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By Tom O'Connor
Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy
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A source within Ansar Allah, widely known as the Houthi movement, has told Newsweek that the Iran-aligned Yemeni rebel group was honored rather than offended by President Donald Trump's decision to rebrand it as a foreign terrorist organization, a move that would ultimately harm rather than serve U.S. interests.
"The current American administration, as was the case with the previous one, is still working for the Israeli enemy and risking the interests of the American people and American taxpayers for the benefit of the Zionists," the Ansar Allah source told Newsweek. "Everything it does does not serve the American people but rather harms them in the near and distant future and increases the state of hatred and resentment against America."
"As for us, any aggressive American step against us will only make us more committed and strict in our positions," the Ansar Allah source added. "The Yemeni people do not consider the American classification of us as terrorists to be something that detracts from us; on the contrary, they consider it a badge of honor and it pushes them to adhere to and rally around Ansar Allah more, considering that the classification came as a punishment for Yemen and Ansar Allah's support for Gaza."
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The comments came shortly after Ansar Allah military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced that the group had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen's Al-Hodeidah province. Ansar Allah has claimed more than a dozen such shootdowns since the war in Gaza erupted in October 2023, but the latest marks the first to take place under the Trump administration.
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Why It Matters
While Ansar Allah has been active in Yemen for decades, seizing the capital from the government in 2015 amid a still-ongoing civil war, the group emerged as a particularly capable faction of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance throughout the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza.
Weeks after the war began in October 2023, Ansar Allah began launching long-range missile and drone attacks against Israel. The group soon escalated its participation in the conflict by also striking commercial vessels accused of doing trade with Israel, a campaign that severely impeded international trade in the Red Sea and drove up global shipping costs.
Ansar Allah persisted in its operations despite facing strikes from both Israel and the U.S. and only announced a pause when Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire deal in January, days before Trump took office. The group has since threatened to resume attacks on Israel if the truce unraveled.
With the Axis of Resistance suffer major setbacks in Lebanon, where Hezbollah signed a ceasefire in November after a devastating Israeli campaign, and in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown the following month at the hands of an Islamist-led rebel offensive, Ansar Allah has maintained its readiness to continue the fight.
What to Know
Ansar Allah traces its roots to the 1990s when it first emerged as religious organization promoting the rights of Yemen's sizable Zaidi Shiite Muslim community. It was initially led by influential cleric Hussein al-Houthi before his killing by Yemeni security forces in 2004, after which his brother and the group's current leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi took charge.
The group launched a new offensive against the Yemeni government after the downfall of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh during the "Arab Spring" protest movement that swept the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. Amid growing insecurity and a rival insurgency waged by Al-Qaeda, Ansar Allah seized ousted Saleh's successor, then-President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, from Sanaa in early 2015.
A Saudi-led coalition intervened in support of Yemen's internationally recognized government in exile, yet the conflict fell into stalemate and has largely been frozen since a truce brokered by the United Nations came into effect in April 2022. Ansar Allah today maintains control over around a third of the country and up to 80 percent of its population.
The U.S. first designated Ansar Allah as a terrorist organization days before the end of Trump's first term in January 2021. His successor, then-President Joe Biden reversed the move just a month later, citing the difficulties in providing humanitarian aid to Yemen, which concurrently suffers from rampant poverty, famine and disease on top of the civil war.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's statement restoring Ansar Allah's name to the list was also shared Tuesday by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which has been tasked with operations against Ansar Allah.
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What People Are Saying
Ansar Allah source to Newsweek on the group's steadfastness in response to the U.S. decision on Tuesday: "This position is considered a translation of the desire and aspirations of the Yemeni people, and it is the same position of most of the peoples of our Arab and Islamic region."
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement announcing the move on Tuesday: "Today's action taken by the State Department demonstrates the Trump Administration's commitment to protecting our national security interests, the safety of the American people, and the security of the United States. Terrorist designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective way to curtail support for terrorist activities."
What Happens Next
CENTCOM had already been authorized to pursue strikes against Ansar Allah under the Biden administration in a bid to protect international trade. But with questions looming over the future of the fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza, Yemen remains on the front lines of the regional conflict.
In the short term, however, the first impact of Ansar Allah's return to the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations is likely to be felt by humanitarian organizations, which have denounced the move since it was first unveiled last month.
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