Canada Designates Yemen’s Houthis as a Terrorist Organization

The Canadian government announced on Monday that it designated the Houthis in Yemen as a “terrorist entity,” joining other Western governments in proscribing the Iran-backed group.

The Houthis, also known as Ansarallah, 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.

“Ansarallah is a militant group that has waged an insurgency in Yemen since the early 2000s seeking to unseat the internationally recognized government of Yemen,” Canada’s government said in a statement. “As a now-listed entity, Ansarallah has met the definition of a ‘terrorist group’ under Canada’s Criminal Code. The Criminal Code prohibits certain actions in relation to terrorist groups, including those related to terrorist financing, travel, and recruitment.”

The designation makes it a criminal offense to interact financially with the Houthis, and anyone affiliated with the group is also barred from entry to Canada.

“[The] addition of Ansarallah as a listed terrorist entity contributes to our efforts in fighting terrorism globally and aligning Canada with our allies,” Dominic LeBlanc — minister of public safety, democratic institutions, and intergovernmental affairs — said in a statement. “Acts of violent extremism and terrorism have no place in the world, and we will continue to take action to curtail the spread of these activities internationally and to counter threats to Canada, its citizens, and its interests around the world.”

Canada’s announcement came six weeks after the country announced that it and the US jointly imposed sanctions on Samidoun, explaining that the prominent anti-Israel group has been operating as a “sham charity” fundraising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist group.

In its most recent terrorist designation, Canada noted that the Houthis have “contributed to unrest in the Middle East through numerous attacks targeting civilian and naval vessels on the Red Sea and other waterways, as well as those against Israel.” The announcement added that the Houthis are “closely linked” to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force and Hezbollah, two internationally designated terrorist groups.

The Houthis, a US-designated terrorist group, began disrupting global trade in a major way with their attacks on shipping in the busy Red Sea corridor after the 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, and claimed responsibility for attempted drone and missile strikes targeting Israel.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, which launched the ongoing war in Gaza, Houthi terrorists in Yemen have routinely launched ballistic missiles toward Israel’s southern city of Eilat. In July, they hit the center of Tel Aviv with a long-range Iranian-made drone.

Then in September, the Houthis reached central Israel with a missile for the first time. Israeli air defenses intercepted fragments of a surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen that exploded over Israel’s central region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the Houthis for the attack.

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 a hundred land attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and within Yemen, as well as dozens of attacks on merchant shipping.

Iran also backs Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terrorist groups with weapons, funding, and training.

While the Houthis have increasingly targeted Israeli soil in recent months, they have primarily attacked ships in the Red Sea, a key trade route, having a major economic impact by disrupting global shipping and 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.

In September, the Houthis’ so-called “defense minister,” Mohamed al-Atifi, said that the Yemeni rebels were prepared for a “long war” against Israel and its allies.

“The Yemeni Army holds the key to victory, and is prepared for a long war of attrition against the usurping Zionist regime, its sponsors, and allies,” he was quoted as saying by Iranian state-owned media

“Our struggle against the Nazi Zionist entity is deeply rooted in our beliefs. We are well aware of the fact that this campaign is a sacred and religious duty that requires tremendous sacrifices,” added Atifi, who has been sanctioned by the US government.

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.

On Sunday, the Houthis announced they had attacked three US-flagged commercial vessels as well as a US Navy destroyer.

A US-led coalition of over 20 nations has mobilized to address the threat to global trade and freedom of movement in some of the world’s most economically vital waterways.

In October, the so-called “foreign minister” of the Houthis warned that if the US takes military action against the western Yemeni port of Al-Hudaydah on the Red Sea, it will suffer consequences severe enough to make the “hell” experienced by American soldiers during the Vietnam War feel like a “walk in the park.”

The comment by Jamal Ahmed Ali Amer came four days after the US carried out a round of strikes in Yemen against the Iran-backed group, hitting five underground storage facilities housing weapons used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region.

That same month, Samantha Power, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, lambasted the Houthis for holding around 20 Yemeni employees of the US embassy in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, for the past three years. The embassy suspended operations in 2014.

“It’s been 3 years since the Houthis unlawfully detained US government local staff,” Power posted on X/Twitter at the time. “Several of our Yemeni colleagues may now face prosecution on false charges. We fear for their safety — & will not rest until these individuals & all detained UN, NGO & diplomatic staff are released.”

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