Houthis: US sanctions prolonging war in Yemen

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Wednesday said the Biden administration’s new sanctions on two of the group’s top leaders will only help prolong the conflict in the Middle Eastern nation. 

According to Reuters, Houthi-run news channel al-Masirah TV reported that Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam said that by blacklisting the two leaders, “America is condemning itself and confirming that it is not thinking about stopping the aggression.” 

“It stands behind the prolongation of the war and the exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis,” Abdulsalam added. 

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on Mansur Al-Sa’adi, chief of staff for the Houthi Naval Forces, and Ahmad ‘Ali Ahsan al-Hamzi, commander of Yemen’s Houthi-aligned Yemeni Air Force and Air Defense Forces.

The agency said in a press release that the two leaders were “responsible for orchestrating attacks by Houthi forces impacting Yemeni civilians, bordering nations, and commercial vessels in international waters.”

The Treasury Department alleged that Al-Sa’adi led and coordinated attacks on ships in the Red Sea, while al-Hamzi oversaw missile and explosive-laden drone attacks in Yemen and on Saudi Arabia. 

The new sanctions came nearly a month after President Biden announced the end to U.S. support for offensive operations in the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen.

Biden’s decision to withdraw support in the six-year conflict between the Saudi-backed forces and the Iran-supported Houthi militants, which is widely considered a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran, came as a significant step in fulfilling a campaign promise to review the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. 

The sanctions on the Houthi leaders followed the State Department’s announcement last month that it planned to revoke the Trump administration’s decision to label the Houthi movement in Yemen a terrorist organization. 

The designation had been a last-minute move by former President Trump’s secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who ignored warnings that the action could restrict movement of humanitarian aid to key parts of Yemen.

According to The Associated Press, the war in Yemen has killed some 130,000 people and is considered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that more than 4 million people have been displaced by the conflict, with more than 20 million “in dire need of humanitarian assistance,” including protection from large-scale famine.