A mortal explosion on Sunday close to a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the capital of Yemen was caused by a Houthi missile, not by an American air attack, said a spokesman for the United States Central Command on Thursday.
The Ministry of Health of the Government led by Houthi declared at the beginning of this week that an American air attack had affected a densely populated neighborhood of Sana, the Yemeni capital, killing 12 people and injuring other 30. The explosion hit an area adjacent to the old city of Sana, a UNESCO World Heritage full of ancient towers.
Dave Eastburn, a spokesperson for the Central Command of the United States, who supervises the operations in the Middle East, declared in a declaration that while the damage and the victims described by local health officials are more “probably occurred”, they were not the result of an American attack. While the United States had conducted military operations on Sana that night, the closest American strike was more than three miles away, he added.
The evaluation of the Pentagon according to which the damage was caused by a “Houthi air defense missile” was based on a review of “local relationships, including videos that document Arab writing on the fragments of the missile on the market”, said Eastburn. The Pentagon did not provide those videos or evidence of his statements in his statements.
An initial review of the New York Times of local reporting and open source material in Yemen found a video showing a fragment of missile with Arab writing published on social media, however it came from a position other than the market in the old city of Sana.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Houthis politburo, said in a telephone interview that American negation was an attempt to smear the Houthi. He reiterated that the group believed that the United States had targeted the neighborhood on Sunday, “just as previously had targeted ports, cemeteries and houses of citizens, causing the death of hundreds”.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has conducted an intense bombing campaign on the areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthi, a militia supported by Iran who governs much of the north of the country with an iron fist. The militia shot rockets and drones in Israel and attacking the ships in the nearby Red Sea, in a countryside that its leaders say that it is in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
As a question about the Times at the beginning of this week on Sunday strike, the United States Department of Defense did not comment on Houthi's statements. Instead, he said in a declaration that the United States were targeting “Houthi's offices supported by Iran every day and night in Yemen” with the intention of restoring freedom of navigation and dissuading the Houthi from further attacks.
The details of the strikes were demanding to verify for journalists on the field. Houthi officials hindered journalists and citizens to document the air attacks – including the site of Sunday's explosion – warning that such information could be exploited by foreign enemies. To the question about these restrictions, Al-Bukhaiti said that “it is common that the targeted area is isolated to facilitate rescue operations and to prevent civilians from collecting, in case of renewed strikes or doctors targeting”.
For almost a decade, Yemen was at war. After the Houthi, a tribal militia once snappy, pointed out the Yemeni capital, the country was hit by a Saudi -guided military coalition provided with American bombs in an attempt to defeat them.
That coalition expected a quick victory. Instead, hundreds of thousands of people died from combat, hunger and diseases. And since the coalition retired several years ago, in part due to the international pressure, the Houthi deepened their grip on power, evolving into a factual government in northern Yemen.
The Houthi began their last attacks at the end of 2023, after Hamas rushed to the south of Israel, killing about 1,200 people and bringing hundreds of other prisoners to Gaza. Israel replied bombing the territory, killing more than 50,000 people, according to the health authorities of Gaza, whose figures do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The Houthi described their attacks on ships as an attempt to put pressure on Israel and external nations to increase the free flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, where over two million Palestinians have fought to obtain food and water.
Since the territory of Houthi borders with a vital navigable way that the ships have to pass to reach the Suez canal, the attacks have interrupted global trade, pushing the containers ships to take a longer road around the southern tip of Africa. Houthi claim to attack ships with Israeli or American bonds, although many of the targeted ships have not had a clear link with either of the two countries.
The United States and Great Britain began to bomb Houthi's goals last year, saying they were trying to stop the attacks on the expedition and in Israel.
The militia briefly stopped shooting rockets in Israel during a ceased fire of two months between Israel and Hamas this year. But after a truce ended in mid -March, Israel renewed his offensive to Gaza and the Houthi resumed to shoot ballistic missiles in the Israeli territory.
The Trump administration has started its campaign of air attacks in March.
The American strikes that hit a vital port in the Hudaydah region this month killed at least 74 people, said health officials under the government led by Houthi.
The Central Command of the United States said she had targeted the port because the fuel shipments were still scrolling through challenge to American penalties, allowing the funds to flow to the Houthi coffers. He did not provide his evaluation of how many people had been killed in the bombing.
The Secretary General António Guterres of the United Nations expressed “serious concern” for those strikes, stating in a declaration that said that at least five humanitarian operators were among the injured and soliciting all the parties in the conflict to respect international law and protect civil infrastructures.
So far, the American campaign does not seem to have discouraged the Houthi, who have continued to announce attacks on Israel and ships. Yemenite scholars who study the group warn that American air attacks will simply play in the militia agenda.
Arijeta Lajka AND Aric Toler Contributed relationships.