Press Release
The Houthis are Classified as Terrorists by Trump and Biden
(Translated)

On February 16, 2024, the classification of the Houthi group as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) came into effect. What are the gains for America due to this classification, and what are its effects on the Houthi group after ten years since their entry into Sanaa?

Firstly, it's worth noting that the current American President Joseph Biden's classification of the Houthis on January 17, 2024, as a "specially designated global terrorist organization" differs significantly from his predecessor Donald Trump's classification of the group on January 11, 2021, as a "foreign terrorist organization". Biden's classification does not deprive the Houthis of the continued flow of humanitarian aid, including food and fuel, nor does it prevent shipping companies, banks, and Western organizations from accessing and dealing with them. Meanwhile, Trump's classification of the Houthis as a "foreign terrorist organization" hindered aid delivery to Yemen, distanced shipping companies, banks, and organizations from engaging with them, imposed travel bans on group members, and allowed sanctions on those who provide "material support" to them, according to the U.S. State Department. Overall, Biden's administration's classification of the Houthis is less severe than Trump's.

The Biden administration, acknowledging that this classification was put in place, so as not to adversely affect the Houthis who cannot withstand the increased suffering of the people if aid to Yemen is cut off, has allowed a 30-day gap between the enactment of the law and its implementation.

Similarly, the Trump administration, which came into office in 2017, dealt with the Houthis outside the framework of terrorism throughout its four years, and its classification of them as terrorists posed a hurdle for the Biden administration, which swiftly revoked it upon entering the White House on February 16, 2021. Therefore, the classification of the Houthis as terrorists dates back to 2021 and is not directly related to the attacks on ships in the Red Sea, as there are two full years between it and Biden's classification.

The classification of the Houthis as terrorists is a tool used by successive administrations in the White House to present themselves as fighting terrorism, alleviating public embarrassment both domestically and internationally for years regarding a group that did not utilize the electoral process to access power. To make the Houthis more compliant to America under pressure directed at them, their financial assets are frozen, financial sanctions are imposed, visas are denied for them to enter the United States, and they are divided into distant conservatives and close reformists. This reveals that the United States has dealt with the Houthis and provided financial and logistical support to their institutions over the years. Others supporting them are intimidated into engaging in American politics rather than opposing it. Thus, Washington's law classifying the Houthis as a terrorist group aims to make them openly adhere to a certain policy.

The situation quickly changes and evolves. At the beginning of the current millennium, the Houthis participated in the "war on terror" and believed that labeling others among Muslims as terrorists would shield them from being classified under this term. Today, they are being branded as terrorists themselves! Have the people of faith realized that America is targeting the civilization of Islam, viewing it as a threat to its corrupt capitalist civilization? America stigmatizes Islam as terrorism to fight it and prevent its project of establishing a Khilafah (Caliphate) on the method of the Prophethood from emerging on the world stage, in favor of its capitalist domination and dissemination worldwide. Allah says;

[قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاءُ مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ]

“Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater” [Aal-i-Imran:118]. We elucidate these events for people to understand the schemes plotted against this Ummah and how the Western infidel employs methods and actions to conceal the treason of our rulers, who continue to govern us through our own kin who have sold their religion, thinking they are doing good! Political awareness and viewing events from the perspective of faith protect the Ummah from error and falling into the traps of the kuffar. Hizb ut Tahrir calls upon the Ummah for a radical solution to emerge from the darkness of colonialism into the light of Islam under the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided) on the method of the Prophethood.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Yemen