By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House has said that U.S. strikes in Yemen earlier this month killed the Houthi top missile expert, but the U.S. military has so far declined to confirm the death, and the identity of the Houthi commander in question is unclear.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, in public remarks to CBS News the weekend after the March 15 strikes, said the first wave killed “their head missileer.”
Waltz also touted the killing in a secret text chat, disclosed publicly by The Atlantic last week, saying: “The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told Reuters that they were unaware of any independent U.S. military confirmation that such a person had been killed.
It is unusual for the Pentagon to not confirm a White House announcement about a military operation. Typically, the military publicly reveals details about high-value targets within days of a successful mission.
Asked for confirmation that the Houthi top missile expert was killed in a U.S. strike, the White House referred Reuters to the U.S. military. The U.S. military declined repeated requests, made over a week, to confirm the killing or to provide the name of the individual killed.
Houthi representatives could not immediately be reached for comment during the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.
According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, Abdul Khaliq Badruddin Al-Houthi is the “de-facto commander of the Strategic Missile Forces.”
Mohammed Albasha, whose Basha Report risk advisory firm researches open-source information about Yemen, has tallied Houthi reports of more than 40 Houthi fighters killed in action in air strikes in March.
Nobody as senior as Abdul Khaliq Badruddin Al-Houthi has been identified yet, he said, nor is he aware of any death announced on Houthi television of a person whose profile would be a match for the individual mentioned by Waltz.
Still, the Houthis don’t always identify their dead right away, and leaders of the missile forces are considered “secret,” he cautioned.
Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said whomever Waltz referred to would be an Iranian-trained missile specialist “doing the hands-on control of this system.”
“If they think that they got that guy, they probably got that guy,” Knights said.
NO MENTION OF MISSILE EXPERT IN PUBLIC REMARKS
U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich, director for operations at the Joint Staff, did not mention a missileer in his public remarks about the strikes on March 17. However, he said an aerial drone facility “was struck, with several key leaders.”
In a post on Truth Social on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the Houthis had been “decimated” by the U.S. strikes.
“Many of their Leaders are no longer with us,” he wrote, without giving further details.
The strikes, the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January, are meant to force the Iran-aligned Houthis to renounce attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, including against U.S. warships.
The group has carried out over 100 attacks on shipping since Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they are acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.
The attacks have disrupted global commerce and set the U.S. military off on a costly campaign to intercept missiles.
Under the leadership of Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the Houthi militia numbers in the tens of thousands and has acquired a sophisticated arsenal of drones and ballistic missiles.
Houthi leaders have said they will escalate attacks in response to the U.S. campaign.
Knights said the U.S. strikes are far more intense than those carried out under President Joe Biden’s administration. Still, he questioned whether a group that endured years of war against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia would submit.
“They are very pain tolerant, so they’re the worst people to try and publicly coerce,” Knights said.
“We’re probably pursuing something unattainable in trying to actually make the Houthis be submissive.”
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Don Durfee and Rosalba O’Brien)
