WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will designate the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization, four U.S. officials familiar with the decision said Sunday, and one of his last resort for tough force against Used by Saudi Arabia’s ominousness to exacerbate the danger. famine in one of the poorest countries in the world.
It is not clear how the designation of terrorists will hinder the Houthi rebels, who have been at war with the Saudi-backed government in Yemen for almost six years, but according to some analysts, it does not pose a direct threat to the United States. .
Mr. Pompeo will announce the appointment in his last full week as secretary of state, and more than a month after meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who launched a military intervention with Arab allies against the Houthis in 2015. killed civilians, destroyed infrastructure and exacerbated a humanitarian crisis that led to millions of starving Yemenis.
State Department spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment Sunday night, and U.S. officials who confirmed the designation spoke about the condition of anonymity as it has not yet been made public. The threatening announcement was reported by Reuters earlier Sunday night.
The inclusion of the Houthis on the department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations means that fighters in the relatively decentralized movement of financial support and other material resources led by U.S. banks or other U.S. institutions will be cut off.
But the Houthi’s main protector is Iran, which continues to send support, despite being hampered by severe US economic sanctions, which makes the effect of the designation on the rebels more symbolic than scolding.
For the rest of Yemen, however, the designation will almost exacerbate the devastation.
Experts said it would cool the humanitarian efforts to donate food and medicine to Houthi-controlled areas in northern and western Yemen, where a majority of the country’s 30 million people live, for fear the rebels help will seize and be able to use for profit. can be traced back to aid organizations. The rebels also control the capital Sanaa and parts of the strategic port city of Hudaydah, where much of the humanitarian aid from around the world is unloaded.
The United Nations estimates that about 80 percent of Yemenis are dependent on food aid, and that nearly half of all children have stunted growth due to malnutrition. On November 20, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Yemen was “now in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen in decades.”
“I urge everyone with influence to take urgent action on these issues to avert the catastrophe, and I also urge not everyone to act that could make the already dire situation even worse,” he said. Guterres said. “If we do not do this, we risk a tragedy not only in the immediate loss of life, but with consequences that will resonate indefinitely in the future.”
Some Houthi leaders have been singled out for US terrorist-related sanctions. The broader name against the whole movement has been considered by the Trump administration for years.
The fact that Mr. Pompeo issuing it in the last days of government is a sign of his determination to maintain his signature printing campaign against Iran for as long as possible.
The United States accuses the Houthi rebels of being proxy fighters for Iran, and tries to destabilize neighboring Saudi Arabia by moving missiles across its border and hitting its oil fields. But a major attack on two state-run Saudi Aramco oil facilities in September 2019, which the Houthis said they had carried out, was far more sophisticated than the rebels’ previous strikes.
This suggests that Iran was directly involved, as the Trump administration claimed, despite Tehran’s denial.
“The Trump administration has been able to use its ties with Saudi Arabia for the past four years to come closer to a resolution on the conflict,” said Ariane Tabatabai, a fellow in the Middle East at the German Marshall Fund. public policy think tank, in a recent interview in anticipation of the designation. “Instead, the administration chose to cut off blank checks to Saudi leaders.”
She predicted that the designation of terrorists was part of a strategy to get the administration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden jr. To force to maintain the difficult line over Iran – or to dare the political consequences to explain to local critics and regional partners why it is to reverse sanctions. ”
The Trump administration has steadfastly supported Saudi Arabia and its allies in the war in Yemen, providing intelligence and billions of dollars in weapons over congressional objections, despite indiscriminate bombings that have killed civilians and other military atrocities that could amount to war crimes.
In October, the rebels released two American hostages and the remains of a third in a prisoner exchange that could also return about 240 Houthis from Oman to Yemen. The liberated Houthis captured fighters captured by the Saudi-led coalition and officials who went to Oman for international peace talks and were not allowed to return home.
In addition to the looming famine, the designation of terrorists could also seal the fate of a heavily rusted oil tanker moored off the west coast of Yemen.
Compared to a floating bomb, partly due to the flammable gas accumulations it carries in its tanks, the dilapidated vessel, the FSO Safer, is not far from Hudaydah harbor. If it explodes or simply falls apart, it could dump more than 1.1 million barrels of oil into the Red Sea, destroying the ecosystem in a spill four times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.
About half a dozen Houthi’s are on board the vessel, along with a small crew of state-owned state-owned engineers holding the title, said Ian M. Ralby, CEO of IR Consilium, a maritime security firm. consultation. The designation of terrorists could prevent UN negotiators from working with the Houthi as quickly as possible to repair the vessel or otherwise defuse the danger it poses.
“If we do not want to lose an entire generation in Yemen,” he said. Ralby said, “we must withhold this designation.”
Edward Wong contribution made.