Houthis are accused as ex-diplomat shot dead in Sanaa

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen were accused on Monday of being responsible for the assassination of a former diplomat and retired military commander in his home in Sanaa.

Maj. Gen. Dirham Noman was killed instantly after an armed man broke into his residence on Sunday and opened fire, before fleeing the scene.

“I hold the Houthi militia accountable for his death,” said Ahmed Obaid bin Dagher, speaker of Yemen’s Shoura Council. “Everyone should denounce this terrorist and criminal action that attacked one of the symbols of the republic.”

Noman was a former Yemeni ambassador to Ethiopia and former governor of Dhamar, Marib, Shabwa and Jouf provinces.

Everyone should denounce this terrorist and criminal action that attacked one of the symbols of the republic.

As a military leader he took part in the 1962 revolution in North Yemen, and was head of the Aden Free Zone after Yemen’s unification in 1990.

Yemen’s parliamentary spokesperson Sultan Al-Baraki said Noman was “a seasoned military commander, an adept politician, a skilled administrator and an experienced organizer.”

Houthi officials said Noman’s killer knew him, but they offered no explanation for the crime.

There have been several recent murders in Sanaa targeting politicians, military and security personnel, and judges.

Mohammed Hamran, 63, a Supreme Court judge, was snatched off the street by armed men in September and found dead days later. In 2020, Hassan Zaid, the Houthi government’s Minister of Youth and Sport, was killed in the capital’s diplomatic area.