Pentagon says US strikes in Yemen in 2025 caused nearly 400 civilian casualties

WASHINGTON — U.S. airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen last year killed 153 civilians and injured 243 more, according to a Pentagon civilian casualty report submitted to Congress this week.

The casualties occurred during Operation Rough Rider, a 52-day bombing campaign launched by President Donald Trump in March 2025 to stop Iran-backed Houthi rebels from threatening ships and allies in the Red Sea.

The report assessed that three operations “more likely than not” resulted in civilian harm and another 15 remain under review. Airwars, a civilian harm watchdog, reported last year that at least 258 civilians may have been killed in the bombardment.

The Pentagon found that five civilians were killed and another 25 were injured in a strike on a private residence in Sanaa on April 6. An attack on the Ras Isa port on April 17 killed 80 civilians and wounded 171, and a strike on April 28 in the vicinity of Saada killed 47 civilians and injured 68.

The military did not conduct site visits or interviews for its assessments, instead relying on U.S. intelligence, imagery and publicly available reporting, according to the report.

Human Rights Watch last year counted dozens of casualties at the Ras Isa port and condemned the decision by the U.S. to strike “a critical entry point for aid in Yemen while hundreds of workers were present.”

U.S. Central Command at the time said the attack targeted the Houthis’ fuel supply through the port, aiming to cut off a key source of revenue and energy for their military operations.

“This strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen, who rightly want to throw off the yoke of Houthi subjugation and live peacefully,” CENTCOM said in a statement after the attack.

In its report to Congress, the Pentagon said the U.S. military is “steadfastly committed to limiting harm to civilians.”

“As a matter of policy, U.S. forces routinely conduct operations under policy standards that are more protective of civilians than required by the law of war, and we are committed to continuing to improve our approach,” the Pentagon wrote.

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the strikes were among the deadliest U.S.-caused civilian casualty incidents in decades until a strike on an Iranian school this year.

He criticized the delayed arrival of the report and said lawmakers were still waiting for an accounting of a Feb. 28 strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran where at least 175 people, many of them children, were killed.

Reed said he wanted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to appear before the committee to explain what he believes is a pattern of disregarding the laws of war. The panel’s chairman, Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi, did not issue a statement in response to the report.

“This did not happen in a vacuum,” Reed said of the findings. “During his tenure, Secretary Hegseth has gutted the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, pushed out senior JAG officers who advise commanders on the laws of war, and boasted about discarding what he calls ‘stupid rules of engagement.’”

An investigation by the Defense Department’s inspector general in May found that the Pentagon had cut staffing and funding for congressionally mandated efforts to reduce harm to civilians during military operations.

The number of employees at the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, established to track, analyze and prevent civilian harm, dropped from approximately 40 personnel to nine at the end of fiscal 2025, according to a report sent to Congress.

The civilian casualty report submitted this week notably states that no casualties resulted from U.S. strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The U.S. has said that the more than 220 people killed in the campaign were “narcoterrorists.”