Houthis Say US 'Terrorist' Label Will Do Nothing to Stop Their War at Sea

A senior official of the powerful Yemeni movement now being targeted by a United States-led coalition told Newsweek that Washington's decision to once again designate his group a terrorist organization will have no bearing on its ongoing attacks in one of the world's most crucial shipping lanes.

"This decision will not affect our decision, and we will continue to stand with the Palestinian people to stop the massacres in Gaza, just as America does in its support of Israel to continue the massacres," Nasreddin Amer, deputy information secretary for Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, told Newsweek.

The comments came shortly after the U.S. State Department formally announced the decision to label the group a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" (SDGT) organization on Wednesday.

In a statement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ansar Allah's campaign, which began in November around a month after an unprecedented surprise attack led by Hamas against Israel sparked the deadliest-ever war in Gaza, "have endangered mariners, disrupted the free flow of commerce, and interfered with navigational rights and freedoms" in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

"This designation seeks to promote accountability for the group's terrorist activities," Blinken said. "If the Houthis cease their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the United States will reevaluate this designation."

The move followed several rounds of strikes conducted over the past week by the U.S. and the United Kingdom, with support from several other Western nations, against Ansar Allah military capabilities in Yemen even as the group continued to claim new attacks—most recently against the Malta-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier Zogravia as it transited north across the Red Sea.

"The Yemeni Armed Forces continue to take all defensive and offensive measures within the legitimate right to defend dear Yemen and in confirmation of continued practical solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people," Ansar Allah military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a statement Tuesday.

The U.S. labeled Ansar Allah as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" (FTO) in the final days of the previous administration led by then-President Donald Trump. The move was reversed by President Joe Biden just weeks after taking office in 2021, citing Yemen's "dire humanitarian situation" and concerns expressed by humanitarian groups, the United Nations, lawmakers and others regarding the effects of such a designation on the ability to provide aid to the embattled nation.

Prior to the announcement on Wednesday, a senior Biden administration official said the SDGT designation "will take effect 30 days from now to allow us to ensure robust humanitarian carveouts are in place so our action targets the Houthis and not the people of Yemen."

"We are rolling out, as we take this action, unprecedented carveouts and licenses to help prevent adverse impacts on the Yemeni people," the senior administration official added. "The people of Yemen should not pay the price for the actions of the Houthis."

The senior administration official told reporters that the SDGT designation was chosen as opposed to the FTO label because it "provides better flexibility to achieve the aims that we have in terms of carving out and safeguarding humanitarian assistance as well as the broader well-being of the people of Yemen and targeting the action towards the Houthis while still achieving our foreign policy aims, which is to call out the Houthis' actions for what they are, which is unacceptable terrorism."

Since Yemen's civil war first erupted nearly a decade ago, Ansar Allah has taken control of up to a third of the nation's territory, including the capital, Sanaa, and today oversees around 80 percent of the country's population. The once-raging conflict between Ansar Allah and the Saudi-backed government, along with other factions such as the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council, has largely been halted as a result of ceasefire brokered by the United Nations in April 2022.

Hopes for a lasting resolution in Yemen were raised by a China-brokered deal to reestablish relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March of last year but the war in Gaza has once again set the region alight. Prior to beginning its campaign against merchant ships, Ansar Allah began launching missiles and drones directly at Israel shortly after the Israel-Hamas conflict began last October.

This is a developing story and will be updated when more information is available.

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