Trump says US will stop bombing campaign against Houthis in Yemen

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States would halt its strike campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, claiming the Iran-backed faction had “capitulated.”

“The Houthis have announced — to us, at least — that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“We will stop the bombings,” Trump said. “They have capitulated.”

He specified that the halt would be “effective immediately.”

Trump’s statement came just hours after Israeli warplanes struck Sanaa in retaliation for a Houthi missile strike that landed near Tel Aviv airport over the weekend.

The Trump administration resumed and intensified the military campaign initiated during the Biden administration of air and naval strikes against Houthi targets in a bid to shut down their ability to target US military and international commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The reinvigorated campaign was met with setbacks as the Houthis continued to fire at US ships off Yemen’s coast.

Spokespeople for the Pentagon and for US Central Command were not immediately available to respond to Al-Monitor’s request for comment.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.