US Attacks on Yemen Killed 153 Civilians in 2025, Pentagon Says

(Bloomberg) — US airstrikes on Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen last year killed 153 civilians and injured 243 others, according to a Defense Department review of the attacks.

The unclassified document was submitted to Congress this week as part of the Pentagon’s annual reporting requirements. The deaths in Yemen have drawn scrutiny amid broader concerns that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismantled safeguards designed to prevent civilian casualties during US military operations across the globe.

President Donald Trump in 2025 ordered operations against Houthi militants after attacks on commercial shipping in the Suez Canal and Red Sea. One attack on the Ras Isa fuel port alone resulted in 80 civilian deaths and 171 injured.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.

US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said at the time the strike on the fuel port was designed to “degrade the economic source of power” for the Houthis but “was not intended to harm the people of Yemen.”

The Houthis are a critical part of Iran’s network of militia groups across the region. While the group largely stayed out of the war the US and Israel launched on Iran in late February, they have begun attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Saudi energy facilities, widening the conflict.

Hegseth has repeatedly dismissed what he has called “stupid rules of engagement” that limit how US troops can operate on the battlefield and has rejected criticism that dozens of lethal strikes on alleged drug boats off the coast of Latin America violated international law.

Under Hegseth, the Pentagon has slashed funding and personnel related to implementation of the federally mandated Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response program. Those actions make “mitigating or responding to civilian harm more difficult,” a May report by the Defense Department’s inspector general concluded.

The Pentagon has also faced criticism for civilian deaths in the Iran war. An airstrike on an Iranian all-girls elementary school during the early days of the conflict — widely attributed to the US — killed more than 150 civilians. The United Nations called the attack in Minab a “grave violation of humanitarian law,” and the Pentagon has said it’s investigating the matter.

Trump has repeatedly pledged to expand the US military campaign against Iran to target civilian infrastructure such as bridges and power plants.

Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, characterized the Yemen strikes as the deadliest US military attacks for civilians in decades, being eclipsed only by the strike on the Iranian school in February 2026.

“This did not happen in a vacuum,” Reed said in a statement. “I am disturbed by this report and by the pattern it represents under Secretary Hegseth’s leadership.”