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The US is preparing to name the Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group in Yemen, as a specially designated global terrorist group, according to people familiar with the matter.
The decision, to be announced in the coming days, comes as the Houthis continue to attack commercial vessels in the Red Sea, a crucial shipping lane for global trade, even after the US began striking Houthi targets in Yemen last week in response.
Houthi rebels have stepped up their attacks in response to Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.
The new designation falls under the auspices of an executive order that aims to impede terrorist funding. It comes three years after US secretary of state Antony Blinken reversed a Trump administration decision to designate the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organisation and as a specially designated global terrorist group — an effort by the Biden administration to ease the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen.
The foreign terrorist organisation designation, unlike the specially designated global terrorist one, triggers a criminal prohibition on knowingly providing material support or resources to the organisation. The Associated Press first reported the news of the new designation.
Aid organisations previously said the Trump-era designations could hinder aid access for those affected by civil war in Yemen, where a fragile truce is holding.
Earlier on Tuesday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US was still assessing whether to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist group.
Asked last week whether he was willing to call the Houthis a terrorist group, President Joe Biden responded: “I think they are.”
Tensions between the US and the Iran-backed group have continued to escalate in recent days, despite officials in Washington insisting that the US is not intending to go to war with the Yemen-based rebels.
US forces on Tuesday carried out new strikes on targets in Yemen, with the military’s Central Command saying its forces struck and destroyed four anti-ship ballistic missiles that the Houthis had prepared to launch earlier in the day. The US has now struck the militants three times in less than a week.
The attacks on Red Sea vessels and those in the Gulf of Aden have prompted ships to avoid the critical shipping route, instead taking a longer and costlier journey between Asia and Europe via the Cape of Good Hope.