US TO DESIGNATE IRAN-BACKED HOUTHIS AS TERRORIST ORGANIZATION

Mon 11 January 2021:

The United States will designate the Iran-backed Houthi militia as a terrorist organization, and three of its leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an official statement on Monday.

In his announcement late Sunday, Pompeo pledged that U.S. measures would help absorb the impact on aid groups and allow humanitarian assistance to continue to flow to the Arab world’s poorest country.

“The Department of State will notify Congress of my intent to designate Ansarallah – sometimes referred to as the Houthis – as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity, pursuant to Executive Order 13224,” the statement cited Pompeo as saying.

“I also intend to designate three of Ansarallah’s leaders, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, Abd al-Khaliq Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and Abdullah Yahya al Hakim, as SDGTs,” the statement added.

The decision to designate the leaders as SDGTs “will provide additional tools to confront [the group’s] terrorist activity and terrorism,” and hold the Houthis accountable for their terrorist acts, according to Pompeo.

The move also comes as part of efforts to “achieve a peaceful, sovereign, and united Yemen that is both free from Iranian interference and at peace with its neighbors,” he added.

Humanitarian warnings

The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the main humanitarian agencies active in Yemen, said the designation and Pompeo’s planned sanctions on the Houthis “will hamstring the ability of aid agencies to respond” to the humanitarian needs of millions of Yemenis.

“Yemen’s faltering economy will be dealt a further devastating blow,” said Mohamed Abdi, the group’s director for Yemen. “Getting food and medicine into Yemen — a country 80% dependent on imports — will become even more difficult.”

Relief organizations have long warned that sanctions could prove catastrophic for efforts to help starving Yemeni civilians caught in the conflict between the Houthis and the Yemeni government.

Yemen, a country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the stage of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster after more than six years of a grinding conflict that has left the majority of the country’s nearly 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid. The war has killed more than 112,000 people so far.

The conflict started in 2014 when the Houthis overran the north and the capital, Sanaa. The following year, the Saudi-led coalition intervened to wage war on the Houthis and to restore President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government to power.

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent