U.S. President Joe Biden has announced the U.S. will no longer support any Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, The Guardian and Defense News reported Friday.
"He will announce an end to American support for offensive operations in Yemen," Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan in a White House news briefing Thursday.
Biden said the conflict in Yemen, which has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 and displaced 8 million, had created a humanitarian and strategic crisis. "We're ending all U.S. support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant weapons sales," Biden said.
The Donald Trump administration provided arms support to Saudi Arabia and its coalition - rejecting bipartisan calls from Congress to sever relations. Previously, the Obama administration authorized the Kingdom's air assault on Houthi rebels.
The Biden administration has already suspended the sale of certain advanced munitions and other weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which the Trump administration had aggressively pushed at the end of his term.
However, Biden said the U.S. would continue to provide logistics, technical and defensive support to Saudi Arabia against missile and drone attacks from Iranian-backed forces. American troops will also continue to operate against al-Qaida.
The Biden administration has already frozen sales of certain precision-guided munitions and other weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Biden has also announced he was selecting top diplomat Tim Lenderking to be the first American official to broker a truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition with the UAE and their Yemeni counterparts.
Biden was also expected to announce the suspension of Trump's pullout of U.S. forces from Germany as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin evaluates U.S. military deployments.
