WASHINGTON – The State Department said Friday it would lift a terrorist designation against Houthi rebels in Yemen issued by the Trump administration in its final days, and the fines that concern President Biden’s assistant Biden suffer millions more as the rebels.
Three officials familiar with the decision said Biden’s government had informed Democrats in Congress Friday night that it would be the designation, which would be President Donald J. Trump’s last raid on the Houthis’ chief protector, Iran. remove.
Caught in widespread poverty and civil war, about 80 percent of Yemen’s population of 30 million people live in areas under Houthi control. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said in November that Yemen was “in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen in decades.”
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a statement that removing the designation of terrorists would “save lives.”
“The designation did not affect the Houthis in any practical way, but it prevented food and other critical aid from being delivered within Yemen, and could prevent effective political negotiations,” he said. Murphy said.
A State Department official said the removal of the designation did not excuse Houthi’s behavior, including attacks on civilians and the abduction of Americans. But according to the official, the rebels would be kept on the list of foreign terrorist organizations at the Foreign Ministry, to accelerate the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The terrorist order was just less than a month in force. It was never clear that this would deter the rebels who overthrew the Saudi-backed government in Yemen in 2014, and according to some analysts, the United States poses no immediate threat.
But it has had a chilling effect on commercial food importers and humanitarian aid workers who feared their criminal penalties would be imposed if their goods fell into Houthi hands. The rebels control the capital Sanaa and parts of the strategic port city of Al Hudaydah, where much of the humanitarian aid from around the world is unloaded.
“We want to make sure we do nothing to make Yemen’s life worse or even worse,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Friday afternoon before the name was lifted.
The reversal was widely expected. Last week, on his first full day in office, Foreign Secretary Antony J. Blinken said that a review of the designation of terrorists ‘is the priority in my book’.
Officials said the designation of terrorists was lifted before it could have a widespread effect. If it remained in place, the relatively decentralized rebel movement would be denied financial support and other material resources led by U.S. banks or other U.S. institutions.
But the Houthi’s main protector is Iran, which has continued to send support, despite being hampered by severe US economic sanctions, making the effect of the name on the Houthi’s more symbolic than snarling.
As part of its pressure campaign against Iran, the Trump administration sought to limit Tehran’s military reach in Yemen, where it sent weapons and other aid to Houthi fighters. Mr. Trump’s repression of the rebels also firmly planted the United States on the side of Saudi Arabia and its allies in the war in Yemen, which provided intelligence and billions of dollars in weapons over congressional objections.
On Thursday, Mr. Biden said he would end US support for Saudi Arabia in his intervention in Yemen, following accusations of indiscriminate bombings that killed civilians and other military atrocities that could amount to war crimes.
Mike Pompeo, who oversaw the designation of terrorists as Mr. Trump’s foreign minister has accused the Houthis of an attack on December 30 at the civilian airport in the Yemeni city of Aden, which killed 27 people, as proof of the Houthi’s ability to intimidate. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are active in the area.
But the terrorist designation was removed before the Trump administration could institute clear legal protection for importers and aid workers to ensure goods could reach Yemen. The vast majority of food in Yemen is imported.
“This purely counterproductive designation has caused months of uncertainty as aid organizations, banks and importers of critical products such as food and fuel have been let down,” said Scott Paul, Oxfam America’s humanitarian policy leader.
He said it was the humanitarian consequences of designating terrorists – not the behavior of the Houthis – that “justified this reversal.”
Edward Wong contribution made.