WASHINGTON is considering taking the Houthis off the terrorist list if they stop rocketing shipping in the Red Sea, reports Singapore's Splash 247.

US President Joe Biden's special envoy for Yemen gave reporters an indication that diplomatic channels are working hard for a solution between Washington and the Houthi leadership.

The Houthis - backed by Iranian intelligence and weaponry - have attacked around 70 commercial ships in the near six months since Israel went to war with Hamas, leading to a mass exodus of vessel traffic in the region.

Over the past 10 days, however, attacks have eased up. Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich, the top US Air Force commander for the Middle East, ascribed this new quieter phase in the Red Sea shipping crisis as likely down to all the strikes carried out by US and UK armed forces in recent weeks, taking out much of the Houthis' arsenal of drones and missiles.

"Their pace of operations is not what it was," General Grynkewich said, conceding that a complicating factor was how quickly the Iranian military could resupplying the Houthis.

Said Tim Lenderking, deputy assistant US secretary of state: "My hope is that we can find diplomatic off-ramps, and find ways to deescalate and allow us to pull back, eventually, the [terrorist] designation and of course to end the military strikes on Houthis' military capability."

Mr Lenderking has been in the Omani capital, Muscat, this week, a city that hosts a number of Houthi leaders. He has held talks with Omani and Saudi officials, seeking solutions to the ongoing Red Sea crisis.

The American diplomat said the Houthis could "show good faith" and an "intent to deescalate" if they released the 25-member crew of the Galaxy Leader, a car carrier that they hijacked in November.

Salvatore Mercogliano, an associate professor of history at Campbell University, argued that any resolution to the Red Sea crisis lies on land.

"The underlying solution remains the resolution of the conflict in Gaza," he said in an interview with Splash earlier this year, pointing out how the anti-piracy patrols against Somalia in the first two decades of the century demonstrated that while naval forces can minimise threats, they cannot totally eliminate them.