How Houthi 'Hornet's Nest' May Sting US

The militaries of the U.S. and its allies are preparing for potential Houthi escalation after overnight airstrikes on the Yemeni rebel group, which for months has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea and launching ballistic missiles towards Israel.

The U.S. Air Force's Mideast command said it struck over 60 targets at 16 sites in Yemen, including "command-and-control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, production facilities and air defense radar systems."

A senior U.S. defense official told journalists late on Thursday: "This was a significant action and conducted with every objective and every expectation that will degrade in a significant way the Houthis' capability to launch exactly the sorts of attacks that they have conducted over the period of recent weeks."

The Yemeni militant group—which since 2014 has been at war with the Western recognized Yemeni government and its allies in the form of a Saudi Arabian-led coalition—has vowed to hit back.

"Any strike against us will be responded to, absolutely, without the slightest doubt, with all force and determination, and the region will be on the verge of escalation, the end of which no one knows," Nasreddin Amer, the deputy information secretary for Ansar Allah—the official name for the Houthis—told Newsweek on Thursday as reports of the U.S.-UK strikes emerged.

The Western strikes alone will not stop the Houthis, a group that has successfully weathered nearly a decade of war with Saudi Arabia and its regional allies.

"I have no reason not to believe them," Bilal Saab—a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., and the director of its defense and security program—told Newsweek of the Houthi threats of retaliation.

"I don't think they're bluffing. They will respond…They see opportunity in a fistfight with the world's most powerful nation," he said. "We can see that the Western response is not going to work, has its risks, has its consequences. And yet, we still feel compelled—both for political reasons but also strategic—to pursue that approach.

"I do not think that inaction really was an option. Every single option that was presented to President Joe Biden was bad. And then it becomes an issue of choosing the least bad option."

Houthi Retaliation

The Pentagon has so far "not seen any direct retaliatory action directed towards our U.S. or other coalition members," the senior defense official said on Thursday. "We would not be surprised to see some sort of response.

"You know, as to whether this will merely degrade or also deter, I guess I can't do better than what the president has said, which is that he will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary."

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment further when contacted by Newsweek.

The Houthis boast around 20,000 fighters and a fearsome ballistic missile and drone arsenal, much of the equipment supplied by Iran or based on Iranian designs. The group has repeatedly launched successful missile and drone attacks on sensitive Saudi and Emirati military and infrastructure targets throughout their war with the Gulf nations.

Among the Houthi ballistic missiles are the Shahab 3, with a range of over 800 miles, and the Ghadar variants, with ranges of up to 1,200 miles. The Shahab 3 can hit most of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, while the longest-range Ghadars can reach Israel and Iraq.

American strategic facilities hosting thousands of personnel like the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the Naval Support Activity naval base in Bahrain and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait are all within range.

The Houthis have also been boosting their anti-ship ballistic missile capabilities, and thanks to Iranian systems can hit targets out to and above 500 miles.

The group has proven itself adept and innovative in long-range drone use, employing a range of Iranian-inspired systems including those from the Qasef, Shahed, and Mohajer families.

Continued harassment of Red Sea shipping is the most likely Houthi response, Andreas Krieg—an associate professor in the school of security studies at King's College, London—told Newsweek.

"They have to react in terms of saving face and legitimacy domestically," Krieg said, noting that rallies have already taken place in Houthi-controlled areas coinciding with Friday prayers. "They have to send a message."

"The Houthis have been in a state of war for an indefinite period for over 20 years, and they're happy to sustain any pressure indefinitely," Krieg added. "I think we will see more attacks on shipping from Yemen in the coming weeks."

"There's very little you can do remotely to coerce or compel the Houthis to stop," Krieg said. "The problem here is that by poking them, as they did yesterday in sending that strong message, the Houthis are most likely to be emboldened to continue."

Israel's Spiraling War

America's Gulf partners are distancing themselves from the operation. Saudi Arabia—which has been pursuing a peace deal with the Houthis to end the devastating war there—expressed "great concern" and called for "avoiding escalation."

The UAE noted "the importance of protecting the security of the region" while condemning attacks on Red Sea shipping. And Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi warned the Western operation would "only add fuel to an extremely dangerous situation."

"They don't want to be drawn and sucked in," Krieg said of America's regional allies. "It would take an Iranian green light to actually say [the Houthis] are allowed to strike the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar, and in this current context, the Iranians have no interest in escalating further with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

"They're trying to build a united front on the war in Gaza, against the West and against Israel. They don't want to alienate Saudi and the UAE for them to pivot further towards the Americans."

Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip shows no sign of ending, even if it is transitioning into a less intense phase. In Lebanon, skirmishes between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah threaten to erupt into a full-scale war, with tit-for-tat strikes between pro-Tehran militias and the U.S. in Iraq and Syria further raising the temperature.

"Any strike against us has no justification," Houthi official Amer said on Thursday, "as it is only support for Israel to continue killing the oppressed Palestinian people."

Saab noted: "Ideally, you want to pair that military response with some more serious diplomacy on the Gaza front, because at that point, you call the bluff of the Houthis."

A long-term campaign against the Yemeni group could degrade, if not defeat, the organization, Saab added. "But as we get there, you wonder if Western resolve will remain. You wonder if the capabilities will still be there when they are so much needed in other theaters."

If the Houthis do hit back as expected, the U.S. and its allies might find themselves in another tit-for-tat battle.

"We've hit a hornet's nest," Saab said. "It's either a sustained campaign in the event that the Houthis respond, or you don't strike at all. You don't just do a one off, because that would further signal weakness.

"These guys really benefit from a clash with the Americans for all sorts of reasons. It distracts locals and anybody watching the Houthis from their terrible governance in Yemen. It bolsters their credentials as the only actor that's really taken on the United States. So, there is opportunity for them."

Working with Iran

Iran's "axis of resistance" network is mobilized.

"This is not really a two-player game," Saab said of the evolving U.S.-Houthi showdown. "This is also a game that involves the Iranians."

Newsweek has contacted the Iranian mission to the United Nations by email to request comment on the U.S.-British strikes.

Ultimately, there appears little chance of a purely military solution; a lesson learned at great cost by America and its allies in doomed interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere.

"They're quite dispersed," Saab said of the Houthis. "They can hide in mountains, they can hide in tunnels, they do have capabilities, and they're going to continue to receive supplies from the Iranians."

The group is decentralized by design, Krieg added.

"There is not a single central command that could be coerced and could be engaged to ensure that the entire movement and the entire network complies with a particular policy," he said.

Even the extent of Tehran's influence is unclear.

"The most seasoned expert on Iran and the Houthis will not know the extent to which the Iranians have clout with the Houthis, beyond, of course, the very measurable and verifiable material support," Krieg added.

He said the group is too often thought of as merely an Iranian proxy.

"They are a self-sufficient Yemeni actor with their own interests, their own capabilities, and most importantly, with their own agency to determine their strategy," Krieg said.

Iran—which this week hijacked an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, a vessel previously seized by American authorities in 2023 when breaking sanctions to transport Iranian oil—appears in little mood to help. But Tehran and its regional allies also do not appear to want a major conflict.

The Houthi intentions are less clear, Saab said.

"They really have a propensity for violence that is hard to match in all the other parts of this Iranian network," he explained. "It's going to be really hard to tame them. It's going to be really hard to rein them in."