The United States continued its airstrikes in Hodeidah, Marib, and the Houthi-run capital city of Sana'a in Yemen, Houthi-linked media outlets reported on Monday night.
The Houthi movement claimed that its senior intelligence leader, Abdul Nasser Al-Kamali, was killed in the strike, Al Hadath reported.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told Prime Minister Sudani in a phone call on March 16, shortly after the American strikes on the Houthis began, to prevent the militias carrying out revenge attacks on Israel and US bases in the region in support of their allies, according to two government officials and two security sources briefed on the exchange.
Eliminating the Houthi threat
Last week, the White House said that US strikes in Yemen earlier this month killed the Houthi top missile expert, but the US military has so far declined to confirm the death, and the identity of the Houthi commander in question is unclear.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, in public remarks to CBS News the weekend after the March 15 strikes, said the first wave killed "their head missileer."
US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have told Reuters that they were unaware of any independent US military confirmation that such a person had been killed.
According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, Abdul Khaliq Badruddin Al-Houthi is the "de-facto commander of the Strategic Missile Forces."
Mohammed Albasha, whose Basha Report risk advisory firm researches open-source information about Yemen, has tallied Houthi reports of more than 40 Houthi fighters killed in action in airstrikes in March.
Nobody as senior as Abdul Khaliq Badruddin Al-Houthi has been identified yet, he said, nor is he aware of any death announced on Houthi television of a person whose profile would be a match for the individual mentioned by Waltz.