Sanaa | The Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday condemned their designation as a “terrorist” group by the outgoing US administration of President Donald Trump and said they reserved the right to respond to it.
“Americans are at the origin of terrorism. The policies and actions of the Trump administration are terrorism too. Its policies reflect thinking in crisis and are reprehensible and we have the right to respond to them, ”senior rebel official Mohamed Ali al-Houthi said on Twitter.
“The Yemeni people don’t care about any designation of the Trump administration as long as it is complicit in the murder of Yemenis,” he added.
The US government of Donald Trump announced on Sunday, ten days before the end of his mandate, that it would put the Houthi rebels on its blacklist of “terrorist” groups, which according to international organizations risks worsening the crisis. humanitarian.
The head of the American diplomacy Mike Pompeo explained that he would notify Congress of this decision in order to strengthen the “deterrence against the harmful activities of the Iranian regime”, support of the Yemeni rebel group against the government supported by a coalition led by the Saudi Arabia, Washington’s ally.
Three Houthi leaders are also blacklisted, including their leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi.