US sanctions against Houthi security leaders, and the group responds: Washington practices terrorism and leads the aggression

The Yemeni Houthi group condemned the imposition of US sanctions on a number of its security leaders, and considered the move an aggression and a "terrorist act" that reflects the United States' indifference to the global system.

The head of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee of the Houthis, Muhammad Ali Al-Houthi, said that what the United States is doing in classifying entities and states regarding religious freedom and others, is interference in state affairs and a terrorist act.

In a tweet on Twitter, Al-Houthi described the United States as "the leader of aggression," and said that imposing sanctions on any Yemeni is a condemned and illegal act.

And he considered that there is no law that allows the United States to classify others, and that the classification of world countries is evidence of its non-recognition of the international order, represented by the Security Council.

He said that all the defendants were classified without evidence and without agreed criteria, describing that intervention as terrorism.

Torture and arrest

The US Treasury Department had announced earlier that sanctions had been imposed on a number of Houthi officials under the Magnitsky Act for their involvement in "torture, arbitrary detention and human rights violations."

The US sanctions have affected the Director General of Criminal Investigation in Sanaa, Sultan Zaben, the head of the Security and Intelligence Service, Abdul Hakim Al-Khaiwani, the former head of the National Security Service, Abd al-Rab Jirfan, as well as the deputy head of the National Security Service, Mutlaq al-Marani, and the former director of the Political Security Organization, Abdul Qadir al-Shami.

The ministry said in a statement that the sanctions were imposed because students, human rights activists, journalists, humanitarian workers, political opponents and members of the Baha'i community were being targeted.

The new US sanctions included the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, 5 individuals close to him, and 6 companies registered in Russia.

The US Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on 3 individuals from Haiti for human rights violations, as stated in its statement.