CAIRO (AP) – Iran-backed Yemeni rebels on Monday rejected the US move to name it a terrorist organization in the last days of the Trump administration, while a major aid agency warned that such a designation would give another “Devastating blow” to the poor and a war-torn nation.
The planned appointment, announced by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo late Sunday, will take effect a day before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20th. It was unclear whether Biden would overturn the decision.
Yemen is plunged into a disastrous humanitarian crisis, with millions of people in large parts of the country on the brink of starvation as a result of six years of civil war.
Pompeo said he was continuing to appoint rebels, known as Houthis, along with separate terrorist appointments for the top three rebel leaders. At the same time, he promised that the US would help absorb the impact on aid groups and allow humanitarian assistance to continue to flow into Yemen.
A few hours later, several rebel personalities hit Pompey’s announcement.
“We are not afraid,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi wrote on Twitter. “America is the source of terrorism. He is directly involved in killing and starving the Yemeni people. “
Others said the appointment was an attempt to divert attention from the US political crisis following deadly riots in the Capitol and efforts to impeach President Donald Trump. “We are honored to be the world’s terrorists and gangsters,” Houthis media official Abdel-Rahman al-Ahnoumi wrote on Twitter.
In Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the designation as a “doomed” action at the end of the Trump administration. He said the US would eventually have to enter into negotiations with Yemen’s legitimate representatives – referring to houthi – to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
The internationally recognized Yemeni government described the Hutis as a “terrorist militia” and in a statement issued by its foreign ministry called for “continued escalation and intensification of political and legal pressure on the Hutis to pave the way for a peaceful solution to the conflict.” . ”
Yemen, on top of the Arabian Peninsula, is the scene of the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. The war, which killed more than 112,000 people, left most of the country’s nearly 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid. The war
The conflict began in 2014, when the Houthis overtook the north and the capital, Sanaa. The following year, the Saudi-led coalition intervened to wage war against the Houthis in an attempt to bring back the government of internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
In early January, Hadi’s government accused the rebels of firing ballistic missiles at a Cabinet plane after they landed south of the port city of Aden, an attack that killed more than 25 people. The Houthis denied that they were behind the strike.
After the attack, Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed told the Associated Press that the rebels must “realize that if these criminal and terrorist operations continue, there will be no way to peace.”
At the time, Abdulmalik said a terrorist designation would be a “major step” and “help bring peace to Yemen.”
Previous rounds of peace talks and ceasefire agreements have faltered, and aid agencies, which operate mostly in Houthi-controlled areas, fear that any targeting of the rebel group would impact the entire population.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the country’s main active humanitarian agencies, said Monday that Pompeo’s planned sanctions “will hamper the ability of aid agencies to respond” to the humanitarian needs of millions of Yemenis.
“Yemen’s declining economy will receive another devastating blow,” said Mohamed Abdi, the group’s director for Yemen. “The introduction of food and medicine into Yemen – an 80% import-dependent country – will become even more difficult.”
Aid organizations have long warned that sanctions could prove catastrophic for efforts to help hungry Yemeni civilians caught in the conflict between Houthi and the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition at war with the rebels.
In his announcement, Pompeo said the United States acknowledges that the designation could have an impact on the humanitarian situation and will take steps to counter this.
“We plan to implement measures to reduce their impact on certain humanitarian activities and imports into Yemen,” he said. These measures will include the issuance of special licenses by the US Treasury to allow US aid to continue circulating in Yemen and for humanitarian organizations to continue working there, he said.
Separately, the United States has suspended millions of dollars from its aid donations to Houthi-controlled areas following reports of theft and aid robbery. UN agencies have long complained about rebels stealing and redirecting food aid.
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Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi of Tehran, Iran, contributed to the report.