Trump designates Yemen’s Houthis as a ‘foreign terrorist organization’

Houthi fighters take part in a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen December 18, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 23 January 2025
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Trump designates Yemen’s Houthis as a ‘foreign terrorist organization’

  • The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the White House says

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday re-designated Yemen’s Houthi movement, known formally as Ansar Allah, as a “foreign terrorist organization,” the White House said.
The move will impose harsher economic penalties than the Biden administration had applied to the Iran-aligned group in response to its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and against US warships defending the critical maritime chokepoint.
Proponents of the move say it is overdue, though some experts say it could have implications for anyone seen as aiding the Houthis, including some aid organizations.
“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 White House said in a statement.
The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have carried out more than 100 attacks on ships plying the Red Sea since November 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. They have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers.
The attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa for more than a year.
The group has targeted the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which are joined by the narrow Bab Al-Mandab strait, a chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.
Under the Biden administration, the US military sought to intercept Houthi attacks to safeguard commercial traffic and waged periodic strikes to degrade Houthi military capabilities. But it did not target the group’s leadership.
At the start of his presidential term in 2021, Joe Biden had dropped Trump’s terrorist designations to address humanitarian concerns inside Yemen. Confronted with the Red Sea attacks, Biden last year designated the group as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organization. But his administration held off on applying the harsher FTO designation.
British charity Oxfam said the move would worsen the suffering of Yemeni civilians, disrupting vital imports of food, medicine, and fuel.
“The Trump administration is aware of these consequences but chose to move forward anyway, and will bear responsibility for the hunger and disease that will follow,” Oxfam America’s director of peace and security, Scott Paul, said in a statement.
David Schenker, who was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the first Trump administration, said Trump’s move on Wednesday was an obvious, early step to respond to what he described as one of Iran’s leading proxy forces in the Middle East.
“While the redesignation likely won’t have a positive impact on the group’s behavior, the measure suggests the new administration is not looking to induce (or cajole) the Iranians to negotiations through blandishment,” Schenker told Reuters.
The Trump administration said the US will work with regional partners to eliminate Houthi capabilities, deprive it of resources “and thereby end its attacks on US personnel and civilians, US partners, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea.”
The designation will also trigger a broad review of UN partners, non-governmental organizations and contractors operating in Yemen, the White House said.
“The President will direct USAID to end its relationship with entities that have made payments to the Houthis, or which have opposed international efforts to counter the Houthis while turning a blind eye toward the Houthis’ terrorism and abuses,” the White House said.
The Houthis in recent days have signaled they were scaling back attacks in the Red Sea following a multi-phase cease fire deal between Israel and Hamas. Earlier on Wednesday, the group released the crew of the Galaxy Leader commercial ship more than a year after they seized their Bahamas-flagged vessel off the Yemeni coast.


Egypt’s FM heads to Washington for talks with US officials: ministry

Updated 09 February 2025
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Egypt’s FM heads to Washington for talks with US officials: ministry

CAIRO: Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty traveled to Washington on Sunday for talks with senior officials from the new Trump administration and members of Congress, his ministry said.
The ministry’s statement said the visit aimed “to boost bilateral relations and strategic partnership between Egypt and the US,” and would include “consultations on regional developments.”


Israeli official says force withdrawal from key Gaza corridor has begun, as part of ceasefire deal

Updated 09 February 2025
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Israeli official says force withdrawal from key Gaza corridor has begun, as part of ceasefire deal

TEL AVIV: An Israeli official said Sunday that Israeli forces have begun withdrawing from a key Gaza corridor, part of a ceasefire deal with Hamas that is moving ahead.

Israel agreed as part of the truce to remove its forces from the Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that bisects northern Gaza from the south. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss troop movement with the media.

At the start of the ceasefire, Israel began allowing Palestinians to cross Netzarim to head to their homes in the war-battered north and the withdrawal of forces from the area will fulfill another commitment to the deal.

It was not clear how many troops Israel had withdrawn on Sunday.

The 42-day ceasefire is just past its halfway point and the sides are supposed to negotiate an extension that would lead to more Israeli hostages being freed from Hamas captivity. But the agreement is fragile and the extension isn’t guaranteed.

The sides are meant to begin talks on the truce’s second stage but there appears to have been little progress.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sending a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in talks between the sides, but the mission included low-level officials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough in extending the truce. Netanyahu is expected to convene a meeting of key Cabinet ministers this week on the second phase of the deal, but it was not clear when.

During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is gradually releasing 33 Israeli hostages captured during its Oct.7, 2023, attack in exchange for a pause in fighting, freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a floor of humanitarian aid to war-battered Gaza. The deal stipulates that Israeli troops will pull back from populated areas of Gaza and that on day 22, which is Sunday, Palestinians will be allowed to head north from a central road that crosses through Netzarim, without being inspected by Israeli forces.

In the second phase, all remaining hostages would be released in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm.”


2 mass graves with bodies of nearly 50 migrants found in southeastern Libya

Updated 09 February 2025
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2 mass graves with bodies of nearly 50 migrants found in southeastern Libya

CAIRO: Libya authorities uncovered nearly 50 bodies this week from two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, officials said Sunday, in the latest tragedy involving people seeking to reach Europe through the chaos-stricken North African country.
The first mass grave with 19 bodies was found Friday in a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra, the security directorate said in a statement, adding that authorities took them for autopsy.
Authorities posted images on its Facebook page showing police officers and medics digging in the sand and recovering dead bodies that were wrapped in blankets.
The Al-Abreen charity, which helps migrants in eastern and southern Libya, said that some were apparently shot and killed before being buried in the mass grave.
A separate mass grave with at least 30 bodies was also found in Kufra after raiding a human trafficking center, according to Mohamed Al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra. Survivors said nearly 70 people were buried in the grave, he added. Authorities were still searching the area.
Migrants’ mass graves are not uncommon in Libya. Last year, authorities unearthed the bodies of at least 65 migrants in the Shuayrif region, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of the capital, Tripoli.
Libya is the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe. The country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Oil-rich Libya has been ruled for most of the past decade by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of militias and foreign governments.
Human traffickers have benefited from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants across the country’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.
Once at the coast, traffickers pack desperate migrants seeking a better life in Europe into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels for risky voyages on the perilous Central Mediterranean Sea route.
Rights groups and UN agencies have for years documented systematic abuse of migrants in Libya including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture. The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families before migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats.
Those who have been intercepted and returned to Libya — including women and children — are held in government-run detention centers where they also suffer from abuse, including torture, rape and extortion, according to rights groups and UN experts.


Egypt to host emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 to discuss ‘serious’ Palestinian developments

Updated 09 February 2025
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Egypt to host emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 to discuss ‘serious’ Palestinian developments

  • Egypt has been rallying regional support against US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians

CAIRO: Egypt will host a summit of Arab nations on February 27 to discuss “the latest serious developments” concerning the Palestinian territories, its foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The “emergency Arab summit” comes as Egypt has been rallying regional support against US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan while establishing US control over the coastal territory.

Sunday’s statement said the gathering was called “after extensive consultations by Egypt at the highest levels with Arab countries in recent days, including Palestine, which requested the summit, to address the latest serious developments regarding the Palestinian cause.”

That included coordination with Bahrain, which currently chairs the Arab League, the statement said.

On Friday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke with regional partners including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to shore up opposition to any forced displacement of Palestinians from their land.

Last week, Trump floated the idea of US administration over Gaza, envisioning rebuilding the devastated territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere, namely Egypt and Jordan.

The remarks have prompted global backlash, and Arab countries have firmly rejected the proposal, insisting on a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.


Israeli military says it is expanding West Bank operation

Updated 26 min 9 sec ago
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Israeli military says it is expanding West Bank operation

JERUSALEM: A pregnant 23-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli security forces on Sunday in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank as part of an expanded Israeli army operation in the occupied territory.

The Palestinian Health ministry said Sundos Jamal Mohammed Shalabi, who was eight months pregnant, was struck by Israeli gunfire, adding that the foetus also did not survive and that Shalabi's husband was critically injured.

The Israeli army said they expanded the military operation to four refugee camps in the West Bank.

In Nur Shams, a Palestinian refugee camp east of Tulkarm, Israeli forces had killed several “militants” and detained wanted individuals in the area, a military spokesperson said on Sunday.

Israel's military, police and intelligence services launched a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin in the West Bank on January 21. 

The operation expanded to Tulkarm, Al Faraa and Tamun, with the military saying it was targeting militants.

It is described by Israeli officials as a “large-scale and significant military operation”. 

Thousands of Palestinians have fled West Bank homes in the wake of the military campaign and the widespread destruction.
Palestinians have said the Israeli campaign is one of the most destructive in recent memory. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military has said it has killed militants.
This month, the Israeli military released a video of a controlled demolition of buildings in the crowded Jenin refugee camp. It said the 23 buildings were used by militants.

(with AP and Reuters)