In an unprecedented breach of security, Jeffrey Goldberg – editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine – was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat between top U.S. national security leaders debating when to carry out strikes against the Houthis - a Yemeni political and militant group. Despite the White House now declaring it "case closed," Goldberg’s extraordinary disclosures continue to raise serious concerns around the Trump administration’s approach to classified information. But with the focus on how the U.S. discussed bombing, little attention has been paid to who was killed - and what the strikes indicate about the new administration's approach to warfare.

Airwars analysed all public allegations of civilian harm in Yemen, and conducted a comparative review of hundreds of official statements released under the current Trump and previous Biden administrations. Initial indications suggest:

• A shift from targeting Houthi infrastructure under Biden to direct targeting of Houthi leaders, beginning on March 15th. Public sources from Yemen indicate a number of senior officials were killed, including in residential settings.
• This shift has been replicated in the language used by the Trump administration, with an expansion in the types of targets mentioned in public statements.
• The recent U.S. strikes that reportedly killed or injured civilians largely occurred in populated areas, particularly around the cities of Sana’a and Saada. By contrast, the strikes that reportedly caused harm under Biden often occurred in more sparsely populated areas.
• In one of the largest civilian harm incidents from the 15th, Airwars monitored the targeting of two houses near Sadaa in northwest Yemen, with at least five civilians reportedly killed - including a woman and four children.
• A number of munition remnants have been identified, including from some of the most advanced munitions in the U.S. military arsenal. While these have been used in Yemen before, the intensity has increased.

While there has been no official statement on the matter, Airwars’ findings suggest that the Trump administration is choosing targets that pose a more direct risk to civilians and may indicate a higher tolerance to the risk of civilian harm.

Biden vs Trump

Airwars has documented reports of civilian harm from U.S. military actions against various groups in Yemen since 2015, and is the custodian of data from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism dating back to 2009.

Since the war in Gaza erupted in October 2023, the Houthis have launched attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea - demanding an end to Israeli attacks. With strikes on trading vessels disrupting international trade, the U.S. and United Kingdom began a campaign to strike Houthi capacities in January 2024.

The Biden administration conducted hundreds of strikes in its final year. Stated targets involved Houthi infrastructure, strikes to destroy anti-ship ballistic missiles and missile launchers, and interception of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) fired at U.S. military or commercial ships. With strikes often focused on less populated areas near the coast, these efforts seemingly intended to destabilise and limit Houthi capacities, rather than target the group's leadership.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the previous administration's ‘failure’ to deter the Houthis, calling Biden’s response “pathetically weak.”

In the first days of Trump’s second presidency, the White House designated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Trump did the same towards the end of his first term, but the Biden administration reversed it. Assigning a group as a FTO prohibits their financial and political support, meaning anyone in the U.S. or abroad suspected of supporting the Houthis could be prosecuted under U.S. laws. Critics say it could keep humanitarian aid from reaching impoverished, Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen - a reason why Biden reversed the status.

The Biden Administration sat back as a band of pirates — with precision-guided, Iran-provided weaponry — exacted a toll system in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. March 25, 2025 The White House

Then on March 15th, the U.S. conducted a series of raids on Houthi targets - the strikes discussed in the now-infamous Signal group.

The Pentagon listed a series of targets struck over that weekend. While neither specific locational details nor the names of militants targeted were released, some of the types of targets hit were similar to those struck under the Biden administration, such as Houthi weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, uncrewed vehicles and command and control centres.

However, the stated targets in the Trump administration’s statement significantly expanded. The Pentagon target list included terrorist training sites, command-and-control centres, headquarter locations and a terrorist compound where “several senior Houthi unmanned aerial vehicle experts were located.” The Pentagon only very occasionally referred to these kinds of targets under the Biden administration.

Understanding who has been killed in Yemen is difficult, as the Houthis significantly restrict the information environment. Much of the information obtained by Airwars comes from media sources either controlled by or affiliated with the Houthis. Still, public sources reported that the strikes killed a number of high-profile Houthi leaders, including Abdul Rab Jarfan - security chief to the Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi. Another report, as yet unconfirmed, alleged on March 20th - five days after the strikes - that funerals had been held for 16 Houthi officials.

But what does the broadening of targets mean for civilians?

Timeline of alleged U.S. strikes in Yemen reported to have harmed civilians 2024-2025

(Source: Airwars)

A Pentagon press briefing declared that “there was no indication of civilian harm” - from the strikes on the 15th,but Airwars monitored a significant spike in civilian casualty reports.

From January 13th 2024 to January 8th 2025, Biden conducted hundreds of strikes in Yemen against the Houthis. During this period, Airwars monitored 12 incidents in which civilians were reportedly harmed, totaling a minimum of 30 civilians killed and more than 60 injured. Over March 15th and 16th 2025, U.S. strikes reportedly killed at least 15 civilians, and injured at least 20.

In just two days of strikes under the new Trump administration, U.S. forces reportedly killed half the number of civilians killed in a full year of strikes under Biden.

Iona Craig, representative of the Yemen Data Project - which conducts in-depth research on the war in Yemen - said that by all metrics, the March 15th Trump strikes were more intense than strikes under Biden based on comparative data: the amount of strikes, number of civilians harmed and impact on non-military targets. “Even when comparing like with like: in the first week of Biden's bombing campaign in Yemen there were no civilian casualties recorded,” Craig said.

A clue to Trump’s differing approach may have come from the leaked Signal group. National security advisor Mike Waltz explicitly said they had waited for a "top missile guy" to arrive at a residential building before striking. "[The building has] now collapsed," he added.

The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.March 15th, 2025U.S. National security advisor Mike Waltz, leaked Signal message

Airwars has not yet been able to identify exactly who this target was, but there are suggestions it was connected to a strike or series of strikes in al Jaraf, Sana’a where at least nine civilians were reportedly killed and at least nine others injured in strikes on a residential area. Multiple Yemenis posting online explicitly stated that the strikes hit a residential building, while some online reports suggested the home which was “targeted” served as the headquarters of the Houthi Supreme Political Council. It is unclear if some of those killed were Houthi officials.

Craig said the Yemen Data Project also believed this strike to be the subject of the chat, with the organisation independently recording more than a dozen civilian casualties in the residential area of al Jaraf.

In another strike from the 15th, at least five civilians were reportedly killed in a strike on a residential building - including four children and a woman. Graphic imagery from the aftermath shows children with severe burns and an image of a fetus killed, suggesting a pregnant woman was among the fatalities.

The U.S. military has a wide range of civilian harm policies and is supposed to both review allegations that its strikes harmed civilians and publicly report the outcome. A number of allegations of civilian harm from the 15th are currently under review by CENTCOM.

The change in targets also appears to be reflected in the locations of the strikes.

Airwars reviewed the locations of all strikes reported to have harmed civilians since January 2024 - including 12 under Biden and five under Trump. While some of the geolocations are exact, many are accurate only to town or district. Despite this, a pattern is emerging.