The Australian Government officially designated Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, as a terrorist organization on Friday.
Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement that the decision to designate the Islamist organization as a terror group followed recommendations for the country’s security agencies that the Houthis are “directly or indirectly engaged in the preparing, planning, assisting in, or fostering of terrorist attacks.”
The statement also noted that the Houthis’s “violent attacks” in the area of the Gulf of Aden have resulted in the killing of civilians.
The Houthis have also taken hostages and disrupted “navigational rights and freedoms” in the waters where they have been conducting their activities, Dreyfus’s statement noted.
Australia designated Hamas as a terrorist organization on March 4 last year and Hezbollah on December 10, 2021.