The federal government has added the Houthis, a Shiite Islamic militant group based in Yemen, to Canada’s list of terrorists.
The Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, have been waging an insurgency in Yemen for the past two decades with the aim of overthrowing the Yemeni government.
More recently, since the Gaza war began with a Hamas-led offensive in southern Israel on October 7, the Houthis have disrupted commercial shipping and fired drones and missiles into Israel.
Designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization would allow Canadian banks to freeze assets held in Canada. It would also allow police to prosecute those who provide financial or material support.
Members of the group will also be banned from entering Canada.
“Today’s addition of Ansarala to the list of terrorist organizations contributes to our country’s efforts to fight terrorism around the world and work with Canada and our allies,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in a media statement Monday. said.
A government statement said the Houthis “contribute to instability in the Middle East through numerous attacks targeting civilian and naval vessels in the Red Sea and other waterways, as well as attacks against Israel.”
The statement said the group also has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah, which are listed as Canadian terrorist organizations.
US Add Houthis to list Number of global terrorist groups designated in January.
Poilievre called for the designation in October.
Since January, U.S. and British forces have been attacking targets in Yemen in response to attacks on commercial shipping by the Houthis, which the militants claim is retaliation for Israel’s actions in the Gaza war. .
Israel also attacked a number of sites it claimed were military targets in Yemen’s Houthi-held areas. The Israeli military said the attack was “a response to hundreds of attacks carried out against the State of Israel in recent months.”
Conservative Party leader in October Pierre Poièvre called out the Liberal government Add the Houthis to Canada’s list of terrorists.
“The Houthis are the vanguard of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the world’s largest and best-organized terrorist group that supports Hamas and Hezbollah,” Poièvre said in Toronto earlier this year.
Mr. LeBlanc’s office said that although Ansarala members are commonly referred to as “Houthis,” people should not confuse the extremist movement with Yemen’s ethnic group of the same name.
