Houthis warns against intervention in Yemen, won't hit US vessels

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 US vessels in the Red Sea.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, member of the Houthis' political bureau, said the U.S. administration has contacted the rebels via Oman to inquire whether the Houthis plan to target U.S. assets in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after their sweeping advance down Yemen's western coast 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 AP in a Zoom interview from the rebel-held Yemeni capital, Sanaa. "That remains the case."