WASHINGTON —
The
Biden administration will designate Yemen’s Houthi militia as a terrorist
organization, partly reimposing penalties it lifted nearly three years ago on
the Iran-backed group whose attacks on
regional shipping traffic have drawn a
US military response.
اضافة اعلان
Beginning in
mid-February, the US will consider the Houthis a “specially designated global
terrorist” group, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement
Wednesday, blocking its access to the global financial system, among other
penalties. But Biden officials stopped short of applying a second, more severe
designation — that of “foreign terrorist organization” — which the Trump
administration imposed on the Houthis in its final days. The State Department
revoked both designations shortly after
President Joe Biden took office in
early 2021.
That further
step would have made it far easier to prosecute criminally anyone who knowingly
provides the Houthis with money, supplies, training, or other “material
support.” But aid groups are already warning that it could also impede
humanitarian assistance to Yemen.
The move
comes as a response to, and an effort to halt, weeks of Houthi missile and
drone attacks on maritime traffic off Yemen’s coast. Those attacks, which the
group describes as a show of
solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip, have forced some major shipping companies to
reroute their vessels, leading to delays and higher shipping costs worldwide.
After issuing multiple warnings to the Houthis, Biden ordered dozens of strikes
on their facilities in Yemen, although U.S. officials say the group retains
most of its ability to attack commerce in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
But the
designation also reflects an effort to strike a balance, one that protects the
flow of desperately needed humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen, who have
endured famine, disease, and displacement through more than a decade of civil
war after the Houthis seized the country’s capital in September 2014.
David Schenker,
a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the Trump
administration, said the Biden administration had chosen to “split the
difference.”
“I think
they were trying to find a half-measure that would reflect their frustration
with the Houthis while trying to minimize the potential risk of further
humanitarian hardship,” he said.
Hazem
al-Assad, a member of the Houthis, said in a statement that the group would not
be intimidated by the United States and that the designation would not affect
its operations.
US officials
worry that branding the
Houthis a foreign terrorist organization could cause
aid groups to stop sending supplies into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, for
fear it could be deemed “material support” subject to criminal liability.
“The Houthis
must be held accountable for their actions, but it should not be at the expense
of Yemeni civilians,” Blinken said in his statement. He added that the United
States would work with aid providers and others in the next 30 days before the
designation takes effect to help them navigate the new environment.
The Treasury
Department will publish licenses authorizing “certain transactions related to
the provision of food, medicine, and fuel, as well as personal remittances,
telecommunications and mail, and port and airport operations on which the
Yemeni people rely,”
Blinken said.
Despite
those assurances, some aid organizations were alarmed by the US action.
Anastasia
Moran, associate director for U.S. advocacy at the International Rescue
Committee, predicted a “serious chilling effect” from the new designation,
which she said would likely “affect Yemeni civilians more than anyone else.”
“We are
concerned some private-sector actors, including food importers and banks
facilitating transactions for humanitarian organizations, may choose to
disengage altogether,” Moran said.
According to
the United Nations’ World Food Program, Yemen has the world’s highest
malnutrition rate, with at least 2.2 million children under age 5 in need of
urgent treatment for the condition.
It also
remains unclear whether the terrorism designation would jeopardize the fragile
US and Saudi efforts to construct a lasting peace deal to end the conflict in
Yemen. When Blinken reversed the Trump-era designations in early 2021, American
officials said the move would help to facilitate dialogue between the warring
parties.
US officials
concluded that the risks of action were outweighed by new powers they will have
to sanction and prosecute front companies and intermediaries that assist the
Houthis, who have developed a formidable military arsenal.
Blinken said
the designation could be removed if the Houthis stopped their aggressive
behavior. After Israel’s military response in Gaza after the Hamas attacks on
Oct. 7, the Houthis have sought to show solidarity with the Palestinians by
attacking ships they believe to be bound for Israel. The Houthis, a religiously
inspired Shiite group, profess hatred of Israel.
Speaking at
the World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jake Sullivan,
Biden’s national security adviser, said that it was important to signal that
“the entire world rejects wholesale the idea that a group like the Houthis can
basically hijack the world, as they are doing.”
US officials
have not accused the Houthis of plotting terrorist attacks beyond the region,
and the group has battled Yemen’s local affiliate of al-Qaida, according to an
October 2023 report by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.
Yemen’s civil
conflict was exacerbated by the intervention of neighboring Saudi Arabia and,
for a time, the United Arab Emirates — both regard the Houthis as dangerous
proxies for Iran, which lends the Houthis financial and military support.
The conflict
created a humanitarian catastrophe that Biden, as a candidate in 2020, vowed to
address. Led by Tim Lenderking, the US special envoy for Yemen, the Biden
administration helped to secure a truce in the conflict and has been trying to
help clinch a lasting peace deal.
Speaking to
reporters at a daily briefing, the State Department spokesperson, Matthew
Miller, said the harsher Trump-era designation of the Houthis as a foreign
terrorist organization had “a deterrent effect on groups that wanted to provide
just humanitarian aid, and nothing else.”
Schenker
disputed that characterization, and expressed doubt that the new action would
restrain the Houthis. “I don’t think this is going to have a great effect,” he
said, adding that the group was “highly ideological” and backed by an
emboldened Iran.
In a
statement Tuesday after The Associated Press first reported the planned action,
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., denounced Biden’s 2021 removal of the Houthis from the
terrorist list as a show of “weakness.”
“Removing
them from the list of terror organizations was a deadly mistake and another
failed attempt to appease the ayatollah,” Cotton said, referring to Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In a
statement Wednesday, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chair of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, questioned the Biden administration’s decision not
to redesignate the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, which he said
“brings more impact and more penalties” than the specially designated global
terrorist label.
Asked by a
reporter last week whether he considered the Houthis a terrorist group, Biden
did not equivocate. “I think they are,” he replied.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
