Ready to retaliate against any US attack, Iran Guards warn

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis vowed to meet "escalation with escalation" after a wave of deadly US airstrikes, with witnesses to the bombing saying on Sunday they were taken aback by its intensity, even after years of war.

- Agence France-Presse

SANAA/WASHINGTON:

US President Donald Trump said he had ordered the strikes and threatened more were to come if the rebels kept up their repeated attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Attacks on the rebel-held capital Sanaa, as well as on areas in Saada, Al-Bayda and Radaa, killed at least 31 people and wounded 101, "most of whom were children and women", Huthi health ministry spokesperson Anis Al-Asbahi said.

US national security adviser Michael Waltz told ABC News the strikes "targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out". He told Fox News: "We just hit them with overwhelming force and put Iran on notice that enough is enough."

An AFP photographer in Sanaa heard explosions and saw plumes of smoke rising on Saturday night.

Footage on Houthi media showed children and a woman among those being treated in a hospital emergency room, including a dazed girl with blackened legs wrapped in a band.

Trump, in a post on social media, vowed to "use overwhelming lethal force" to end the Houthi attacks, which the rebels say are in solidarity with Palestinians amid the Gaza war.

"To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON'T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!" he said.