CAIRO (AP) – Yemen’s Iranian-backed rebels on Monday rejected the US decision to designate them as a terrorist organization in the closing days of the Trump administration, while a leading aid agency warned that such designation would again be a ‘ would inflict devastating blow ‘on the poor and war-torn nation.
The planned designation, announced late Sunday by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was to take effect a day before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20. It was not clear whether Biden would recant the decision.
Yemen is trapped in a disastrous humanitarian crisis, with millions of people across much of the country on the brink of starvation as a result of six years of civil war.
Pompeo said he went ahead with designating the rebels, known as Houthis, along with separate terrorist designations for the three main rebel leaders. At the same time, he promised that the US would help cushion the impact on aid groups and that humanitarian aid would continue to flow into Yemen.
Hours later, several senior rebel figures slammed Pompeo’s announcement.
“We are not afraid,” tweeted Mohammed Ali al-Houthi. “America is the source of terrorism. It is directly involved in the killing and starvation of the Yemeni population. “
Others said the designation was an attempt to divert attention from the political crisis in the US after the deadly riots in the Capitol and the attempts to overthrow President Donald Trump. “We are honored to be terrorists and gangsters of the world,” tweeted Houthis media official Abdel-Rahman al-Ahnoumi.
In Iran, State Department spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the designation as a “doomed-to-failure” move at the end of the Trump administration. He said the US should eventually start negotiations with Yemen’s legitimate representatives – referring to the Houthis – to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
The internationally recognized government of Yemen described the Houthis as a ‘terrorist militia’ and in a statement from the State Department called for ‘continuing the escalation and intensifying political and legal pressure on the Houthis to clear the way. make for a peaceful solution to the conflict. ”
Yemen, at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the scene of the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster. The war, which killed more than 112,000 people, has left the majority of the country’s nearly 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. The war
The conflict started in 2014 when the Houthis flooded the north and the capital, Sana’a. The following year, the Saudi-led coalition intervened to wage war on the Houthis to try to bring the government of internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.
In early January, Hadi’s government accused the rebels of firing ballistic missiles aimed at a plane carrying cabinet members after landing in the southern port city of Aden, an attack that killed more than 25 people. The Houthis denied that they were behind the strike.
Following the attack, Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed told The Associated Press that rebels “must realize that there will be no road to peace if they continue these criminal and terrorist operations.”
Abdulmalik said at the time that designation as a terrorist would be a step “of great importance” and “help bring about peace in Yemen”.
Previous rounds of peace talks and ceasefire agreements have failed, and aid agencies, mainly active in Houthi-controlled areas, fear that a target of the rebel group would hit the entire population.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the main humanitarian organizations operating in the country, said on Monday that Pompeo’s planned sanctions will “hinder the ability of aid agencies to respond” to the humanitarian needs of millions of Yemenis.
“Yemen’s faltering economy will take another devastating blow,” said Mohamed Abdi, the group’s director for Yemen. “Getting food and medicine into Yemen – a country that is 80% dependent on imports – will be even more difficult.”
Aid agencies have long warned that sanctions could prove catastrophic for attempts to help starving Yemeni civilians trapped in the conflict between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition at war with the rebels.
In his announcement, Pompeo said the US recognizes that the designation could have implications for the humanitarian situation and will take action to counter it.
“We plan to take measures to reduce its impact on certain humanitarian activities and imports in Yemen,” he said. Those measures include the issuance of special licenses by the US Treasury to keep US aid flowing into Yemen and for humanitarian organizations to continue to work there, he said.
Separately, the US has suspended millions of dollars of its donations to Houthi-controlled areas following reports of theft and looting of aid. UN agencies have long complained of rebels stealing and diverting food aid.
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Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.