At least 70 Houthis were killed in a US airstrike on April 2 against the rebel group in Yemen's western Hodeidah province.
This was stated by the Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, Muammar al-Iryani.
“70 terrorists were killed in a precision US military airstrike on a Houthi meeting place in the southern coastal region of Al-Fazah in Hodeidah province on Tuesday, April 2“, he wrote on his X page. According to Al-Iryani, the strike killed “prominent Houthi leaders“, as well as advisers from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are said to be supporting the Yemeni rebels.
In confirmation of this information, Al-Iryani released a video that US President Donald Trump had previously posted on his page on the social network Truth Social. Footage from a military aircraft or drone's onboard camera showed the moment when the bomb was dropped on an open area where at least 80 people were. According to the American leader, the strike was carried out against the Houthis, who "gathered to receive instructions to carry out attacks".
Meanwhile, some social media users noted that participants in the tribal meeting were bombed. The footage published by the US president shows that the strike was carried out on a group of people who were in an oval row, with one person coming out closest to the center. This arrangement is typical of Yemeni tribal leaders' meetings, if the meeting is held outdoors, with the most respected sheikhs standing in the center or facing everyone.
The minister pointed out that the target was "in a closed military zone located less than ten kilometers from the battle lines of contact. According to him, this part of Al-Hudaydah province is the main coordination center that the Houthis use to carry out attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea.
“If this was a tribal gathering, as the Houthis claim, and there were civilian casualties, they would have immediately published photos and names of the dead, as they did before,“ said Al-Iryani.