The U.S. will halt its stepped-up campaign of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen, President Donald Trump announced May 6, citing promises from the rebel group that it will stop attacking commercial shipping lanes.
Dubbed Operation Rough Rider, the campaign against the Houthis has drawn on U.S. Navy and Air Force warplanes and drones in the region, which have hit 1,000 targets and killed hundreds of Houthi fighters since it began March 15, according to the U.S. military. The strikes were ongoing as of May 5, defense officials said, and the Israeli military bombed the Houthis on May 6 for the second day in a row in retaliation for a Houthi ballistic missile strike on Tel Aviv’s airport, the Israel Defense Forces said.
“We will stop the bombing of the Houthis effective immediately,” Trump told reporters.
Following Trump’s comments, Oman’s foreign minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi said his country had brokered a “ceasefire agreement” which “resulted in an end to the conflict between the two sides.”
“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” he wrote on X..
The Houthis issued a statement saying they would continue their pressure campaign against Israel. U.S. officials suggested the agreement did not apply to Houthi attacks on Israel.
“This is about the Red Sea, the attacking of ships,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was traveling to CENTCOM’s headquarters in Tampa, Fla., on May 6, reposted Trump’s remarks on X. “PEACE THRU STRENGTH in action,” he added in a later social media post referring to the agreement.
The Pentagon referred questions about the agreement to the White House. The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s surprise announcement, made from the Oval Office during a bilateral with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, came just a few hours after open-source intelligence analysts noted flight tracking data and radio communications showing U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers heading to over the Pacific Ocean in the direction of Diego Garica, a small island in the Indian Ocean. Six B-2 bombers deployed to Diego Garcia in late March and have been launching strikes on Yemen. It is unclear if the B-52s were deploying to join the campaign against the Houthis or if the move was part of a preplanned Bomber Task Force rotation.
The aircraft carriers USS Harry S. Truman and USS Carl Vinson are both operating in the waters near Yemen in a rare show of force. F-16s from the 55th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, based at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., deployed to the region last month, joining other Air Force fighters, attack planes, and bombers in the region.
At least six MQ-9 Reapers have been lost during the current campaign against the Houthis that started March 15. On May 6, after the ceasefire had been announced, a Navy F/A-18 crashed off the deck of the Truman while attempting to land—the third Super Hornet lost from the carrier during its deployment. Both aviators in the aircraft suffered minor injuries after ejecting, the Navy said. The Pentagon said the aircraft was not shot down by the Houthis.
During the U.S. strike campaign there have been allegations of scores of civilian casualties by the Houthis and nongovernmental groups, which CENTCOM has said it is investigating.
The Houthis have been attacking international shipping in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait since late 2023 in response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The Houthi attacks have hit commercial ships, leading to a large drop-off in shipping in the Red Sea, which connects to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal, forcing commercial traffic to reroute around Africa.
“This was always a freedom of navigation mission,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the Oval Office. “These are a band of individuals with advanced weaponry that were threatening global shipping, and the job was to get that to stop, and if it’s going to stop, then we can stop.”
The U.S. military engaged in a long military campaign against the Houthis under the Biden administration, and Trump stepped it up even more, including attacks against Houthi leaders.
Trump said the Houthis have communicated to the U.S. that they “don’t want to fight anymore … we will honor that and we will stop the bombings.”
“They have capitulated … they say they will not be blowing up ships anymore,” Trump said.