Second $67 Million F-18 Jet Falls Into Red Sea

U.S. Raises White Flag After Defeat in Yemen

Date: 07 May 2025 - 22:06

News ID: ۱۳۹۳۲۷

Ansarullah: Deal Will Not Stop Strikes on Israel

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Washington will put a stop to its illegal war against Yemen, claiming that the Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) “don’t want to fight anymore.”
When pressed by reporters on the terms of the agreement with Sanaa, Trump claimed Yemeni officials “said please don’t bomb us anymore.” Asked where he got that information, Trump said, “It doesn’t matter where I heard it – a very good source.”
Nevertheless, the Omani Foreign Ministry announced later that Muscat successfully brokered a ceasefire agreement between Washington and Sanaa that will see both sides end hostilities.
“The understanding between the U.S. and the Houthis not to attack each other is aimed at building momentum for Iran nuclear deal talks,” CNN reported, citing people familiar with the agreement. However, the agreement reportedly does not call for an end to Yemeni operations against Israel.
According to the report, U.S. special envoy to West Asia Steve Witkoff brokered the ceasefire over the past week.
Trump made the announcement a few hours after Israel violently bombed the Yemeni capital, destroying large parts of Sanaa International Airport and several power stations around the city.
According to reports in Hebrew media, Israeli authorities were caught unaware by Trump’s capitulation to Yemen. “[Authorities] were surprised by his words, and do not understand the implications of his statement,” Yedioth Ahronoth revealed.
On Sunday, the Israeli military failed to intercept a Yemeni missile that successfully struck the heavily fortified Ben Gurion airport. Following the attack, the Yemeni Armed Forces vowed to impose a complete “aerial blockade” on Israel, especially Ben Gurion.
Following the truce announcement, the chairman of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, confirmed that despite the Israeli aggression, “there will be no retreat from supporting Gaza, no matter the cost.”
“The Israeli aggression proves to our people the correctness of their movement and struggle, and reassures them even more when they see that they are facing the vilest enemy humanity has ever known. Our response, Allah willing, will be devastating, painful, and at a level that will not be bearable for the Israeli enemy,” Mashat added.
He also called on Israeli settlers to “stay in shelters or leave immediately to your homelands, for your failed government will no longer be able to protect you.”
Ansarullah’s spokesman Muhammad Abdul-Salam stressed that Yemen’s Armed Forces will
continue to target Israeli positions.
The agreement with the U.S. has “no connection with our stance on supporting Gaza”, Abdul-Salam said, adding “the support of Yemeni nation for Gaza will expand in a better way”.
The Ansarullah spokesman emphasized that the U.S. proposal showed its incompetence and failure, as the country was unable to protect Israeli ships.
Abdul-Salam said Yemen is still evaluating the U.S. position in a bid to ensure that it was not just a statement. “If the U.S. resumes its attacks, we will resume operations against Washington,” he said.
Washington had been waging a war against Yemen without congressional approval since January 2023, hoping to stop the pro-Palestine operations of the YAF.
Despite bombing the country thousands of times and deploying multiple carrier strike groups to West Asian waters, the U.S. was unable to deter YAF attacks and lost approximately two dozen advanced MQ-9 Reaper drones over the Arab world’s poorest country.
A Navy fighter jet failed to land on an aircraft carrier and plummeted into the Red Sea on Tuesday, marking the fourth major mishap involving the vessel and the third loss of a fighter jet deployed with it since the warship left home last year.
The F/A-18F Super Hornet jet, worth about $67 million, went overboard after an unsuccessful attempt to slow it down upon landing on the USS Harry S. Truman, the Navy said in a statement.
A Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, said in a statement late Tuesday that the Pentagon is monitoring the situation, and that the jet was not struck by Yemeni forces. An investigation is underway, and more information will be disclosed when the cause of the accident is identified, he said.
The latest incident, reported earlier by CNN, followed the loss of another jet, an F/A-18E, in an accident aboard the Truman last week in which the aircraft tumbled overboard after sailors aboard lost control of it while towing it in the ship’s hangar bay amid a missile strike on the warship by Yemen. A third fighter jet from the Truman was shot down accidentally over the Red Sea in December by another Navy warship, the USS Gettysburg, in an incident that triggered concerns about communication among warships and fighter jets in the region.
The Truman also was involved in a collision in the Mediterranean Sea in February, prompting the service to fire its commanding officer, Navy Capt. Dave Snowden. He was replaced by Navy Capt. Christopher Hill, who had just completed the deployment of another carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The incidents have raised questions about the strain placed on the aircraft carrier’s crew and its ability to carry out a grueling deployment in which troops have clashed for months with Yemeni forces.
“We favor a diplomatic solution. We know that there is no military solution,” U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking said last year.
Pentagon officials in recent months also raised concerns about the ballooning cost of the war and the rapid depletion of Washington’s long-range precision munitions.
On Tuesday, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi said, “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.”
Tehran welcomed the cessation of U.S. attacks against Yemen, urging the international community to take effective measures to halt Israel’s assaults on Yemen’s civilian infrastructure and the killing of innocent people.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said despite the halt in U.S. strikes, Washington remains complicit in crimes committed by the Zionist regime against the people of Yemen.
Baghaei praised the steadfastness of the Yemeni people in supporting Palestinians. He said the people of the region will never forget the legendary resistance of Yemenis against foreign intervention.