U.S. Central Command forces launched the first strikes of 2025 against the Houthis on Wednesday.
The forces, which were not identified, struck two Houthi underground Advanced Conventional Weapon storage facilities in Yemen, according to the Wednesday news release.
The strikes come eight days into the new year and are the first strikes since Dec. 31.
They also come two days after Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Sare’e posted on X that the Houthis attacked USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), preventing the carrier and its aircraft from attacking Yemen on Jan. 6. Central Command did not acknowledge the Houthi claims, although it did post pictures of flight operations aboard Truman on Jan. 7. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Wednesday that the Houthis did not strike Truman.
“We never said we were going to take every capability off the map,” Singh said. “What we did say is we’re going to continue to work to degrade capabilities and to ensure upholding the international rules-based order and the free flow of commerce through that region. So we continue to be successful in our strikes. Again, we’re not going to be able to take off the map every single capability, but every single time that we conduct a dynamic strike or do the strikes that you saw CENTCOM announce earlier this morning that further degrades their capabilities and takes things off the map that they can use again merchant ships or our own Navy ships.”
Central Command activity against the Houthis was slow in December, according to USNI News’ timeline of Red Sea activity. The Navy ended the year with a strike on Houthi targets in Yemen, just one of two strikes in December. The final strike came 10 days after USS Gettysburg (CG-64) shot down an American F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to Truman. The pilots ejected and were recovered. An investigation is still ongoing and the Navy has released little information about what happened.
The slow in Central Command activity likely reflects the Houthis’ change of pace, with the group more focused on attacking Israel rather than commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis still do go after ships, including on Dec. 9 and 10, when USS Stockdale (DDG-106) and USS O’Kane (DDG-77) shot down Houthi weapons while escorting merchant vessels.
So far, eight days into January, Houthi activity has been minimal. They continue to broadcast on X, with attacks seemingly more focused on Israel than shipping.
The Houthi attacks on commercial shipping did contribute to a drop of about 50 percent in ship passage through the Bab el Mandeb Strait, according to a December Washington Institute piece. Companies, like Maersk, still prefer to use the passage around the Cape of Good Hope instead of that maritime chokepoint out of precaution. Other companies, like SeaLead, a Singaporean company, continued to sail through the Red Sea, and started offering new Red Sea services in 2023, the Washington Institute noted.
The Houthi attacks might have had a slight benefit for shipping, some maritime companies noted, as it potentially prevented a surplus in 2024. The global container fleet grew by 10.6 percent in 2024, but that growth was balanced by the delays in shipping passages that came from going the longer way around the Cape of Good Hope.
