A senior member of Yemen’s Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, has told Drop Site News that Yemeni forces would stop attacks on US warships in the region if President Trump halted his bombing campaign on Yemen.
“We do not consider ourselves at war with the American people,” said Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansar Allah’s political bureau. “If the US stops targeting Yemen, we will cease our military operations against it.”
Both President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have said the US would stop bombing Yemen if the Houthis stopped attacking US ships. However, the Houthis were not attacking US vessels when the US restarted its airstrikes in Yemen on March 15.
President Trump launched the bombing campaign in response to the Houthis’ announcing they would reimpose a blockade on Israeli shipping due to Israel imposing a total blockade on Gaza in violation of the ceasefire deal. The Houthis had ceased attacks when the truce deal was implemented on January 19.
Al-Bukhaiti said the Houthis would continue its ban on Israeli shipping and attacks on Israel until there was a ceasefire in Gaza. “When the Zionist entity stops its genocidal crimes in Gaza and allows food, medicine, and fuel to enter, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, we will cease all military operations against it,” he said.
Al-Bukhaiti said the Houthis would respect an agreement that would involve them not targeting US warships or commercial shipping while they still enforced a blockade on Israel but called on the US to pressure Israel to end its genocidal war.
“If Trump truly seeks peace, as he claims, his efforts should have been directed at pressuring Netanyahu to implement the ceasefire agreement, which includes lifting the siege on Gaza and allowing food and medicine to enter. Only then will we stop all military operations against the Zionist entity,” al-Bukhaiti said.
The Drop Site report noted that the Houthis have not targeted an American commercial ship since December 2024. The Yemeni group began targeting US commercial shipping in January 2024 in response to the bombing campaign that President Biden launched against them.
Both Biden’s and Trump’s bombing campaigns failed to deter the Houthis, who have been launching attacks on Israel, US warships, and US air assets over the past few weeks despite daily US airstrikes. From 2015 to 2022, the US backed a brutal Saudi-UAE war against the Houthis, which involved airstrikes, a blockade, and a ground campaign, and failed to remove them from power.
