Houthis kill one of their own in sign of deepening rebel rifts

The Houthi rebels in Yemen kidnapped and killed one of their security officials on Saturday, a sign of deepening rifts within the Iran-backed group fighting the internationally recognised government.

“The rebels stormed the village of Al Ramah in the Damt district in Al Dhale province in the southern part of the country and kidnapped security commander Abdulkareem Nashwan, who had been working with the rebels since they took over Damt district in 2015,” Ali Al Asmar, an Al Dhale-based journalist, told The National.

“They kidnapped him and five of his guards last week and executed him on Saturday after accusing him of being complicit with former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s loyalists.”

The Houthi rebels killed Saleh on December 4 after he broke off his alliance with them and called for talks with the Arab coalition fighting on behalf of the legitimate government of Yemen’s president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi. The rebels then launched a crackdown on his supporters in which hundreds have been killed or detained.

Elsewhere, an unidentified group killed two high-ranking Houthi officers in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the rebels, said an unnamed Sanaa resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the Yemeni military and resistance fighters seized more areas of Al Bayda province south of Sanaa. Troops and resistance fighters, backed by air support from the Saudi-led coalition, captured Markoozah mountain after heavy clashes with the Houthis in which dozens of rebels were killed, the Al Bayda resistance’s media centre said. The mountain commands the entire Natea district including the Al Fadha base, the rebels’ most important military site in Al Bayda.