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President Donald Trump escalated tensions with Iran on Monday, declaring that any additional strikes from Yemen’s Houthi militants will be seen as a direct attack from Iran and be met with “great force.”
“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump’s threats echo his administration’s recent efforts to crack down on the militant group’s attacks on U.S. warships and assert dominance over Iran. The president announced over the weekend that the U.S. launched a new campaign of airstrikes against multiple targets controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen — the greatest use of military force against foreign adversaries by the administration yet.
“Any further attack or retaliation by the ‘Houthis’ will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there,” Trump wrote.
The Houthis have been targeting military and commercial shipping in the Red Sea for the past two years, effectively shuttering a crucial waterway for global commercial trade.
On Sunday, Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, did not dismiss the possibility of using military coercion against Iran in either retaliation against the country’s backing of the Houthis or its ambitions to become a nuclear power.
