use diplomacy, not war,” wrote the California Democrat, referring to a 2025 agreement that the president reached with the Houthis following a weeks-long US bombing campaign. The US attacks came as the Houthis targeted shipping in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

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The Costs of War project at Brown University estimates that in the two years after October 7, 2023, the US spent between $2.76 billion and $4.95 billion attacking the Houthis. American forces have been bombing Yemen since 2002 and have for years supported devastating Saudi-led coalition attacks on one of the world’s poorest countries.

Trump said Saturday that members of his administration “have communication with the Houthis,” a political and military organization that claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on the Saudi airport. The attack, which drew international condemnation, killed at least a dozen people—including one US citizen—and injured over 300 more.

The New York Times observed Sunday that “repeated, deadly Houthi attacks on the airport this week have struck at the heart of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitions to turn the city into a global travel and business hub, threatening to disrupt major international events planned for the coming weeks.”

“Across the border in Yemen, Saudi warplanes have been waging a deadly bombing campaign against the Houthis, who say that the country has been subjected to hundreds of airstrikes in recent weeks,” the Times added. “Since September 3, airstrikes have killed 91 people in Yemen, mostly women and children, according to Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi government-affiliated health ministry.”

The Houthis are also facing an all-out assault from Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, which is aiming to recapture Houthi-controlled areas. Trump administration officials told Axios earlier this month that the US military is providing Saudi Arabia with “everything short of direct combat, mainly intelligence and targeting data.”

The Saudi crown prince has reportedly pressured Trump to intervene directly in the Saudi-led assault on the Houthis.

The US-based advocacy group Just Foreign Policy said Sunday that “there is nothing less America First than waging an unconstitutional war to defend the corrupt Saudi regime.”

“The Saudis should use diplomacy to resolve their dispute,” the group added.

[Wc/HP]

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