Top US officials appear to message Houthi strike plans to journalist

The White House has confirmed that a journalist seems to have been inadvertently added to a group chat in which US national security officials discussed plans for a strike against the Houthi rebel group.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, reported on Monday that he was added to a Signal message group which included accounts labelled as White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Vice-President JD Vance.

"At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic," Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement to the BBC. "We are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.

"The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy co-ordination between senior officials," he said.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday afternoon that he was not aware of the Atlantic magazine article.

On 15 March, the US launched what it described as a "decisive and powerful" series of air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

Four days earlier, on 11 March, Goldberg writes that he received a connection request on the encrypted messaging app Signal from an account that purported to be Mr Waltz's.

Signal is used by journalists and Washington officials because of the secure nature of its communications, the ability to create aliases, and sent disappearing messages.

Two days later, Goldberg said he was added to a Signal chat entitled "Houthi PC small group."

A number of accounts that appeared to belong to cabinet members and national security officials were included in the chat, Goldberg reported.

Accounts labelled "JD Vance," the name of the vice-president; "Pete Hegseth," the Defence Secretary; and "John Ratcliffe," the director of the Central Intelligence Agency; were among names in the chat. Top national security officials from various agencies also appeared to be added.

At one point during the communication over the strikes, the account labelled "JD Vance" seemed to disagree with Trump, Goldberg reported.

"I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now," the Vance account wrote at approximately 8:15 on 14 March.

"There's a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices.

"I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself.

"But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc."

In a statement to the BBC on Monday, Vance spokesman William Martin said the vice-president "unequivocally supports this administration's foreign policy.

"The president and the vice-president have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement," Martin said.

Goldberg writes that he initially "had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans."

Yet Mr Goldberg reports he continued to watch the conversation play out.

On 15 March, he writes that he was sitting in a supermarket car park, watching Signal communications about a strike.

When Mr Goldberg checked X for updates about Yemen, he wrote, he saw reports of explosions in the capital city of Sanaa.

The Trump administration did launch strikes on 15 March. In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that "Funded by Iran, the Houthi thugs have fired missiles at US aircraft, and targeted our Troops and Allies".

The president wrote that the Houthis' "piracy, violence, and terrorism" had cost "billions" and put lives at risk.

A Houthi official posted on X that 53 people had been killed, the BBC reported.

Publicly, Trump administration officials fanned out on television to speak about the strikes.

"We just hit them with overwhelming force and put Iran on notice that enough is enough," Waltz said on ABC News.

Goldberg reports that the officials also discussed the potential for Europe to pay for US protection of key shipping lanes.

"Whether it's now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes," the account associated with Waltz wrote on 14 March.

The message continued that at Trump's request, his team was working with the defence department and state department "to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans."