United States President Donald Trump announced today that Yemen's Houthis have "capitulated." He promised that US bombing in Yemen would cease, effective immediately.
Shortly after his announcement, it was announced from Oman that the Houthis and the US had agreed to a ceasefire.
"The Houthis have announced ... that they don't want to fight anymore. They just don't want to fight anymore. And we will respect that. We will stop the bombing, and they have capitulated," Trump said today in the Oval Office alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
"They say they're not going to blow up ships anymore, that was our goal," the US president said, adding that he had that information from a "very, very good source."
Some time later, Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi announced that Yemen's Houthi rebels and the US had agreed to a ceasefire.
"Following recent talks and contacts between Oman and the US and the relevant authorities in Sanaa... efforts have resulted in a ceasefire between the two sides," the Omani minister said. He specified that in the future, neither side will target the other, including US ships in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have stepped up attacks on ships they believe are bound for Israel in the Red Sea, a shipping route important for world trade.
The US, the main backer of Israel, has stepped up its attacks on the Houthis since Trump returned to the White House in January.
The Pentagon announced in late April that it had struck a thousand Houthi-linked targets in Yemen since March 15 and that multiple rebel fighters and leaders had been killed.
Yemeni rebels reported a dozen US strikes on Monday morning on the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which they control. The Houthis control large parts of Yemen.
Israeli aircraft also targeted Houthi-controlled infrastructure in Yemen, including the airport in Sanaa and power plants, for the second day in a row, two days after the Houthis fired a rocket at Israel's Tel Aviv International Airport.
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