The Houthi militia based in the country has “capitulated” and does not “want to fight anymore,” the US president has claimed
Washington will immediately halt air strikes on Yemen, US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday. He made the announcement while speaking at the White House alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The order comes after weeks of US-led attacks on Yemen targeting the Houthi militant group, which has “capitulated” and pledged to stop attacks on commercial maritime traffic in the region.
The US president said the Houthi group has told Washington it did not “want to fight anymore”. “We will honor that and we will stop the bombings. They have capitulated,” Trump stated.
The main goal of the bombing campaign against the Houthis, in which the US and UK took part, was to stop the group “blowing up ships,” according to Trump.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added “This was always a freedom of navigation issue. These guys are a band of individuals with advanced weaponry that were threatening global shipping, and the job was to get that to stop,” Rubio said.
Shortly after the announcement, senior Houthi figure Mohammad Ali Al-Houthi said the movement will continue its support for Gaza, and urged Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to resign over his “crimes” and “failed terrorism.”
“The Yemeni people will not be intimidated by American and Israeli terrorism, and the crimes they have committed in Yemen are the same genocidal crimes they commit in Gaza,” Al-Houthi stated, without addressing Trump’s remarks directly.
The Houthi militia’s attacks on maritime traffic it claimed was associated with Israel, as well as long-range missile and drone strikes on the Jewish state itself, have been the key elements of a campaign to support Palestinians amid the ongoing Gaza war.
Later in the day, Oman’s Foreign Ministry revealed the country had mediated a “ceasefire agreement” between the Houthis and the US.
“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” the ministry said in a statement.
Trump’s announcement came in the aftermath of an Israeli air raid on Houthi-controlled targets in Yemen, including the international airport at the country’s capital city of Sana’a, which left one dead and 35 injured, according to Yemeni Houthi-affiliated media.
The attack, which forced the airport to close, came in response to a ballistic missile strike on Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. The projectile landed outside the airport, injuring six people, briefly disrupting air traffic.
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