HOUTHI MILITANTS ‘DRAWING THEIR LAST BREATH’
Iran-backed rebels are beset by splits, says defecting senior minister
A senior minister in Yemen’s Houthi-run government yesterday announced his defection from the rebels, saying that members of the militia were “drawing their last breath”.
Abdul Salam Gaber is the most senior member of the Houthi administration to defect since the civil war broke out in 2014.
His departure deals a blow to the rebels as they battle an offensive by the Saudi-led coalition to retake the key Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.
In Riyadh yesterday, Mr Gaber said that more splits were emerging within the militants’ ranks. He did not provide details but said that the coming days would reveal the extent of the schism.
He said that his arrival in Riyadh had created more scope for attempts to reinstate legitimate rule over Yemen.
He said the Houthis were displaying typical “militia behaviour” in the territory they control, and that their breaches of international law included kidnapping and detaining journalists, torturing captives and recruiting child soldiers.
Mr Gaber was reported to have disappeared early last week, prompting Houthi rebels to storm his residence only to find he was gone, a source affiliated with the group told The National.
The source, based in the capital Sanaa, said the minister vanished after an argument with Ahmed Hamid, an official in the Houthi presidential office.
“The Houthis have been keeping an eye on many ministers and high-ranking officials, especially those who don’t belong to the Zaidi sect,” the source said, referring to the Shiite sect to which most of the Houthis belong.
“They don’t trust them any more after many fled Sanaa and joined the legitimate government.”
A journalist for the Houthi-run Al Masirah channel accused Mr Gaber of betraying his country and joining the Arab Coalition.
“Since Abdul Salam Gaber has betrayed his country and went to be embraced by Saudi Arabia, we hope of those who are in charge to give up putting such people in such higher positions and put the qualified and the professional ones there instead, and endorse those who are loyalists for the country and the people,” Ali Dhafer tweeted.
Last month, the Houthi deputy minister of education, Dr Abdullah Al Hamdi, said he severed ties with the Iran-backed militia and called for an uprising against the rebels.
The coalition has been fighting the Houthis on the side of the internationally recognised government of President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi and its allies since 2015.
Meanwhile, Yemeni government forces pressed further into the strategic port city of Hodeidah, seizing its main hospital in heavy fighting on Saturday.
A loyalist official said mortar rounds were “falling like rain” in the streets as troops overcame rebel-laid landmines and snipers to take control of the hospital in the city of 600,000 people.
The rebels have put up fierce resistance to the government advance towards the city’s vital docks, which are the point of entry for 80 per cent of Yemen’s commercial imports and nearly all of the UN-supervised humanitarian aid.
Yemeni government forces were yesterday involved in fierce clashes with Houthi rebels entrenched near the University of Hodeidah and Al Rabsa neighbourhood in the south-west of the port city.
“The Yemeni Joint Resistance forces had imposed a tight cordon around the Houthis, who retreated into the residential areas in the centre of the city,” Col Mamoon Al Mahjami, spokesman for the Al Amalikah Brigades, told The National.
“The rebels stationed artillery and mortars in populated neighbourhoods and hundreds of snipers on the roofs of buildings near the university.”
Residents in the southern outskirts of the city said the battle raged since early yesterday morning, with explosions around the university as well as in the 7 July neighbourhood in Hodeidah’s east.
Aircraft from the Arab Coalition supported the government troops, with Apache helicopters hitting Houthi targets near the university, the eastern areas of the 7 July district and the Al Khamseen Street area in north-east Hodeidah.
Residents said four civilians were injured in the fighting, three of them children.
“The Houthi militia has been shelling the southern areas of the city randomly with mortars and with rockets, which has spread fear and anxiety among the residents who haven’t fled the city and those who have been prevented from leaving the city centre by the Houthis
Rights groups said the Houthis raided the May 22 Hospital in east Hodeidah and posted gunmen on the roof
using them as human shields,” a resident told The National.
He said many people in Hodeidah who had co-operated with the Iran-backed rebels now wanted to defect to the government side.
But many feared reprisals because some activists in already liberated areas threatened collaborators on social media, forcing those who wanted to defect to keep fighting for the rebels.
Houthi fighters also took up positions near Al Thawra Hospital, the city’s biggest, which was taken back by loyalists on Saturday.
Sources at the hospital said some staff members and patients had fled the complex. It was not clear how many patients remained inside.
“The Houthis are reinforcing their positions near the hospital and that is what scared people,” a staff member said.
Hospital spokesman Khaled Attiyah said doctors and nurses continued to work in departments such as intensive care, the burns ward and the emergency room “despite the panic”.
“We hear loud shelling and they are using all kinds of weapons, it is terrifying,” said resident Abdullah Mohammed.
“In the eastern suburbs, Apache helicopters are bombing Houthi positions all day long.”
Last week, rights groups said the Houthis raided the May 22 Hospital in the city’s eastern suburbs and posted gunmen on the roof, endangering doctors and patients.
Recapturing Hodeidah would return the city’s vital port to the control of the government. About 80 per cent of all food and aid entering Yemen passes through the port, raising fears that prolonged fighting could worsen the already dire humanitarian situation.
The Arab Coalition, which is supporting the government, said taking control of Hodeidah would cut off the Houthis’ main supply line and force the group into talks.