United States to drop the Houthi’s terrorist designation in light of the Yemeni crisis

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.