Houthis say they won't attack US vessels in Red Sea, warn countries not to join Saudis

A senior official with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels is warning countries against joining Saudi Arabia in Yemen’s revived civil war, telling The Associated Press on Sunday that his group has assured the Trump administration that it won’t attack U.S. vessels in the Red Sea.

Mohamed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, said Washington reached out to the rebels after their rapid advance down Yemen’s western coast to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait earlier this month.

“We confirmed that we are not targeting the United States, or any other nation, in the strait, with the sole exception of the Saudi enemy,” he told The Associated Press in a Zoom interview from the rebel-held Yemeni capital, Sanaa. “That remains the case.”