President Biden labeled the Houthi movement “terrorist” on Friday but declined to give the Iran-allied militants an official terrorist group designation – calling the distinction “irrelevant.”
Biden was asked about the “terrorist” label just hours after he ordered airstrikes on Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea.
“Are you willing to call the Houthis a terrorist group, sir?” a reporter asked the 81-year-old commander in chief as he visited a small business in Allentown, Pa.
“I think they are,” Biden replied.
In a subsequent exchange, Biden dismissed the need for an official designation following the joint US-UK bombing, which the Houthi leader said killed five people. The attack sparked massive anti-American rallies in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
President Joe Biden speaks while visiting firefighters at the Allentown Fire Training Academy, Friday, Jan. 12, 2024, in Allentown, Pa. AP
“A few minutes ago in the coffee shop, you said you thought the Houthis were a terrorist group. I wonder, how long will you be willing to appoint them like that?” a wire reporter asked.
“It’s irrelevant whether we set them,” Biden said. “We have united a group of countries and we will say if they continue to act and behave the way they have, we will respond.”
The Biden administration delisted the Houthi movement, which controls much of northern Yemen, as a terrorist group in February 2021, reversing the Trump administration’s stance, which only took effect in the final days of his presidency in January.
US President Joe Biden answers questions from the press at Nowhere Coffee Co. in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, US, January 12, 2024. REUTERS
The designation of a terrorist group would impose severe penalties on anyone doing business with the movement.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in 2021 that the political group would be delisted “to ensure relevant US policy does not impede aid to those already experiencing what is being called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”
Yemenis participate in a rally in Sanaa, Yemen, on Jan. 12, 2024. ZUMAPRESS.com Footage taken from an RAF Typhoon over Yemen on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, shows a targeted attack on Houthi military targets. uk Ministry of Defence/UPI/Shutterstock
The Houthis have controlled much of the country’s population center since 2014, when the Shiite religious movement seized Sanaa after a simmering insurgency along the border with Saudi Arabia.
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US was created under President Barack Obama to prevent the militants from fully taking over the country by rolling back their invasion of the southern city of Aden in 2015.
The coalition later repelled a Houthi attempt to capture the city of Marib in 2021, which had long been a key stronghold in the north.
The deadlocked power struggle contributes to widespread malnutrition and fighting between most internal factions – including southern separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates – has subsided since 2022.
The Houthis began attacking ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s response to an Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 — and coincided with attacks by other Iran-allied militias in Iraq and Syria on military bases USA.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
