The Pentagon's Inspector General's office announced on Thursday it was opening a probe into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of an unclassified commercial texting application to coordinate on the highly sensitive March 15 launch of U.

Hegseth and other top administration officials have said that no classified information was shared in a Signal messaging app chat group.

The Acting Inspector General (IG) of the US Department of Defence (Pentagon) will probe Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth's use of Signal in a group chat with other national security officials to discuss military actions against the Houthis.

The intense campaign of airstrikes under President Donald Trump, targeting the rebels over their attacks on shipping in Mideast waters stemming from the Israel-Hamas war, has killed at least 65 people.

While so far giving no specifics about the campaign and its targets, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt put the overall number of strikes on Tuesday at more than 200.

Houthi rebels claim to have attacked US warships three times in the past 24 hours, led by the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier, with drones and cruise missiles in the Red Sea, Yemen’s Saba news agency said on Wednesday,