President Donald Trump 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 – but experts have warned the Iran-backed group will not sit idle.
In Trump’s Tuesday announcement from the Oval Office, he claimed the Houthis “just don’t want to fight…and we will honor that. We will stop the bombings.”
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, but in a laugh following the question, he replied that it came from a “very good source.”
Less than two hours later, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the foreign minister of Oman, took to X 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.”
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“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 added.
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.
However, a new report obtained by Fox News Digital ahead of the president’s 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.
The report, 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.
While Tehran has backed the Houthis since at least 2014 – and possibly as early as 2009 during the war in Yemen – 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.
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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 adversaries “outrageous.”
“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.
The report found that Iranian arms are smuggled into Yemen through the port of Hodeidah – which was targeted in a series of Israeli strikes on major infrastructure in and around the Houthi-controlled capital of Sana’a this week – but also through smaller ports or overland through Oman.
Omani private banking institutions and businesses are also reportedly known to be “servicing the Houthi economy and even supplying the group with arms.”
“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.”
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, then recently by the U.S. and Israel, have not significantly degraded the terrorist group.
Those steps include continued military action – similar to Israel’s recent strikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port and Sana’a International Airport, which are expected to have far-reaching economic impacts and increase internal pressure on the Houthis. But military action alone isn’t enough; economic, diplomatic, and other soft power strategies are also needed to weaken the group, according to the report.
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.
“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.
“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.
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