{"id":23097,"date":"2025-06-11T08:11:55","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T08:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/?p=23097"},"modified":"2025-06-11T08:11:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T08:11:55","slug":"trump-halts-military-strikes-on-houthis-but-expert-warns-iran-backed-terrorist-group-remains-major-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/11\/trump-halts-military-strikes-on-houthis-but-expert-warns-iran-backed-terrorist-group-remains-major-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump halts military strikes on Houthis but expert warns Iran-backed terrorist group remains major threat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trump teases ‘very, very big announcement’ ahead of Middle East trip<\/a><\/h4>\n

President Trump teased a “very, very big announcement” ahead of his trip to the Middle East, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “on the edge of my seat.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

President Donald Trump<\/a> made the surprise announcement this week that the U.S., after weeks of intense strikes, will halt all bombing campaigns on the Houthis in Yemen \u2013 but experts have warned the Iran-backed group will not sit idle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In Trump\u2019s Tuesday announcement from the Oval Office, he claimed the Houthis “just don’t want to fight\u2026and we will honor that. We will stop the bombings.”<\/p>\n

The president would not say who provided him with this confirmation by the terrorist network, which for years has attacked U.S. and allied ships in the Red Sea in a major threat to freedom of navigation<\/a>, but in a laugh following the question, he replied that it came from a “very good source.”<\/p>\n

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Less than two hours later, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the foreign minister of Oman, took to X<\/a> to say, “Following recent discussions and contacts conducted by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana’a, in the Republic of Yemen, with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides.”<\/p>\n

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TRUMP CLAIMS HOUTHIS ‘DON’T WANT TO FIGHT’ AND SAYS US WILL STOP BOMBING CAMPAIGN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on December 16, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida.<\/span> (Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“In the future, neither side will target the other<\/a>, 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 added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post suggests that Oman, which has also played an intermediary in the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, was heavily involved in securing the ceasefire.<\/p>\n

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However, a new report obtained by Fox News Digital ahead of the president\u2019s surprise announcement warns that the Trump administration must remain vigilant against major security threats posed by the Houthis and the international actors supporting the terrorist network<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report,<\/a> dubbed “The Houthi Challenge: Forging a Strategy to Defeat the Iran-Backed Terror Group in Yemen” by Ari Heistein for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, highlighted that it is not only Iran that have helped facilitate the Houthi operational capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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While Tehran has backed the Houthis since at least 2014 \u2013 and possibly as early as 2009 during the war in Yemen<\/a> \u2013 through training and advanced weapons like ballistic missiles, Oman has also played a role by allowing the group to operate from its territory and serving as a key smuggling route for Iranian arms.<\/p>\n

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ISRAEL CALLS TO EVACUATE YEMEN AIRPORT AMID FIGHT WITH HOUTHIS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Houthi supporters gather to attend a rally in protest of the United States’ airstrikes on Yemen and Israel’s ongoing strikes in the Gaza Strip in Sanaa, Yemen, on Friday, March 8, 2024.<\/span> (AP Photo\/Osamah Abdulrahman)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the current executive director of the FDD, called Oman’s role in negotiations between Washington and Middle East<\/a> adversaries “outrageous.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“To hold them up as responsible intermediaries when they are in fact hosting the very group that we’re trying to dismantle, there’s very little logic [in] this position,” he told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

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The report found that Iranian arms are smuggled into Yemen through the port of Hodeidah \u2013 which was targeted in a series of Israeli strikes<\/a> on major infrastructure in and around the Houthi-controlled capital of Sana\u2019a this week \u2013 but also through smaller ports or overland through Oman.<\/p>\n

Omani private banking institutions and businesses are also reportedly known to be “servicing the Houthi economy and even supplying the group with arms.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“More must be done to prevent bulk cash smuggling across the border between Oman and Yemen,” Heistein found. “Muscat must begin to feel pressure from the international community to address a threat finance challenge that has gone unchecked for too long.”<\/p>\n

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The report breaks down the varied steps that need to be taken to effectively undermine and counter the Houthis as repeated military strikes by first, Saudi Arabia starting in 2015<\/a>, then recently by the U.S. and Israel, have not significantly degraded the terrorist group.<\/p>\n

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Houthi fighters walk over British and U.S flags at a rally in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and the recent Houthi strikes on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on Feb. 4, 2024, on the outskirts of Sana’a, Yemen.<\/span> (Mohammed Hamoud\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Those steps include continued military action \u2013 similar to Israel\u2019s recent strikes on Yemen\u2019s Hodeidah port and Sana\u2019a International Airport, which are expected to have far-reaching economic impacts and increase internal pressure on the Houthis. But military action alone isn\u2019t enough; economic, diplomatic, and other soft power strategies are also needed to weaken the group, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report also highlighted that the Houthis have utilized previous lulls in fighting with nations like Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel to regroup and rebuild.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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“Compelling the Houthis to halt attacks on shipping is a meaningful achievement only if it is part of a broader, long-term strategy,” Heistein told Fox News Digital. “However, if a Red Sea ceasefire becomes the centerpiece and endpoint of U.S. policy toward the Houthis, it risks empowering an increasingly dangerous regime to escalate and de-escalate at will.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0“Without a comprehensive approach to addressing the Houthi threat, the U.S. and its allies could soon be confronting a more dangerous, better-armed terrorist group,” Heinstein warned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Caitlin McFall is a Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

close Video Trump teases ‘very, very big announcement’ ahead of Middle East trip President Trump teased a “very, very big announcement” ahead of his trip to the Middle East, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “on the edge of my seat.” President Donald Trump made the surprise announcement this week that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23920,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097\/revisions\/23920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cissar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}