Pentagon Swears Secrecy on Yemen War After Senators Press Admin on Civilian Harm

The Trump administration says it will not be disclosing details on its war in Yemen as Democrats are pressing officials to answer to concerns over civilian harm and reports find that the U.S. has killed hundreds of civilians in just over six weeks of strikes.

On Sunday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the military had struck 800 targets in Yemen since March 15, the beginning of President Donald Trump’s current assault, going through hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of weapons in its attacks on the region. The administration claimed that these strikes have killed “hundreds” of Houthi militants and some Houthi leaders.

However, the administration will not be publicly sharing information on its war, CENTCOM said.

“To preserve operational security, we have intentionally limited disclosing details of our ongoing or future operations. We are very deliberate in our operational approach, but will not reveal specifics about what we’ve done or what we will do,” officials wrote.

The announcement comes after a group of Democratic senators pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to answer to the U.S. killing civilians in Yemen by a skyrocketing rate. In a letter sent last week by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), the lawmakers say that the oil terminal strike and others in Yemen show that the administration is bombing the country without concern for civilian harm.

“President Trump has called himself a ‘peacemaker,’ but that claim rings hollow when U.S. military operations kill scores of civilians,” the lawmakers wrote. “The reported high civilian casualty numbers from U.S. strikes in Yemen demonstrate a serious disregard for civilian life, and call into question this Administration’s ability to conduct military operations in accordance with U.S. best practices for civilian harm mitigation and international law.”

The Democrats’ letter came after the U.S. bombed an oil terminal in Yemen on April 18, killing at least 74 people. This is the deadliest known attack yet in over a year of U.S. strikes on Yemen, and one of the deadliest strikes for civilians on record, according to the Yemen Data Project, which catalogues U.S. strikes on Yemen.

Just in the first six weeks of Trump’s bombing campaign, the U.S. has killed at least 158 civilians in Yemen, according to the latest count by Yemen Data Project, and injured at least 342 more. This is an average of over four civilians killed per day by U.S. strikes, which the Trump administration has baselessly claimed are being carried out in self defense; the rate of civilian casualties per strike is eight times higher than that of President Joe Biden’s campaign in Yemen.

Further, on Monday, the U.S. killed at least 68 imprisoned African migrants when the military bombed a migrant detention center in northwestern Yemen, Houthi officials have said, with another 47 migrants injured. Yemen is a common crossover point for African people seeking refuge in Middle Eastern Gulf States, and human rights groups have long raised alarm about horrific abuses migrants face in the country when officials trap and imprison them there.

Houthi officials have condemned the strike on the facility as a war crime.