The killing of Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and pro-Iranian Iraqi militia chief, Abu Mahdi, is a major adventure that will make the tense situation in the region worse, the Houthis said Friday.

The Houthi-run Foreign Ministry in Sana’a condemned the incident, in which an American MQ-9 Reaper drone strike hit the men’s convoy on the road to Baghdad International Airport early Friday morning, as a "treacherous and cowardly attack." 

Soleimani was the head of the Qods Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and chief architect of Iran's paramilitary operations in the wider Middle East. Mahdi led the Popular Mobilization Forces, which oversees various pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. Both leaders had been at the forefront of escalating military confrontations with the US and its allies in the region in recent months.

The US State Department recently offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of senior IRGC-Qods Force Commander Abdul Reza Shahla’i, who the American government said has potentially helped provide advanced weaponry to the Houthis. 

"Such a cowardly act amounts to acts that are most threatening to international peace and security and clearly reveals a double American hatred towards anyone who is biased towards just causes," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the incident revealed "an applied ignorance about calculating the consequences of targeting two commanders of this magnitude."

In the same vein, Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, chairman of the group's Supreme Revolutionary Committee, condemned Soleimani's death and sent condolences to Iran and the Iraqi and Iranian people.

"This assassination is condemned and the quick and direct response toward widespread camps is the choice and the solution," Al-Houthi said in a tweet.

The Houthi political bureau said in a statement that "the United States committed with this aggression a war crime on the whole nation and on the axis of resistance and on the Palestinian cause."

"The people of the region should realize that their security and stability depend on moving forward with the liberation project until the American occupier is expelled," according to the statement.