The United States intends to revoke the Houthi movement’s terrorist designation in response to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, a move that is vastly different from Trump’s approach to dealing with the Houthi-Hadi conflict.
The Yemeni crisis is an ongoing one that has been described by the U.N. describes Yemen as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of its people in need. A Saudi-led military coalition, fueled by the US, intervened in Yemen in 2015, backing government forces fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis rebels, against the Yemeni Hadi government.
The move, confirmed by a State Department official on Friday, came a day after President Joe Biden declared a halt to U.S. support for the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, which is widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
“Our action is due entirely to the humanitarian consequences of this last-minute designation from the prior administration, which the United Nations and humanitarian organizations have since made clear would accelerate the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” the official said.
