U.S. Troops Are Being Attacked Every Other Day in the Middle East
As Trump talks of a ceasefire with the Houthis, soldiers in the Middle East have faced steady and seldom discussed attacks. The post U.S. Troops Are Being Attacked Every Other Day in the Middle East appeared first on The Intercept.
U.S. troops in the Middle East have come under attack close to 400 times, at a minimum, since the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, according to figures provided to The Intercept by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Central Command.
The strikes, predominantly by Iranian-backed militias and the Houthi government in Yemen, include a mix of one-way attack drones, rockets, mortars, and ballistic missiles fired at fixed bases and U.S. warships across the region. These groups ramped up attacks on U.S. targets in October 2023, in response to the U.S.-supported Israeli war on Gaza.
The casualty revelations come as President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire with the Houthis, claiming they had “capitulated” to the United States. “The Houthis have announced — to us, at least — that they don’t want to fight anymore,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “We will stop the bombings,” he continued, noting that U.S. attacks would end “immediately.”
Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a member of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, said the Houthis had not immediately agreed to the U.S.-proposed ceasefire. The Houthis would “evaluate” the U.S. proposal “on the ground first,” he posted on Tuesday.
When asked for clarification regarding Trump’s claims, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump’s remarks were “clear.”
Houthi strikes on U.S. forces, which began during the Biden administration, continued during Trump’s second term, despite threats that continued attacks would be met with overwhelming force. “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!” Trump ranted on TruthSocial on March 15. Trump then decreed that the Houthis would be “completely annihilated.” In what Trump described as “large-scale strikes in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen,” the U.S. targeted civilian infrastructure and, according to local reports, killed scores of innocent people.
The attacks on Yemen have continued with Israel and the United Kingdom joining in the bombardment. More than a month after Trump’s bellicose boasts, however, the Houthis have continued to strike at U.S. military personnel, just as they and militant groups across the Middle East have done hundreds of times since the beginning of the Gaza war.
U.S. Navy vessels in the region have been the most frequent target, coming under attack 174 times since October 2023, Central Command told The Intercept. There have also been “about 200” attacks on U.S. bases in the region since the Gaza war began, according to Pentagon spokesperson Patricia Kreuzberger. This amounts to roughly one attack every 1.5 days, on average. This includes more than 100 attacks on U.S. outposts in Syria and a lesser number in Iraq and Jordan. A January 2024 drone attack on Tower 22, a facility in the latter country, killed three U.S. troops.
The Pentagon recently bragged that it had attacked more than 1,000 Houthi targets since March 15, as part of Operation Rough Rider, while denigrating the Houthis’ ability to strike back at the U.S. military.
Just last week, a $60 million U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter was lost at sea when it fell overboard from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier. The Truman reportedly made a sharp turn to evade a Houthi attack, which caused the jet to plunge overboard. One sailor was injured in the chaos.
“After a month of Trump’s empty threats to annihilate us, I am responding to you, not from the afterlife, but from this worldly life, specifically from Al-Sab’een Square in the capital, Sana’a,” Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi spokesman, told The Intercept by direct message, calling Trump a laughingstock ahead of the announced ceasefire.
Amer said that Houthi attacks had actually destroyed two F/A-18s. CENTCOM pushed back on this. “Houthis continue to communicate lies and disinformation,” an unnamed “defense official” told The Intercept. “Their messaging depends on lies.”
Amid the rising death toll in Yemen, some lawmakers have been pressing for an end to U.S. attacks. “We cannot bomb our way to peace. As someone who’s seen the human cost of war and displacement. I know we need a foreign policy rooted in human rights,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar on Tuesday as feminist leaders gathered on Capitol Hill to unveil the Feminist Peace Playbook, a foreign policy strategy that runs counter to Trump’s antagonistic approach.
Although he wasted little time in launching his own bombing campaign in Yemen this year, as a presidential candidate, Trump was critical of Biden administration attacks on the Houthis. “It’s crazy. You can solve problems over the telephone. Instead, they start dropping bombs. I see, recently, they’re dropping bombs all over Yemen. You don’t have to do that. You can talk in such a way where they respect you and they listen to you,” Trump said in a May 2024 interview with podcaster Tim Pool.
America’s enemies, specifically Iranian-backed militias, have been striking U.S. bases, intermittently, since the late 2010s. Regular tit-for-tat attacks began in January 2020 when Iran’s top general, Qassim Suleimani, was killed near the Baghdad airport in a U.S. drone strike authorized by Trump. Trump said the U.S. was “totally prepared” for Iran to retaliate — which it did by firing 22 ballistic missiles at two American bases in Iraq. “All is well!” Trump proclaimed in the wake of the attack, as the U.S. claimed no U.S. troops were killed or wounded. Weeks later, the Pentagon admitted that there were actually 109 U.S. casualties.
Recently, U.S. Central Command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the White House have orchestrated a casualty cover-up, refusing to disclose the number of U.S. troops killed or wounded in Houthi attacks.
Under the Biden administration, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and CENTCOM provided detailed data on attacks on military bases across the Middle East — including to this reporter. CENTCOM provided the total number of attacks, breakdowns by country, and the total number injured. The Pentagon offered even more granular data, providing individual synopses of more than 150 attacks, including information on deaths and injuries not only to U.S. troops but even civilian contractors working on U.S. bases.
The post U.S. Troops Are Being Attacked Every Other Day in the Middle East appeared first on The Intercept.
