US blacklists Yemen's Ansarallah ahead of renewed 'counter terrorism' campaign

The move to designate the Yemeni resistance faction as a 'foreign terrorist organization' comes days after Trump eased restrictions on strikes against so-called terror targets  

News Desk  - The Cradle 

The US formally re-designated Yemen's Ansarallah resistance movement as a “foreign terrorist organization,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on 4 March.

The move imposes harsher economic penalties on Yemen's ruling faction, which heads the National Salvation Government (NSG) in Sanaa and controls most of Yemen's populated regions. 

Weeks after the start of the US–Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) led by Ansarallah launched a sustained blockade on Israeli, US, and British ships transiting the Red Sea, demanding an end to the mass killing of Palestinians.

Yemeni military actions extended as far as the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, with attacks reaching US and EU warships and deep inside Tel Aviv.

In January 2024, former US president Joe Biden launched an illegal war against Yemen alongside the UK, hitting the country with hundreds of airstrikes and aiding Israel in destroying key civilian infrastructure.

Following his victory in the 2021 presidential election, Biden removed the terrorist label from Ansarallah, a designation imposed by Trump during his first term. At that time, Yemen was labeled the worst humanitarian crisis in the world due to a prolonged siege by a NATO-supported Gulf coalition that sought to oust Ansarallah and reinstall the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.

After Ansarallah began carrying out attacks against ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Gaza, Biden designated the group as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organization. But his government held off on applying the harsher foreign terrorist organization designation that Trump has now imposed.

Trump's move comes just days after easing constraints on US military commanders to authorize airstrikes and special operation raids outside conventional battlefields, allowing for a broader range of people who can be targeted.

According to US officials with knowledge of the policy shift, the quiet change drastically alters Biden-era rules governing strikes against so-called terror targets. It returns to US President Trump's more aggressive counterterrorism policies in his first term.

The Ansarallah resistance movement in Yemen and the Al-Shabaab group in Somalia were discussed as potential targets of new strikes, according to US officials with knowledge of the meeting.

Following the start of the ceasefire in Gaza in January, Sanaa lifted its blockade of international waters. However, Ansarallah leaders have repeatedly warned that if Israel reignites the genocidal war in Gaza, the YAF will militarily intervene.

“The resumption of war on Gaza will be met with the entire [Israeli] enemy entity coming under fire ... If the war returns to Gaza, we will intervene with support through various military means,” Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Sunday.

Yemen has also continued to develop its air defenses. Yemeni forces launched surface-to-air missiles at an American F-16 fighter jet for the first time on 19 February, according to senior officials in the US Department of Defense.

“The jet was flying off the coast of Yemen over the Red Sea when the SAM was fired. The missile did not strike the jet,” the report stated.