US President Joe Biden on the South Lawn of the White House after arriving on Marine One in Washington on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. Photographer: Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images
WASHINGTON (CC) - In February 2021 Joe Biden's then newly-installed administration revoked the foreign terrorist designation for the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, aka Ansar Allah or "Supporters of Allah," that the outgoing Trump administration had instilled just one month earlier.
Now in the 2024 election year, today the Biden administration re-designated the Houthis as a global terrorist organization, although be it at a lower designation level than the Trump administration's designation. Biden's designation goes into effect in 30 days.
The Biden administration has not admitted, as of this writing, that they were wrong in overturning the Trump administration's original designation.
"It falls short of the foreign terrorist organization designation that the Trump administration put into effect. Further Houthi attacks on commercial shipping or U.S. sailors should be met with a response that makes last week’s strike in Yemen look small in comparison," Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.
The Houthi's terrorist actions against commercial shipping in the Red Sea reached a tipping point that catalyzed a US-led coalition, including the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Bahrain and Australia, to carry out air strikes and tip over Houthi targets in Yemen last week.
In lieu of the Yemen-based Houthi's months-long terrorist pirate attacks that have been disrupting global business as usual in the busy Red Sea region, Biden's decision to take the Houthis off the terrorist list came back to haunt him three years later, his critics allege.
The Houthis started haunting international civilian commercial shipping on the Red Sea after the Israel-Hamas war started on October 7, 2023. Ansar Allah leaders claim that they are acting in support of fellow Tehran-backed Shia Muslim terrorist group Hamas.
The Palestine-based Hamas group's gruesome and vulgar actions sparked a recent UN investigation into Hamas' widely reported and well-documented use of sexual violence as a weapon of terror while in conflict against Israel.
Hamas and some of its top leaders have been a terrorist-designated organization, per the US, since 2015.
President Trump's administration designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization just days before reluctantly leaving the White House in January 2021 after the controversial 2020 election.
Trump's Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, notified Congress in January 2021 that the administration was going to designate three of the Islamic radical group’s leaders as specially designated global terrorists: namely, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, Abd al-Khaliq Badr al-Din al-Houthi and Abdullah Yahya al Hakim.
“These designations will provide additional tools to confront terrorist activity and terrorism by Ansar Allah, a deadly Iran-backed militia group in the Gulf region,” Pompeo said.
“The designations are intended to hold Ansar Allah, the Houthi rebels, accountable for its terrorist acts, including cross-border attacks threatening civilian populations, infrastructure and commercial shipping.”
SANA'A, YEMEN - JANUARY 18, 2021: Outside the closed American embassy, Yemeni supporters of the Houthi group protest to reject the Trump administration's decision to designate the Houthis as a terrorist group. The Trump administration named the Houthis as a terrorist organization on January 19, a day before U.S. President Trump vacated the White House for the incoming President-Elect Joe Biden’s administration, despite the United Nations and experts warning that the decision will likely deteriorate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. (Photo by Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)
After Mr. Pompeo's notification and statement, the Trump administration faced widespread criticism from Democrats, the UN, humanitarian aid groups, the Houthis themselves, plus other radical Islamic organizations and state sponsors of Muslim terrorism.
Biden has a reputation and paper trail, according to his critics, of being soft on Iran that stems from his previous role as US Vice President serving in former President Barak Obama's administration.
“Joe Biden’s weakness and poor judgement continues to put our security at risk,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. said on Tuesday.
“The Houthi rebels are trained and armed by the terrorist wing of Iran’s army," Cotton said in a press release. "And they chant ‘Death to America’ while attacking American sailors and global trade. Removing them from the list of terror organizations was a deadly mistake and another failed attempt to appease the Ayatollah [Iran's top Muslim religious leader]."
This is a developing story. Please check back with Christian Commander for updates, breaking news and the continuous spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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