Yemen’s Houthis have said they do not intend to expand their attacks on shipping around the Red Sea beyond their stated goals of blocking Israel and retaliating against the United States and Britain for airstrikes.
In an interview with Reuters, spokesman Muhammad Abdulsalam, who is also the Houthis’ chief negotiator in peace talks to end the country’s decade-long civil war, said the Houthis have no plans to attack their old enemies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“We don’t want the escalation to spread. That’s not our demand. We imposed the rules of the fight in which not a single drop of blood was shed or large material losses,” said Abdulsalam.
“It put pressure only on Israel, it didn’t put pressure on any country in the world,” he added.
The Houthis, who with the support of Iran control most of the populated areas in Yemen, have been attacking ships in the Red Sea since October. They say they attack ships linked to Israel out of solidarity with the Palestinians.
“What the Yemeni people did in the beginning was to target Israeli ships going to Israel without causing human or even significant material losses, just preventing the ships from passing as if they had a natural right,” Abdulsalam said.
“Now that America has joined and further escalated the situation, there is no doubt that Yemen will respond,” he said.
The US, UK and other allies have launched a series of strikes against the Houthis to stop their attacks on commercial shipping in one of the world’s busiest straits.
The Houthis began attacking international cargo ships after war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza following the deadly attacks on Israel on October 7.
“We do not want the conflict to spread in the region and we do not prefer that, we are still working to prevent escalation, but the decision is up to the Americans, as long as they continue to attack,” said Abdulsalam.
