The US President added the Houthis to the FTO list during his First Term.
The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has signed an executive order re-designating the Houthis from the Yemeni Ansar Allah rebel movement, as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), the White House Press Service reported.
“The Executive Order sets in motion a process by which Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, will be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” it stated.
Trump already added the Houthis to the FTO list during his first presidential term in 2017-2021, but his successor, Joe Biden, revoked this decision, but in January 2024, he designated Ansar Allah as the Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity after a series of Houthi attacks on ships.
Following the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis warned that they would launch strikes on Israeli territory while barring ships associated with the Jewish state from passing through the waters of the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until Tel Aviv ceased its military operation against Palestinian radical group Hamas in the embattled enclave.
Since mid-November 2023, dozens of civilian ships have been attacked by the Houthi in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
In response to Ansar Allah’s actions, the US authorities announced the creation of an international coalition and preparations for an operation codenamed Prosperity Guardian, expected to ensure freedom of navigation and protection of ships in the Red Sea.
Since then, the United States and the United Kingdom have been regularly delivering strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
