Congressman Abe Hamadeh pushes for sanctions on Iran-backed Houthis

Arizona GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh is making an effort on Capitol Hill to return sanctions on the Iranian-backed military group known as the Houthis, following the Biden administration taking the group off the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

Hamadeh has been able to make headway since President Trump, just days after retaking the White House, issued an executive order to put the group back on the United States' list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. But Hamadeh's bill, which he introduced about three weeks after Trump's order to re-list the group, is still waiting to be brought before the House Judiciary Committee for a vote. 

"The Houthi situation is really concerning to me, and that's why I've introduced legislation as well to go up to extend what President Trump did by re-listing them as a terrorist organization, by adding additional sanctions on them as well, to cut off their financial network," Hamadeh said on a recent episode of the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show.

He spoke days before President Trump, on Saturday, launched large-scale military strikes on Houthi areas in Yemen over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping.

Houthi rebels, since the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel in October 2023, have attacked over 100 merchant vessels and warships in the Red Sea. 

Trump, whose strikes continued into Wednesday, at the onset of them warned Iran, the Houthis' main backer, that it needed to immediately halt support for the group.

The Houthis, officially known as Ansarallah, are a military group that originated in Yemen in the 1990s.  

Foreign policy experts largely believe that Iran has been supplying the group with military aid since about 2014.  

In January 2024, U.S. Central Command seized a shipment from Iran to the Houthis containing 200 packages that included medium-range ballistic missile components, explosives, communication and network equipment, and anti-tank guided missile launcher assemblies.

Hamadeh also told show hosts John Solomon and Amanda Head that the Biden administration's decisions to remove the group's designation as a terrorist organization and withdraw support from Saudi Arabia's campaign in the Yemen civil war allowed the Houthis to attack U.S. assets in the Middle East.  

“The biggest disaster Joe Biden did under his term was stopping the Saudis from conducting their aerial campaign against the Houthis,” the first-term congressman said. "The Saudis understand their neighbors better than we do. They were taking care of business on their own. And Joe Biden, when he took office, delisted them as a terrorist organization while we were still getting missiles fired at our assets in the Middle East from the Houthis."

Hamadeh's office says if the congressman's bill gets through the GOP-controlled Congress and is signed into law, sanctions will be imposed on "officials, agents or affiliates" of the Houthis. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced March 4 that his agency, the State Department, had designated the Houthis as a terrorist organization in a March 4 press release. The department's announcement cited President Trump's executive order 14175 requiring the group to be designated as a terrorist organization.

Read the State Department press release here