The Yemeni terrorist organization Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, dismissed its return to the official American list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by claiming they never wanted an alliance with Washington – dismissing the severe economic consequences resulting from the designation.
President Donald Trump restored the Houthis to the list on Wednesday, citing their extensive history of deadly terrorist activity, largely bankrolled by Iran. The order relisting the Houthis noted that the group rose to prominence in Yemen by launching a civil war against the legitimate government of that country in 2014, which persists to this day and resulted in the Houthis controlling the national capital, Sanaa.
“Since seizing most Yemeni population centers by force from the legitimate Yemeni government in 2014-2015, the Houthis have launched numerous attacks on civilian infrastructure,” the White House observed, “including multiple attacks on civilian airports in Saudi Arabia, the deadly January 2022 attacks on the United Arab Emirates, and more than 300 projectiles fired at Israel since October 2023.”
The presidential order noted that the Houthis receive support from state sponsor of terrorism Iran and Iran’s Islamist Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), itself an FTO.
While contained as a threat to Yemenis for most of the civil war, the Houthis launched an international terrorism campaign to hinder global commercial shipping in the aftermath of the Hamas atrocities in the siege of Israel on October 7, 2023. Houthi leaders claimed that they would only target Israeli or Israeli-bound ships in the greater Red Sea area but rapidly expanded to bombing ships apparently at random – including ships carry assets from allies such as Iran, China, and Russia. The Houthis have attacked nearly 200 ships since late 2023.
The designation makes it illegal for Americans or people within the United States to offer any material support to the terrorist organization, including funding and non-tangible support. It also stops American businesses from working with that organization and blocks all members of the FTO from entering America. FTOs cannot save their money in American banks or otherwise use American financial services.
Potentially the most significant consequence for the Houthis is that the designation prevents humanitarian organizations or other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from giving them money. Yemen has been facing humanitarian catastrophe for over a decade as a result of the Houthis launching their civil war, leaving the vast majority of Yemenis dependent on international aid for food and medicine, among other needs. The Houthis have exploited that by intercepting humanitarian funding and redirecting it to terrorist activities, which will be more difficult thanks to the FTO designation.
Trump’s executive order to relist the Houthis includes a provision ordering the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Secretary of State to review United Nations partners operating in Yemen and stop funding those who have “made payments to the Houthis, or which have opposed international efforts to counter the Houthis while turning a blind eye towards the Houthis’ terrorism and abuses.”
Houthi leaders nonetheless dismissed the designation as irrelevant at worst, and a source of pride at best. Responding on Thursday, Houthi propagandist Nasr al-Din Amer quipped, “Being included on the US list of allies would have posed greater risks and been far more provocative than being labeled as a terrorist organization.”
Amer called the designation a “great honor for Yemenis,” according to the Iranian propaganda website PressTV.
Houthi “minister of information” Hashem Sharafuddin similarly dismissed the designation as an “absurdity,” the Hezbollah-linked al-Mayadeen news network reported.
“We are on the terrorism list, then we’re removed, then re-listed, then delisted again, only to be re-listed once more!” Sharafuddin said. “Sometimes, the best response to American absurdities is to ignore them.”
“This is nothing new, the Americans have already declared war on us, yet we stood strong, fought for justice, and defended our homeland and people,” he claimed.
Sharafuddin was referring to the fact that former President Joe Biden removed the Houthis from the FTO list as one of his first acts in office in 2021. Biden administration officials claimed the move was necessary to ensure that Yemeni civilians received humanitarian aid, though significant evidence development since then that the Houthis intercepted and abused aid funds to support terrorist operations. Following the launch of the Houthis’ global campaign against commercial shipping, Biden listed the Houthis as “specially designated global terrorists,” a weaker designation terrorism experts panned as ineffective.
A United Nations report compiled for the Security Council in November found that the Houthis received “unprecedented” support from Iran after the October 7 Hamas attacks – which occurred a month after Biden unfroze $6 billion in Iranian assets, greatly expanding its ability to fund terror proxies.
“The scale, nature and extent of transfers of diverse military materiel and technology provided to the Houthis from external sources, including financial support and training of its combatants, is unprecedented,” the report warned.
Biden would go on to declare that he thought the Houthis were a terrorist organization, without relisting them, and call the FTO designations “irrelevant.”
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