Houthis say US 'backed down' and Israel not covered by ceasefire
8 minutes ago
Share
Save
David Gritten
BBC News
Share
Save
Reuters
The Houthis' top negotiator said their support for the Palestinian people in Gaza "will not change"
A senior Houthi official has rejected US President Donald Trump's claim the Yemeni armed group "capitulated" when agreeing a ceasefire deal, saying the US "backed down" instead.
"What changed is the American position, but our position remains firm," chief negotiator Mohammed Abdul Salam told Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV.
Mediator Oman said the US and Houthis had agreed to "no longer target each other", after seven weeks of intensified US strikes on Yemen in response to Houthi missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.
Abdul Salam also said the deal did not include an end to attacks on Israel, which has conducted two rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen this week.
The Houthis' support for the Palestinian people in Gaza "will not change", he added.
The Iran-backed group has controlled much of north-western Yemen since 2014, when they ousted the internationally-recognised government from the capital, Sanaa, and sparked a devastating civil war.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted dozens of merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third, and killed four crew members.
They have said they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.
The Houthis were not deterred by the deployment of Western warships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to protect merchant vessels last year, or by multiple rounds of US strikes on military targets ordered by former President Joe Biden.
On 15 March, Trump ordered an intensification of the air campaign against the Houthis and threatened that they would be "completely annihilated".
At the end of April, the US military said it had struck more than 800 targets, including command-and-control facilities, air defence systems and advanced weapons manufacturing and storage facilities. It also said the strikes had killed hundreds of Houthi fighters and "numerous Houthi leaders", without naming them.
Houthi-run authorities have said the strikes have killed dozens of civilians, but they have reported few casualties among the group's members.
At the White House on Tuesday, Trump announced that the Houthis had said they "don't want to fight anymore".
"They just don't want to fight, and we will honour that and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated," he said. "But, more importantly, we will take their word."
"They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore and that's what the purpose of what we were doing."
Later, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi wrote on X: "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."
Reuters
Several aircraft were reportedly destroyed in Israeli air strikes on Sanaa's airport on Tuesday
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
21 minutes ago
- The Independent
Concerns grow for 3 OSCE workers jailed since shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
It was late at night when they came for Dmytro Shabanov, a security assistant in eastern Ukraine at the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. His seizure from his home in the Luhansk region in April 2022 — weeks after Moscow 's full-scale invasion — was part of a coordinated operation by pro- Russian forces who detained him and two other Ukrainian OSCE workers. Maksym Petrov, an interpreter, also was seized in the Luhansk region, while Vadym Golda, another security assistant, was detained in neighboring Donetsk. More than three years later, the three Ukrainian civilians who had worked with the international group's ceasefire monitoring efforts in the eastern regions remain behind bars. They have not been part of recent large-scale prisoner exchanges with Russia. Their detention has raised alarm among OSCE officials, Western nations and human rights advocates, who demand their immediate release while expressing concern about their health and prison conditions amid allegations of torture. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian mission to the OSCE did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on those allegations or on OSCE personnel having immunity from prosecution as international civil servants. Rapidly unfolding events in 2022 'He was taken from his home after the curfew took effect,' said Margaryta Shabanova, Shabanov's wife, who lives in Kyiv. 'I had a last call with him around 20 minutes before it happened.' After his arrest, Shabanov disappeared for three months, held incommunicado by Russian separatists and interrogated in a Luhansk prison until he was forced to sign a confession. That fateful night turned Shabanova's life upside down. 'Every morning, I wake up hoping that today will be different -- that today I will hear that my Dima is free,' she said. 'Painfully, days stretch on, and nothing changes. The waiting, the not knowing, the endless hope slowly turning into quiet despair.' Fighting back tears, Shabanova describes life without her husband. 'The silence at the dinner table, the birthdays and holidays have been missed for over three years. People say to me that I am strong, but they don't see the moments I collapse behind closed doors,' she said. The Vienna-based OSCE monitors ceasefires, observes elections, and promotes democracy and arms control, and Shabanov 'really liked his job' at the international organization, said his wife, especially working with the foreign staff. She said her husband believed that 'international service could protect lives and make the world a little more just.' The OSCE had operated a ceasefire monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists had been fighting Ukrainian government troops since 2014, with about 14,000 killed even before the full-scale invasion. The monitors watched for truce violations, facilitated dialogue and brokered local halts in fighting to enable repairs to critical civilian infrastructure. But on March 31, 2022, Russia blocked the extension of the OSCE mission, and separatist leaders declared it illegal the following month. It remains unclear whether the three detained OSCE staffers had tried to flee eastern Ukraine. Locally recruited Ukrainians like Shabanov, Petrov and Golda worked in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions to help shut down the OSCE mission. They cleared offices, safeguarded OSCE assets, including armored vehicles, drones and cameras, and oversaw evacuations of their international colleagues. That operation was completed by October 2022. Convictions and prison sentences The three men were arrested despite carrying documents confirming their immunity, the OSCE said. Shabanov and Petrov were convicted of treason by a Russian-controlled court in Luhansk in September 2022 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Golda, 57, was convicted of espionage by a court in Donetsk, also under Moscow's control, in July 2024 and sentenced to 14 years. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in November 2022 it believed the activities of the OSCE monitors 'were often not only biased but also illegal.' Without identifying the three Ukrainian OSCE staff by name, the ministry alleged that local residents were recruited by the West to collect information for the Ukrainian military and 'several' were detained. The OSCE condemned the sentences and called for the immediate release of the three men, asserting they were performing their official duties as mandated by all of its 57 member states, including Russia. Seven months after the invasion, Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, despite not fully controlling them. On March 27, 2025, Russia transferred Shabanov from a detention facility in the Luhansk region to a high-security penal colony in Russia's Omsk region in Siberia, according to Ievgeniia Kapalkina, a lawyer with the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group who represents the Shabanov and Petrov families. Petrov remains at risk of being moved to Russia, she said. Penal colonies in Siberia are known for harsh conditions, where 'prisoners often lose all contact with the outside world, effectively 'disappearing' within Russia's penal system,' the legal group said in March. "Given their existing health issues, the lack of proper medical care in remote regions could prove fatal,' it added. Allegations of beatings, psychological pressure Ukrainian human rights activist Maksym Butkevych, who was in the same Luhansk penal colony with Shabanov and Petrov from March 2024 until being released in October 2024, said both men were tortured during interrogation. Shabanov was 'beaten several times during the interrogations until he lost consciousness and was subjected to extreme psychological pressure,' he said. Butkevych said Shabanov, 38, has problems with his back and legs. "He had to lie down at least for couple of hours every day due to pain,' he added. Petrov, 45, has 'a lot of health issues,' Butkevych said, including allergies worsened by his captivity, "specifically the interrogation period.' Kapalkina said both men were 'subjected to repeated unlawful interrogations during which they suffered severe physical and physiological abuse' and eventually 'signed confessions under coercion.' The allegations of torture could not be independently verified by the AP. Bargaining chips for Russia? Butkevych suggested the three imprisoned OSCE workers, who are not prisoners of war, are likely 'bargaining chips' for Moscow, to be 'exchanged for someone or something significantly important for Russia.' Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, the current chairperson of the OSCE, said in a statement to AP that imprisoning civilian officials of an international organization "is completely unacceptable." "Securing their release is a top priority for the Finnish OSCE Chairpersonship,' she said. OSCE Secretary General Feridun H. Sinirlioğlu is 'very closely and personally engaged on this matter,' a spokesperson said, noting he traveled to Moscow in March and raised the issue with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Yurii Vitrenko, Ukraine's ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna, called for the unconditional release of the three, saying they should 'never have been illegally detained' by Russia, should 'never have been put on a fake trial,' and should 'never have been handed illegal sentences." Vitrenko suggested that other states with more influence with Russia should exert more pressure to help secure their release. He did not identify those countries. Shabanova said she regularly asks 'those who have the power' to take action. 'Do not look away,' she said, adding that the OSCE and the international community must ask themselves why their actions have not led to the release of her husband. Her only wish, she said, is "to see my Dima walk through the door, just to hold his hand again, to look into his eyes and say, 'You are home now. It's over.''
The Guardian
22 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Helsinki accord was a masterpiece of European diplomacy. Fifty years on, we need its spirit more than ever
Vladimir Putin will probably never give up on his attempts to bring Ukraine into Russia – which is where it belongs, according to his warped view of history. Those who oppose him tend to fall out of windows or suffer other 'accidents' or go to prison. If he agrees to a ceasefire, it will be only to gain time to replenish his forces before trying again. All that would stop him then would be armed peacekeepers of some kind, as is already being discussed. If someone replaces him from his inner circle, there is unlikely to be change. However, somewhere well-hidden in Moscow, there must be people yearning for real peace, which would include recognising Ukraine as a sovereign country, just as during the cold war there were people fairly well-hidden in the communist establishment who yearned for democracy. They got their chance when Mikhail Gorbachev became leader in 1985. Sadly, the chance was bungled. While waiting with slender hopes for the appearance of these benign forces, it is worth reminding everyone that there is an organisation in place with many of the skills and machinery for promoting democracy and peace in Europe. This is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding document, generally known as 'the Helsinki final act'. The accord was signed in the Finnish capital on 1 August 1975 by 35 presidents, prime ministers and other leaders from both sides of the iron curtain: all of Europe, east and west, plus the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada. Only Maoist Albania declined Finland's invitation to explore how adversaries, armed to the teeth with nuclear and conventional weapons, could find some common ground as the basis for eventual peace. The adoption of the Helsinki final act was the dramatic and unexpected product of nearly three years of intense negotiation. Moscow and its allies wanted to put a seal on the postwar order in Europe, including the division of Germany and Soviet rule over the unhappy people of central and eastern Europe. During those three years, however, it was turned around, mainly by the nine members of the European community – in which Britain played an important role – to become instead an exciting agenda for change. The final act allowed frontiers to be changed by peaceful means, thereby keeping open the road to German (and Irish) unification. It committed signatories to increase military transparency through a catalogue of 'confidence-building measures', and it defined an ambitious set of activities to facilitate trade, cultural contacts and the freer movement of people and information 'of all kinds'. Most significantly of all, as it turned out, it pledged signatories to 'respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief', stipulating that this was an essential basis for peace in Europe. In the following years, the authoritarian governments that signed the final act made only small, grudging moves towards implementing those pledges. But they were eagerly taken up by dissidents, who collected thick dossiers of abuses of human rights to present to liberal governments and pressure groups, which then forced the Soviet Union to accept human rights as a subject for negotiation. In other words, a factor in mutual security was how governments treat their people. This was an important innovation in international diplomacy. Gradually this intense activity around human rights in the Soviet empire helped to punch holes in the iron curtain, weaken the regimes and lay some of the groundwork for the peaceful ending of the cold war. This became known as the 'Helsinki effect'. The legitimacy of the final act derived from the fact that it was not a stitch-up between great powers but the result of 35 states negotiating doggedly until they reached consensus. Will there be another 'Helsinki effect'? Not in that form, and certainly not immediately, as repression in Putin's Russia is harsher than that of the ailing Soviet Union in its dying days. The Russian president has also severely weakened the OSCE by violating most of its pledges, including its foundational commitments to international peace and the nonviolent settlement of disputes. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion Yet the world's largest regional security organisation continues to operate, now with 57 participating states and a dozen missions in the field run from a secretariat in Vienna and an office for democratic institutions and human rights in Warsaw. While often overlooked by the media, it still does valuable work promoting human rights, conflict prevention and honest elections. Importantly, the OSCE remains uniquely inclusive – it is the sole regional organisation of which Ukraine, the US and Russia are members – and it possesses longstanding experience and considerable expertise in promoting cooperation. It has the potential to help broker and monitor a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine when the time is right. On Thursday, member states will congregate in Helsinki to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the final act, in the same Finlandia Hall where it was signed. The accord was a masterpiece of diplomacy and a milestone in European history whose vision remains as relevant as ever: a peaceful and cooperative Europe whose governments respect international law and protect human rights. Its institutional offspring, the OSCE, cannot realise this noble vision by itself, but it remains an important vehicle for seeking peace through diplomacy. Kai Hebel is author of Britain, Détente, and the Helsinki CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe); he is assistant professor of international relations at Leiden University. Richard Davy is the author of Defrosting the Cold War and Beyond
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Islamic State and al-Qaida threat is intense in Africa, with growing risks in Syria, UN experts say
The threat from Islamic State and al-Qaida extremists and their affiliates is most intense in parts of Africa, and risks are growing in Syria, which both groups view as a 'a strategic base for external operations,' U.N. experts said in a new report. Their report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Wednesday said West Africa 's al-Qaida-linked Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin group, known as JNIM, and East Africa 's al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab have continued to increase the territory under their control. The experts monitoring sanctions against the two groups said 'the organization's pivot towards parts of Africa continued" partly because of Islamic State losses in the Middle East due to counterterrorism pressures. There are also 'increasing concerns about foreign terrorist fighters returning to Central Asia and Afghanistan, aiming to undermine regional security,' they said. The Islamic State also continues to represent 'the most significant threat' to Europe and the Americas, the experts said, often by individuals radicalized via social media and encrypted messaging platforms by its Afghanistan-based Khorasan group. In the United States, the experts said several alleged terrorist attack plots were 'largely motivated by the Gaza and Israel conflict,' or by individuals radicalized by IS, also known as ISIL. They pointed to an American who pledged support to IS and drove into a crowd in New Orleans on Jan. 1, killing 14 people in the deadliest attack by al-Qaida or the Islamic State in the U.S. since 2016. In addition, they said, 'Authorities disrupted attacks, including an ISIL-inspired plot to conduct a mass shooting at a military base in Michigan,' and the IS Khorasan affiliate issued warnings of plots targeting Americans. In Africa's Sahel region, the experts said, JNIM expanded its area of operations, operating 'with relative freedom' in northern Mali and most of Burkina Faso. There was also a resurgence of activity by the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, 'particularly along the Niger and Nigeria border, where the group was seeking to entrench itself.' 'JNIM reached a new level of operational capability to conduct complex attacks with drones, improvised explosive devices and large numbers of fighters against well-defended barracks,' the experts said. In East Africa, they said, 'al-Shabab maintained its resilience, intensifying operations in southern and central Somalia' and continuing its ties with Yemen's Houthi rebels. The two groups have reportedly exchanged weapons and the Houthis have trained al-Shabab fighters, they said. Syria, the experts said, remains 'in a volatile and precarious phase,' six months after the ouster of President Bashar Assad, with unnamed countries warning of growing risks posed by both IS and al-Qaida. 'Member states estimated that more than 5,000 foreign terrorist fighters were involved in the military operation in which Damascus was taken on Dec. 8,' the experts' 27-page report said. Syria's new interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa led the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, once an al-Qaida affiliate that later split from it. He has promised that the country will transition to a system that includes Syria's mosaic of religious and ethnic groups under fair elections, but skeptics question whether that will actually happen. The experts expressed concern at the Syrian military's announcement of several senior appointments including 'prominent Syrian armed faction leaders' and six positions for foreigners — three with the rank of brigadier general and three with the rank of colonel. 'The ideological affiliation of many of these individuals was unknown, although several were likely to hold violent extremist views and external ambitions," the report said. As for financing, the experts said the HTS takeover in Syria was considered to pose financial problems for the Islamic State and likely to lead to a decline in its revenues. Salaries for Islamic State fighters were reduced to $50-$70 per month and $35 per family, 'lower than ever, and not paid regularly, suggesting financial difficulties,' said the experts, who did not give previous salaries or family payments. They said both al-Qaida and the Islamic State vary methods to obtain money according to locations and their ability to exploit resources, tax local communities, kidnap for ransom and exploit businesses. While the extremist groups predominantly move money through cash transfers and informal money transfer systems known as hawalas, the experts said the Islamic State has increasingly used female couriers and hawala systems where data is stored in the cloud to avoid detection, and 'safe drop boxes' where money is deposited at exchange offices and can only be retrieved with a password or code.
