File image. Yemeni citizens march through the capital Sanaa to show their support for the Ansarallah resistance movement. 13 February 2015 (Photo credit: AFP)
On 19 January, US President Joe Biden announced that his cabinet was contemplating the re-designation of Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement as an “international terrorist organization.”
Speaking at a media conference at the White House, Biden said the move would be in response to the attack carried out by the Ansarallah movement on several targets in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, on 17 January.
The announcement came a few hours after Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the US asked the Biden administration to reinstate the Trump-era designation of the Ansarallah movement over what the embassy called ‘attacks on civilian sites’.
In comments earlier today, Amb Al Otaiba described the Houthi terrorist attacks against civilian sites in the UAE that killed 3 innocent civilians. He called on the Administration and Congress to support re-designating the Houthi terrorist organization as an FTO. (1/3)
— UAE Embassy US (@UAEEmbassyUS) January 19, 2022
The Ansarallah movement said the attack on the UAE was in retaliation for the Gulf nation’s participation in the Saudi-led coalition that is waging a brutal war against Yemen.
The UAE is a principal member of the Saudi-led coalition that invaded Yemen in early 2015 to crush the Ansarallah movement and restore the government of former Saudi-backed president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
The United Nations and western countries led by the US were quick to condemn the retaliatory attack by Ansarallah on the UAE.
This was in sharp contrast to their silence on the hundreds of brutal attacks that the Saudi-led coalition has carried out in Yemen targeting civilian residential areas and public facilities, such as hospitals and schools.
Former US president Donald Trump designated the Ansarallah movement as a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ on 19 January 2021, just a day before the end of his presidential term.
Humanitarian organizations condemned the decision, saying it would impede their relief operations in Yemen.
The designation put humanitarian organizations at risk of criminal prosecution for distributing aid in areas that were under the administration of the Ansarallah movement.
On 4 February 2021, President Biden revoked the designation.
The plan by the Biden administration to restore the designation will pose a serious threat to organizations that are working to mitigate the situation in Yemen, which the UN has described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.