The Pentagon has quietly tallied a deadly civilian cost for a short, intense US campaign in Yemen. A new Defense Department review says three American strikes in April 2025 killed 153 civilians and wounded nearly 250 others, the Trump administration’s first public acknowledgment of large-scale noncombatant casualties since returning to office, reports the Washington Post. Two of the incidents—an April 17 strike on Ras Isa Port that killed 80 people and injured 171, and an April 28 attack that killed 68 people in Yemen’s northwest, including migrants held in a detention site—are among the deadliest US strikes since 2001, rights advocates say.
The 50-day operation, launched after Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, followed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s move to dismantle a Pentagon office devoted to reducing civilian harm. The review, required by Congress and not yet released publicly, comes as the AP reports that concerns are rising “over civilian casualties during military campaigns.” The report says none of the three Yemen cases warranted condolence payments, a conclusion some experts call premature. Fifteen other Yemen incidents remain under review, even as the number of civilian-harm investigators has been cut by more than 90%. Human rights groups have labeled the Yemen attacks possible war crimes and also question the Pentagon’s assertion that US operations against drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere have produced no civilian casualties.