Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement and its leaders are to be removed by the US from its list of foreign terrorist organisations on Tuesday due to the desperate humanitarian situation in the war-torn country.
The terrorist designation – applied to the Houthis last month by the Trump administration – threatened to hamper aid delivery and efforts to end Yemen’s six-year-old war.
International agencies would have been unable to deliver humanitarian aid due to a ban on contacts with the Houthis, who rule the north and 80 per cent of the Yemen’s total population, while peace negotiations with the Houthis would be barred.
The Biden administration has given further impetus to efforts to end the conflict by halting US logistical and intelligence co-operation with offensive operations in Yemen by Saudi Arabia, and freezing billions of dollars in arms sales to the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates.
In March 2015 they launched a military campaign to restore the Saudi-sponsored Yemeni government, which had been driven from power by the Houthis, who the Saudis and their allies allege are allied to Iran.
Weaponry
While the US state department will review deals before cancelling or proceeding with them, this procedure ends the Trump administration’s policy of granting the Saudis and Emiratis their demands for weaponry to prosecute the war and stock their arsenals.
Among the deals affected are the $23 billion agreement with the Emirates for 50 stealth fighter aircraft and the $290 million sale of 3,000 precision-guided missiles to the Saudis. Both are opposed by the US Congress on the basis that they fuel the war which has devastated Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.
US president Joe Biden has appointed veteran diplomat Timothy Lenderking as US envoy to Yemen with the aim stepping up pressure on the parties to negotiate. While seeking to wind down the Yemen war, Biden has also pledged US protection for Saudi Arabia, which has been targeted repeatedly by Houthi drones and rockets.
Stalemated
The Saudis refuse to concede defeat in the stalemated conflict, while the Houthis seek to strengthen their position on the ground ahead of negotiations by intensifying assaults on the government's last bastion in the rebel-held north, the strategic, oil-rich Marib province.
Meanwhile, UN agencies have warned that extreme malnourishment could kill 400,000 Yemeni children aged under five and harm 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding mothers this year if a donors’ conference scheduled for March fails to provide sufficient funding.
Some 233,000 Yemenis have died violently or from hunger and illness during the war and their situation grows increasingly perilous. The aid agency Oxfam has said funding for humanitarian assistance to Yemen has fallen over the past three years to just 25 US cents for each of the 24.4 million out of 28 million Yemenis in need of food, shelter and medical relief as coronavirus ravages the country.