Trump Says Truce Reached With Houthis After They Promise to Stop Targeting Ships

Announcement comes after weeks-long campaign to target the group

- Alexander Ward & Michael R. Gordon

President Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. had reached a truce with the Houthis in Yemen and would suspend its airstrikes there, claiming that the militants would no longer target ships navigating Middle Eastern waters. "I will accept their word, and we are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis, effective immediately," Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. "They just don't want to fight, and we will honor that."

Oman said it helped the U.S. mediate a truce in which the U.S. and the Houthis agreed not to target each other and the militant group said it would stop firing on U.S. ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Marco Rubio, who is both secretary of state and interim national security adviser, said the goal of the weekslong strikes on Houthi targets was to get the group to stop their assaults on regional shipping. "If it's going to stop, then we can stop," Rubio said.

The U.S. has struck more than 1,000 targets throughout "Operation Rough Rider," which has lasted more than 50 days.

Both U.S. and Houthi officials suggested that the truce didn't pertain to Houthi attacks on Israel, which have prompted Israel to retaliate.

"This is about the Red Sea, the attacking of ships," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters Tuesday.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the Houthi Political Bureau didn't mention a cease-fire with the U.S. and reiterated that its military moves against Israel would continue until the war in Gaza is halted.

"The Yemeni people remain committed to their pressure options against the [Israeli] entity until the aggression on Gaza stops and the blockade is lifted," it said.