Happy Friday! The brief lull in the undeclared war against Houthi rebels is over. Shortly after the Iranian-backed rebel group threatened to resume attacks against Israeli ships, the U.S. military carried out air and missile strikes against Yemen on Saturday for the first time in months. The Houthis then attempted to attack the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, but Air Force fighters shot down Houthi drones, and a ballistic missile launched against the ship missed.
President Donald Trump has vowed that the Houthis will be “completely annihilated,” but the rebel group survived more than a year of periodic U.S. and British air and missile strikes that began in January 2024 and were intended to stop Houthi attacks against ships in the Red Sea. Before that, the Houthis outlasted seven years of attacks by a Saudi-led coalition.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters on Monday that the U.S. military is now striking “a much broader set of targets” in Yemen than it did under President Joe Biden’s administration. For example, the initial strikes targeted one compound where “several senior Houthi unmanned aerial vehicle experts” were operating, he said.
“The other key differences are the delegation of authorities from the president through Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth down to the operational commander,” Grynkewich said during a Pentagon news conference. “So that allows us to achieve a tempo of operations where we can react to opportunities that we see on the battlefield in order to continue to put pressure on the Houthis.”
Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell stressed that the current operations against the Houthis are “not an endless offensive,” adding, “This is not about regime change in the Middle East.”
When asked if the U.S. military might send ground forces into Yemen to bring the Houthis to heel, Parnell did not answer directly, explaining that it is important for battlefield commanders to “keep the enemy guessing.”
“Now, that’s not to say that we’ve got ground troops in – in Yemen,” Parnell said. That’s not to say that we’re sending ground troops in. But it’s difficult to talk about that stuff for operational security reasons from the podium.”
That’s just for starters. Here’s your weekly rundown:
- Possible new role for U.S. troops on the border. The Trump administration is considering a plan that would involve giving troops deployed to the southern border the authority to temporarily hold migrants crossing illegally into the United States until they could be turned over to law enforcement officials, the Washington Post first reported. Trump has given the secretaries of the Defense and Homeland Security Departments until April 20 to recommend whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act “to obtain complete operational control of the southern border.”
- Navy ships join the border mission. The Navy plans to deploy a second destroyer to waters off the southern border to help the Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security with drug interdiction operations, according to Military.com. The Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have a formidable amount of firepower. Each ship has 90 strike-length Mk 41 Vertical Launch System cells.
- Cold War. The U.S. military is growing increasingly concerned over how China and Russia are trying to expand their influence in the Arctic region. Now a new Army manual provides a guide for how soldiers and Marines can fight in Arctic climates. “The Arctic is one of the few environments in the world where if you drop a unit there unprepared, within an hour, there’s a strong possibility that none of them will survive,” Army Capt. Ed Garibay, the manual’s lead author, told Task & Purpose.
- The one-man wrecking crew at the Siegfried Line. Take a minute out of your day and read Josh Skovlund’s story about Medal of Honor recipient Army 1st Lt. Jack Lemaster Treadwell, who launched a one-man offensive against German fortifications 80 years ago. “By his courageous willingness to face nearly impossible odds and by his overwhelming one-man offensive, Capt. Treadwell reduced a heavily fortified, seemingly impregnable enemy sector,” his Medal of Honor citation reads.
Thank you for reading! Have a pleasant Friday, and it would be nice if the news could take the weekend off for a change.
Jeff Schogol