SANA’A (Parliament Politics Magazine) – PM Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed of Yemen has welcomed ongoing discussions within US President Joe Biden’s government to reclassify the Houthis as a terrorist organisation, as dozens of international and local rights groups renewed their calls for the militia to be held accountable for its crimes.
According to Saeed, who spoke to the Riyadh-based Al-Sharq station, the new talks demonstrated that the Americans had “belatedly” recognised that the delisting move was unproductive.
“Its position now is excellent and clear,” he added. Also, the Houthis had upped their lethal strikes inside and outside the country since the reversal of the designation, killing numerous civilians.
He said that they had harmed international maritime security by installing water-borne explosive devices and attacking ships in the Red Sea.
The Houthis were clearly a terrorist organisation to because of their atrocities against Yemenis, Saeed remarked.
According to the Washington Post, escalating missile attacks by the Houthis’ particularly the most recent strikes on the UAE, have compelled some US and Middle Eastern officials to call on the Biden government to re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist organisation, after the designation was reversed a year ago.
They were founded on the premise that the designation would dry up Houthi money sources and arms smuggling routes.
This designation will aid in disrupting the Houthi terror machine’s illicit money and weapons networks. It will increase pressure on the Houthis to participate in UN-led peace efforts aimed at ending hostilities in a conflict that has lasted far too long, according to the UAE embassy in Yemen.
The PM claimed that the US had been warned by him, delisting would not lead to peace in Yemen, and that the Houthis would misread genuine intentions from the international community.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of leniency (with the Houthis). They have warned that this will lead to further escalation rather than calm. The pressure on the Al-Houthis is the only method to achieve a solution in Yemen.
On Saturday, Zafaran Zaid, a Yemeni human rights activist and lawyer who was given a death sentence in absentia by a Houthi-run court the previous year, told Arab News that the Houthis must be blacklisted for killing thousands of Yemenis, looting private and public property, planting hundreds of thousands of land mines, prosecuting journalists, and raiding villages with heavy weapons.
They (the Americans) should respond to a simple question: How did you locate the Houthis after the designation was revoked? The Houthis got more savage, shelling cities and displaced people’s tents, she claimed.
The new demands come only days after the UAE pressed for the Houthis to be designated as a terrorist organisation after drones equipped with explosives and ballistic missiles targeted civilian targets in the UAE.
