Yemen Army cleans up the remaining pockets of the Houthi Rebellion

The Yemeni government is writing the fifth and final chapter of the Houthi Rebellion. With bigger fish to fry, such as focusing on development and reform, the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh has given the Houthi rebels an ultimatum: surrender, or face military action.

Word from Sa’adah, the center of the rebellion, is that the army has completely surrounded the remaining pockets of the Houthi rebels, and it is only a matter of days until the area is cleaned up. The death of rebel leader, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi has been confirmed, as he was buried on Friday; he was critically wounded a week earlier. In the neighboring governate of Al-Jawf, the local tribes have crushed some rebels who fled there in hopes of spreading the fighting. Last week, the army cleaned some rebels near the capital, in the Bani Heshaish area.

The Houthi rebellion was sparked by Abdul-Malik’s older brother, Hussien, who was killed in 2004 during the second round of crackdown by the armed forces. Hussien Al-Houthi wanted to restore the pre-revolution ruling system, which limits power to a certain faction of society based on descent. Al-Houthi and his followers took over local government offices, and institutions and declared himself an Imam. He then, and not surprisingly, became wanted by the central government and turned to armed confrontation. Al-Houthi is ideologically inspired by an extreme sect of Shia Islam, and materially supported by the religious institutions in Iran. Contrary to what’s been published in Western media, and most recently the Washington Post, Al-Houthi had actually abandoned the moderate Zaydi sect, traditional to the Yemeni Shia population, for the more extreme Twelver Shia sect, widely practiced in Iran and previously non-existent in Yemen. There are core ideological differences that distinguish the two sects; however, this is separate topic on its own. The president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and many of the government and armed forces leaders practice Islam according to the Zaydi school of thought. This contradicts suggestions that the government cracked down on Al-Houthi because of his ideology rather than his armed rebellion following the denial of the government’s legitimacy for it’s alleged ‘alignment’ with the west. Another puzzling fact is that Al-Houthi’s are members of the ruling party, the GPC. In fact, Yahya Al-Houthi, Abdul-Malik’s older brother, has only recently had his immunity as an MP lifted by a special session of the parliament. He has been the spokesperson for the Houthi’s and has been moving between Germany and Switzerland hoping to stay off the radar of the interpol. He is regularly interviewed by Iran’s Arabic-broadcasting satellite channel “Al-Alam”, which has been shockingly sympathetic to the Houthi rebellion, among other rogue satellite channels, news websites, blogs and forums with similar agenda’s broadcasting from Iraq and elsewhere. The foundations for the Houthi rebellion rest in the formation of the “Believing Youth” — an organization founded in the 80’s by Al-Houthi. Capitalizing on anti-American resentment following the occupation of Iraq, Al-Houthi declared “death to America, death to Israel” as the slogan for his organization. In his armed confrontation with the government, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi resorted to using human shields, roadside bombs, mines, various acts of terrorism against mosques and schools, and other dirty insurgency tactics inspired by the upheaval in Iraq — as his brother Hussien did before him. Interestingly, Yahya Al-Houthi excelled at psychological warfare, as he rallied support from opposition journalists and foreign intervention. Material support has been discovered and documented; the main culprit was Iran, and at one point Libya — which has since backed away from the situation after the Yemeni government called them out. Advanced heavy weapons, not even common within the army, raised many questions about foreign aid to the Houthi rebellion, and the amount of cash flowing in illegally.

After years of fragile cease-fires, presidential negotiation committees and brokered truces (by neutral tribes, and the government of Qatar), Al-Houthi still refuses to honor continued efforts to end the bloodshed and continues to terrorize the local masses. Thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians have been killed and injured by Al-Houthi, tens of thousands are displaced and had their homes destroyed. Al-Houthis have also threatened and kicked out hundreds of Yemenite Jews, leading the government to relocate them to hotels in Sana’a, the capital, for their safety. Yemen’s remaining small Jewish population, estimated in the few hundreds, enjoys equal rights under protection of the Yemeni constitution, and with the exception for Al-Houthi, there are no other acts of discrimination against the Jewish minority. The Muslim majority in Yemen has been tolerant towards the Jewish minority and have lived side-by-side in peace for centuries.

The Yemeni government must put a conclusion to this rebellion, as it’s traditional negotiation and ‘minimizing impact’ policy just allows it to be more cancerous.