“The State Department is working to secure the release of several kidnapped hostages taken by Iran-backed terrorists.”Posted by Vijeta Uniyal
Saturday, November 13, 2021
The Iran-backed Islamist group, which President Joe Biden removed from the terror list, has stormed the U.S. embassy in Yemen. The Shia-Islamic Houthi militia occupied the embassy on Wednesday and took several embassy staff hostage, the news reports say.
“The State Department confirmed to the Free Beacon that the Yemeni staffers are being detained without explanation and that the Iran-backed militants stole property after breaching the American facility in [Yemen’s capital] Sana’a,” Adam Kredo reported, who first broke the story in the Washington Free Beacon.
Weeks after taking office, the Biden administration removed the Houthi jihadi militia from the list of designated foreign terrorist groups, reversing a decision taken by former President Donald Trump. The move came as the Biden White House began appeasing the Iranian regime in efforts to restore the Obama-era nuclear deal.
The hostages appear to be local embassy staff of Yemini nationality, media reports suggest. The U.S. diplomats were evacuated from the country six years ago amid a raging civil war.
The Washington Free Beacon reported the details of the U.S. embassy attack:
The State Department is working to secure the release of several kidnapped hostages taken by Iran-backed terrorists just a day after the militant group stormed the U.S. embassy facility in Sana’a, Yemen, U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon early Thursday.
A group of Houthi rebels reportedly stormed the U.S. compound on Wednesday seeking “large quantities of equipment and materials,” according to regional reports translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. The raid comes just five days after the Houthis kidnapped Yemeni nationals who work for the U.S. embassy. “The alleged raid comes after the Houthis kidnapped three Yemeni nationals affiliated with the U.S. Embassy from one of the employee’s private residences in Sana’a on November 5,” according to MEMRI. At least 22 other Yemenis were kidnapped by the Houthis in recent weeks, “most of whom worked on the security staff guarding the embassy grounds,” according to MEMRI.
The State Department confirmed to the Free Beacon that the Yemeni staffers are being detained without explanation and that the Iran-backed militants stole property after breaching the American facility in Sana’a, which housed U.S. embassy staff prior to the suspension of operations there in 2015.
“The United States has been unceasing in its diplomatic efforts to secure their release,” a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon. “The majority of the detained have been released, but the Houthis continue to detain additional Yemeni employees of the embassy.”
Those still being held are “detained without explanation and we call for their immediate release,” the State Department spokesman said.
Among those who were kidnapped and held by the Houthis include a former embassy employee, an economic officer, and a U.S. Agency for International Development employee, according to MEMRI.
The Houthi terrorist group, officially known as the “Ansar Allah” — Arabic for ‘fighters of Allah,’ controls large parts of Yemen and regularly carries out terrorist cross-border strikes into neighboring Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Despite removal from the terror list by the Biden State Department, the Islamist group continues its campaign of jihad and mass murder. The Iran-backed militia’s official banner declares: “Allah is Greater, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.”
This is not the first attack of its kind by the pro-Iranian terrorist groups in recent years. In December 2019, Iran-backed terrorist militias stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The armed militia and rioters vandalized the American diplomatic compound as they shouted “Death to America” and “No, no, Trump.”
The Baghdad embassy storming was linked to the Iranian mastermind, Qassem Soleimani. Weeks following that incident, President Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Soleimani, who headed of Iran’s foreign terrorist arm, the Quds Force.
Democrats and the mainstream media were enraged over President Trumps decision to eliminate the top Iranian terror operative, who was directly responsible for deaths of hundreds of U.S. servicemen in Iraq and rest of the Middle East. Soleimani was planning imminent attacks on U.S. troops and diplomats in the region, the Pentagon disclosed after the strike.
The mainstream media is largely been silent about the latest outrage by the Iranian proxy terrorist groups in Yemen. The media firmly backs the Biden White’s push to bring Iran into the fold of Obama-Kerry nuclear deal. Tehran continues to enrich near-weapons grade uranium and obstruct the UN inspectors from accessing key sites linked to its nuclear weapons program.