By Jon Gambrell
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (AP) – US air strikes targeting an oil port owned by Yemen Houthi rebels killed 74 people and injured 171 others, the group said on Friday in the deadliest attack under the new military campaign of President Donald Trump against the faction supported by Iran.
The strike at the port of Ras Isa, which sent massive fire balls pulling in the night sky, represented a major escalation in the American effort by hitting oil installations for the first time.
The assessment of the Trump’s campaign’s assessment, which began on March 15, was difficult because the central command of the US military has not published any information, including the objectives of its attacks and the number of people killed. The Houthis, on the other hand, strictly control access to the attacked areas and do not publish complete information on the strikes, many of which have probably targeted military and security sites.
In a statement, Central Command said that “American forces have taken measures to eliminate this fuel source for Houthi terrorists supported by Iran and deprive them of illegal income that has financed Houthi efforts to terrorize the whole region for more than 10 years.”
“This strike was not intended to harm the inhabitants of Yemen, who rightly want to eliminate the yoke of the Houthi subjugation and live peacefully,” he added. He did not recognize any victim of the attack or offered an assessment of damage.
A few hours after the strike, the Houthis launched a missile to Israel that was intercepted, said the Israeli army. The sirens resounded to Tel Aviv and elsewhere.
The Civil War of Yemen, on the other hand,, when the United States allegedly alleged that a Chinese satellite company “supported Houthi attacks directly” – an assertion that Beijing refused to comment directly. And a second cycle of negotiations between Iran and the United States on the rapid nuclear program of Tehran, which America linked to the Yemen campaign, should occur on Saturday in Rome.
We hit massive spark Fireball
The Port Ras Isa, a collection of oil and refining equipment reservoirs, is in the Governor of Hodeida Yemen along the Red Sea. It is right next to the island of Kamaran, which has been targeted by intense American air strikes in recent days.
The Al-Masirah satellite news channel of Houthis has disseminated graphic images of the consequences, showing corpses scattered on the site and broke fire trucks.
The satellite images of the Port of Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by the Associated Press showed oil tanks and destroyed vehicles. The oil also seemed to be fuy in the Red Sea. Wim Zwijnenburg, analyst with the Dutch Peace Pax organization, said that it seemed that three fuel storage tanks had been destroyed and that the oil had fled mooring pipelines.
The port is also the terminus of an oil pipeline extending towards the governor of the rich husbands of Yemen, who is held by the exiled government of the allies of Yemen. The Houthis expelled this government from the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, in 2014. However, oil exports were interrupted by the Decadelong War and the Houthis used Ras Isa to bring oil.
Ras Isa welcomes petrol, diesel and liquefied oil gas for Houthis. Damage caused by air strikes could seriously affect life in areas held by Yemen Houthis.
The Houthis denounced the American attack as a “completely unjustified assault”.
“He targets a vital vital establishment that served the Yemeni people for decades,” the Houthis said in a statement.
On April 9, the US State Department issued a warning of oil shipments to Yemen, claiming that it would “not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Houthis”.
The attack follows Israeli air strikes on the Houthis that hit the port and oil infrastructure used by rebels after their attacks on Israel, including Ras Isa.
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This photo taken from the video published by Al Masirah TV Channel shows doctors carrying a person deceased after the American air strikes targeted the oil port Ras Isa held by the Houthi rebels in Yemen in Hodeida, Yemen, Friday April 18, 2025. (Al Masirah TV via AP)
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This photo taken from the video published by Al Masirah TV Channel shows doctors carrying a person who died after the American air strikes targeted the oil port of Ras Isa oil held by the Houthi rebels in Yemen in Hodeida, Yemen, Friday April 18, 2025. (Al Masirah TV via AP)
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The most deadly known attack on Trump Yemen campaign
The air strike on the port is the deadliest attack known to date in Trump’s campaign against the Houthis. The real cost in lives is difficult to assess, said Luca Nevola, principal analyst in Yemen and the Gulf of the data project on the location and the event of armed conflicts, a reflection group.
“Since they target civil zones, there are many more victims. But it is also difficult to assess how much because the Houthis publish these umbrella declarations which cover all the victims … or tend to emphasize only civilian victims,” said Nevola.
US strikes are reaching more the situation in the United States, said Mohammed Al-Basha, an expert in Yemen in Basha Report Risk Advisory. He underlined an American attack that Trump highlighted online with black and white striking images, which could have killed around 70 fighters.
“Although the Houthis said it was a tribal gathering, they did not free any sequence or named a single victim, strongly suggesting that the victims were not civilians but affiliated combatants,” Al-Basha said. “However, the night strike on the Ras Isa fuel port marks the first Casualy mass incident that the Houthis have openly recognized and published.”
The United States accuses a Chinese satellite company of helping Houthi attacks
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the State Department, Tammy Bruce, during a briefing with accused journalists Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co. Ltd., a supplier of commercial satellite images, to “directly support the Houthi terrorist attacks supported by Iran against American interests”.
Bruce did not develop in detail, but recognized a financial report which quoted anonymous American officials saying that the company linked to the army of popular liberation has provided images allowing rebels to target American warships and commercial ships traveling in the corridor of the Red Sea.
Bruce said that “the support of Beijing … of the satellite company” “contradicts their demands to be supporters of peace”.
The spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, answering a question on allegation, said on Friday: “I do not know the situation you mentioned.” However, he insisted that China is considered to urged countries “to make more efforts conducive to regional peace and stability”.
“Since the climbing in the situation of the Red Sea, China plays a positive role in the de -escalation of the situation,” said Lin. “Who promotes talks for peace and deforming tensions, and who impose sanctions and pressures?”
Chang Guang did not respond to the request for comments. The US Treasury sanctioned the company in 2023 for having pretended satellite images to the Mercenary Force Russian the Wagner group when he had fought in Ukraine.
It is not clear if Chang Guang is linked to the Chinese government. The American government in the past has used images taken by American commercial satellite companies to share with allies, such as Ukraine, to avoid publishing its own top secret images.
American strikes are part of an intense one month campaign
A review AP revealed that the new American operation against the Houthis under President Donald Trump seems more extensive than that under former president Joe Biden. The new air strike campaign started after the rebels threatened to start targeting “Israeli” ships again on Israel’s blocks in the Gaza Strip.
The Houthis have targeted more than 100 merchant ships with missiles and drones, flowing two of them and killing four sailors from November 2023 to January this year. This has considerably reduced the flow of commerce through the corridor of the Red Sea, which generally sees 1 billion of dollars of goods moving through. The Houthis have also launched attacks targeting US warships without success.
The writer Associated Press Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
