The Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen announced on Tuesday the end to a military operation that pounded the Iran-allied Houthi rebels for more than three weeks, a statement read on Saudi-owned Arabiya TV said.

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The alliance had achieved its military goals in Yemen through the campaign dubbed "Storm of Resolve" and will now begin a new operation called "Restoring Hope," it said.

The mission, the statement said, would focus on security at home and counter-terrorism, aid and a political solution in Yemen.





This comes after two air strikes in Yemen killed at least 40 people, most of them civilians and wounded dozens of others, medical sources said.

One strike hit a bridge in central Ibb province as cars carrying militia members were driving on it, residents said, killing at least 20 people, mostly civilians. Another, on a security building in the city of Haradh near Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia, killed 13 civilians and seven soldiers.

Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies have been bombing Yemen for almost a month in a bid to weaken the country's dominant force, the Shi'ite Houthi militia movement allied to Iran.





Earlier on Tuesday, a senior official in the Iran-allied Houthi movement said the movement of more U.S. warships into waters off Yemen escalates Washington's role in a Saudi-led campaign against the group and aims at tightening a "siege" on the country.



"The goal of the movement of American ships is to strengthen the siege imposed on Yemen and put the Yemeni people under collective punishment," Houthi politburo member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Reuters.



"This step increases the level of their participation in this war," he added.