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Trump Re-Designates Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen as Foreign Terrorist Organization
A Houthi fighter mans a machine gun mounted on a truck during a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday re-designating the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as an official foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
“The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade,” the executive order read.
The order also calls for the destruction of the Houthis’ military capabilities, thereby ending the group’s ability to attack American and allied targets, and for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to inspect all of their partners and programs in Yemen to ensure funds are not inadvertently handed over to the Houthis.
The directive also mandates USAID to cut relations with organizations that have helped fund Houthi operations or have combated international efforts to dismantle the terrorist group. In addition, the order directs Rubio to submit a report to the president after 30 days regarding the designation and “take all appropriate action” concerning the designation within another 15 days.
In January 2021, during the final days of the first Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated the Houthis as an FTO. The next month, however, during the initial weeks of the Biden administration, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken reversed the designation of the Houthis as an FTO, citing a desire to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Yemen.
The official FTO designation legally prohibits American individuals and organizations from lending “material support” to the Houthis, which some critics argue could worsen humanitarian conditions in Yemen. The Biden administration’s decision to de-list the Houthis as a terrorist group drew condemnation from Republicans in the US Congress
On Tuesday, US Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the “Standing Against Houthi Aggression Act” to reclassify the Houthis as an FTO, reversing official policies of the Biden administration.
“Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Houthis have attacked US allies more than 100 times,” he said in a statement. “With the start of the Trump administration, it’s time to get serious about counterterrorism again and send a message to the Iranian regime that the US stands with Israel and will not tolerate our allies being attacked and shipping routes in the Middle East being disrupted. Designating the Houthis as an FTO will enable the Trump administration to bring the full weight of US sanctions in order to restore peace and order in the Middle East.”
Beyond banning individuals or organizations in the United States from giving “material support or resources” to the Houthis, placing the Yemeni rebels on the FTO list would also make non-citizen members and representatives of the Houthis eligible for deportation. The designation would further mandate any US financial institution with ties to the Houthis to alert the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury.
Several countries — including Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Israel — currently designate the Houthis as terrorists.
Trump’s executive order followed repeated attacks by the Houthis against Israel since October 2023, including the launch of over 200 missiles and 170 attack drones.
Last month, for example, a ballistic missile launched by the Iran-backed group struck a playground in Tel Aviv, injuring at least 16 people and causing damage to nearby homes.
The Houthis have been waging an insurgency in Yemen for two decades in a bid to overthrow the Yemeni government. They have controlled a significant portion of the country’s land in the north and along the Red Sea since 2014, when they captured it in the midst of a civil war.
The Yemeni terrorist group began disrupting global trade in a major way with their attacks on shipping in the busy Red Sea corridor after the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, arguing their aggression was a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza.
The Houthi rebels — whose slogan is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam” — have said they will target all ships heading to Israeli ports, even if they do not pass through the Red Sea.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, which launched the ongoing war in Gaza, Houthi terrorists in Yemen have also routinely launched missiles toward Israel.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report in July revealing how Iran has been “smuggling weapons and weapons components to the Houthis.” The report noted that the Houthis used Iranian-supplied ballistic and cruise missiles to conduct over 100 land attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and within Yemen, as well as dozens of attacks on merchant shipping.
While the Houthis have increasingly targeted Israeli soil in recent months, they have primarily attacked ships in the Red Sea, a key trade route, raising the cost of shipping and insurance. Shipping firms have been forced in many cases to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa to avoid passing near Yemen, having a major global economic impact.
Beyond Israeli targets, the Houthis have threatened and in some cases actually attacked US and British ships, leading the two Western allies to launch retaliatory strikes multiple times against Houthi targets in Yemen.
As a result of the Houthis’ aggression, the Biden administration in January 2024 placed the group on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list.
Though the SDGT designation allows for sanctions, it is considered less severe than placement on the FTO list. The Biden administration opted against reimposing the FTO designation on the Houthis, citing concerns over worsening the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
“A foreign terrorist organization designation ran the risk of having a deterrent effect on some of those aid groups continuing to provide aid — worrying that they might be charged as providing material support to a terrorist organization,” former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at th tim.
Following the recently brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to halt fighting in Gaza, the Houthis have announced they will limit their attacks on commercial vessels to Israel–linked ships provided the Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented.
The post Trump Re-Designates Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen as Foreign Terrorist Organization first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.