US war on Yemen ‘helps to enhance our military capabilities’: Ansarallah leader
The Cradle, April 10, 2025 ─
Dozens have been killed in relentless US attacks throughout Yemen over the past month, even as officials in Washington express growing concerns about the limited results of the war.
Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi declared on 10 April that Washington’s war on Yemen “will not be able” to weaken the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) and is instead “contributing to their further development.”
“The American enemy will not be able to destroy our military capabilities, our support for Gaza, or prevent us from targeting Israeli maritime navigation. Rather, we will escalate further, and we are constantly developing our military capabilities,” the Yemeni resistance leader said during a televised speech.
He also confirmed that YAF operations in support of Palestine “will continue, whether through missile and drone strikes in occupied Palestine or by preventing Israeli navigation at sea.”
“The Israeli enemy’s maritime navigation through the Red Sea has completely halted; Israel has reached a point of despair, and the Port of Eilat remains deserted – they can no longer make use of it,” Houthi said.
His speech came hours after US airstrikes hit the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and the port city of Hodeidah, killing at least 16 people, most of them women and children, according to Al-Masirah TV.
The US restarted its illegal war on the Arab world’s poorest country last month to support the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, bombing Yemen hundreds of times in attacks that have so far failed to degrade Sanaa’s military capabilities.
The intense air campaign has ignited concerns in Washington that the US army will soon need to relocate long-range precision munitions from the Asia-Pacific region due to the large amounts of weaponry Washington is burning through.
“US readiness in the Pacific is being hurt by the Pentagon’s deployment of warships and aircraft … The American ships and aircraft, as well as the service members working on them, are being pushed at what the military calls a high operating tempo. Even basic equipment maintenance becomes an issue under those grinding conditions,” anonymous congressional officials told the New York Times (NYT).
The USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, which the YAF constantly targets in the Red Sea, will soon be joined by the USS Carl Vinson, which was previously deployed in the western Pacific.
Sources who spoke to CNN over the weekend indicated that the Yemen war has cost Washington nearly $1 billion in less than three weeks. Additionally, the YAF has shot down nearly 20 advanced MQ-9 Reaper drones, each costing $30 million.
According to reports in Arabic media on Thursday, Sanaa recently refused a US proposal to halt attacks against US warships in the Red Sea in return for Washington halting its airstrikes.
“Yemen will respond to a siege with a siege and escalation with escalation. The aggressor is the most unjust. If you return [to hostilities], we will return [to hostilities]. We will force the Zionist entity and those who support it to submit to international laws and agreements, including the truce agreements,” the Defense Minister in the Ansarallah-led National Salvation Government (NSG), Major General Mohammed al-Atifi, said on 17 March.