In mid-March, in response to more than a year of targeted drone and missile attacks against commercial ships and military vessels, President Donald Trump ordered U.S. military airstrikes against the designated terrorist Houthi rebels in Yemen.

On Friday, Trump posted to social media a video clip of one such strike that allegedly targeted a large gathering of Houthi fighters, Breitbart reported.

Yet, while the president celebrated the apparent success of the strike, critics have claimed that the targeted gathering was not a group of fighters planning attacks, but instead was an innocent civilian tribal council.

"Oops, there will be no attack by these Houthis!"

In a social media post on Friday, President Trump shared what appeared to be black-and-white drone footage of an airstrike against dozens of individuals gathered in a large oval somewhere in Yemen.

Trump wrote, "These Houthis gathered for instructions on an attack. Oops, there will be no attack by these Houthis! They will never sink our ships again!"

These Houthis gathered for instructions on an attack. Oops, there will be no attack by these Houthis!

They will never sink our ships again! pic.twitter.com/lEzfyDgWP5

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2025

Houthis pose a threat to commercial shipping lanes

Since October 2023, per Breitbart, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched more than 300 drone and missile attacks against commercial ships and military vessels traversing the vital shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, and Suez Canal, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians versus Israel in Gaza.

While only a couple of commercial ships have been sunk and a few others damaged by the largely ineffective Houthi attacks over the past year and a half, those attacks have been somewhat successful in forcing commercial vessels to take the long journey around southern Africa rather than risk traveling the much shorter trade route through the Red Sea and Suez Canal to get back and forth from Asia to Europe.

Beginning in March, and at President Trump's order, the U.S. military has been conducting targeted airstrikes against Houthi launch sites, infrastructure, and leadership to try to end the threat and ensure that international shipping lanes are freely navigable.

How is the fight against the Houthis going?

The effectiveness of the U.S. airstrikes in ending the Houthi threat against shipping lanes has been called into question by some, however, and CNN reported that the Houthis may actually be "relishing" the U.S. attacks against them, in that increases the odds of further U.S. military involvement in the Middle East and has proven to the world how dangerous and resilient the rebel fighters truly are.

Indeed, some analysts and experts suspect that airstrikes alone may not be enough to fully quell the Houthis and that it may take a ground invasion -- likely involving U.S.-backed regional allies but not U.S. troops -- to dislodge the Houthis from the critical areas they occupy, such as Yemen's capital and major port city.

As for the particular strike highlighted by President Trump, some critics assert that the targeted group was a bunch of innocent civilians and not rebel fighters, given how the large oval gathering is ubiquitous in Yemeni culture for tribal councils and village celebrations.

NPR reported that Yemen's Houthi-controlled news agency, SABA, claimed that the targeted gathering shown in the video shared by Trump was indeed a celebration of the end of Ramadan, but notably did not describe the individuals as being civilians, suggesting that they may actually have been rebel fighters, though perhaps not gathered at that time to plan future attacks.

As for how many casualties have been inflicted by the U.S. airstrikes over the past few weeks, of which more than 200 have been launched, that is more difficult to determine, as the Houthi media reports routinely downplay the number of dead and wounded following such strikes.