Houthis do not seek to expand Red Sea attacks

Yemen's Houthis have said they did not intend to expand their attacks on shipping in and around the Red Sea further, beyond their stated aims of blockading Israel and retaliating against the United States and Britain for air strikes.

In an interview with Reuters, spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam, who is also the chief Houthi negotiator in peace talks over the country's decade-old civil war, said that the group had no plans to target longstanding foes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. "We do not want the escalation to expand.

This is not our demand. We imposed rules of engagement in which not a single drop of blood was shed or major material losses," said Abdulsalam. "It represented pressure on Israel only, it did not represent pressure on any other country."