US President Donald Trump made a u-turn on his campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi militia after huge financial losses and American casualties became impossible to justify, according to the New York Times.
After 30 days of a ramped-up campaign against the Islamist militia amid its blockade of commercial shipping in the Red Sea region, US strikes had used around $1 billion of weapons and munitions.
In addition, two $67 million F/A-18 Super Hornets from America’s flagship aircraft carrier tasked with conducting strikes against the Houthis accidentally tumbled off the carrier into the sea.
On day 31 of the operation to quash the blockade in the key maritime trade route, Trump is reported to have requested a report, in which the numbers began to reflect an ever costly operation against the group only becoming more adamant in its own mission.
The Houthis shot down several American MQ-9 Reaper drones and continued to fire at naval ships in the Red Sea, including an American aircraft carrier, with the US failing to gain even air superiority over the group the US has listed as a terrorist organization.
“In those first 30 days, the Houthis shot down seven American MQ-9 drones (around $30 million each), hampering Central Command’s ability to track and strike the militant group,” the NYT reported.
“Several American F-16s and an F-35 fighter jet were nearly struck by Houthi air defenses, making real the possibility of American casualties,” the NYT said, according to multiple US officials.
When two pilots and a flight deck crew member were injured in the two episodes involving the F/A-18 Super Hornets, which fell into the Red Sea from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman within 10 days of each other, that fear became a reality.
The Pentagon reported that American strikes had hit multiple command and control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations.
More than a dozen senior Houthi leaders had been killed, according to the US military, but the cost was mounting with the deployment of two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses, to the Middle East, officials told the NYT.
A White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said in a statement to The New York Times that the US military had carried out more than 1,100 strikes, killing hundreds of Houthi fighters and destroying their weapons and equipment.
The chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, said the operation was always meant to be limited. “Every aspect of the campaign was coordinated at the highest levels of civilian and military leadership,” he said in an emailed statement to the NYT.
Under former President Joe Biden, the US was leading a more than 20-nation coalition against the Houthi blockade, which had seen targeted strikes on the group’s infrastructure, but in a bid to free up global shipping, Trump cracked down on the Iran-backed group, before the costs began to raise eyebrows.
But now, while the Houthis have paused attacks on commercial shipping since the Oman-mediated ceasefire with the US, the group has continued targeting Israel, with one ballistic missile missing the country’s main airport by just meters earlier this month.
Ben-Gurion Airport in central Israel remains a target from the group, which has issued multiple statements warning it is no longer safe.
The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza and they will not stop until a full ceasefire in Gaza.
Since the US agreed to the ceasefire, Israel has begun to step up its own operations against the Houthis independently of the US agreement.
