Revealed: Houthi militia’s deadly ties with Al-Qaeda and Daesh

This undated photo released on October 27, 2000 by the National Security News Service shows US sailors on deck and damage to the USS Cole after a terrorist attack on 12 October. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 02 April 2021
Follow

Revealed: Houthi militia’s deadly ties with Al-Qaeda and Daesh

  • Terrorists set free to recruit and fight, report to UN Security Council claims

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s internationally recognized government has officially accused the Iran-backed Houthis of harboring Al-Qaeda and Daesh terrorists, with militants from both groups being set free to fight and spread terror among the Yemeni people.

In the wake of a government report revealing the full extent of links between the Houthis, Al-Qaeda and Daesh, the Arab military coalition said on Thursday it had destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile on its launchpad in Yemen, adding that the weapon was being prepared for launch toward the central Yemeni province of Marib.

The 23-page intelligence report submitted to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US permanent representative to the UN and president of the Security Council, the Yemen government said that dozens of Al-Qaeda and Daesh fighters released from prison by the Houthis had joined militia attacks on government-controlled areas, mainly in Marib province. Al-Qaeda and Daesh militants were provided with false documents and sent to government-controlled areas  to recruit fighters and militia loyalists.

In the report, released on March 29 and seen by Arab News on Thursday, the Yemeni government said that the Houthis had given other terror operatives shelter in Sanaa and other rebel-controlled areas, and later pushed them into living in liberated areas in an attempt to to discredit the government by linking it with Al-Qaeda. 

According to the report — prepared by Yemen’s two major intelligence agencies, the Central Agency for Political Security and the National Security Service — militants have released 252 terrorist prisoners from prisons in the capital and other Houthi-controlled areas in the past three years.

The most prominent Al-Qaeda operative to be freed was Jamal Mohammed Al-Badwai, suspected mastermind of the deadly attack on the US Navy destroyer USS Cole, who died in a US drone strike in Marib in January 2019. 

As part of a secret deal between the Houthis and Al-Qaeda, the militia gave Al-Badwai a forged ID and smuggled him into government-controlled Marib to undermine security in the province and stoke opposition to the government.

FASTFACT

The most prominent Al-Qaeda operative to be freed was Jamal Mohammed Al-Badwai, suspected mastermind of the deadly attack on the US Navy destroyer USS Cole, who died in a US drone strike in Marib in January 2019.

The Houthis also released Sami Fadhl Dayan, who was jailed for plotting to assassinate an army commander in 2012; Mayad Al-Hammadi, an Al-Qaeda figure who masterminded a deadly suicide attack that killed more than 100 soldiers during a military parade rehearsal in May 2012; and Maher Al-Ramim, a member of an Al-Qaeda cell that sought to kill the Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in 2013.

At present, the report said, the Houthis are providing shelter to 55 Al-Qaeda militants who had been put on trial before the militia takeover in late 2014.

The militants include Jassim Awadh Barefaa and Hisham Bawazir, also known as Tariq Al-Hadrami. Both men faced a Yemeni court in Hadramout province in 2010 on charges of joining Al-Qaeda and are now living well-furnished flats in Sanaa. 

“This report also exposes the falsehood of allegations by these militias that seek to stigmatize those Yemeni people and the national armed forces who stand against them by accusing them of belonging to Al-Qaeda and Daesh,” it said. 

In the early days of their Marib offensive in January 2019, the Houthis struck a deal with Al-Qaeda and released five terror operatives who were allowed to advance toward government-controlled areas.

The Al-Qaeda militants later provided the militia with intelligence on a number of government locations, the report said. 

Based on intelligence information and interviews with captured militants, the report said that Al-Qaeda and Daesh militants frequently join Houthi attacks on government-controlled areas, mainly in Marib.

One Al-Qaeda fighter, Musa Nassir Ali Hassan Al-Melhani, who was captured by the Yemeni army, admitted “the presence of Al-Qaeda fighters within the Houthi militia” and said they are taking part in the mobilization of fighters in Sanaa.

“The report proves beyond any reasonable doubt the depth of the relationship between the criminal Houthi militia and the terrorist organizations (Al-Qaeda and Daesh),” the report concluded.

Yemeni army commanders and experts said that they had been aware of the Houthi links with Al-Qaeda and Daesh for the past six years.

However, they said that cooperation between the terrorist groups had intensified since early last month when the Houthis resumed their offensive to capture Marib city, the Yemeni government’s last bastion in northern Yemen.

“There is a great integration between the Houthis and the other terrorist organizations. Al-Qaeda and Daesh militants are standing side by side with the Houthis and that can be seen clearly during fighting in Al-Bayda,” Abdu Abdullah Majili, Yemen’s army spokesman, told Arab News on Thursday.


Canada eases sanctions on Syrian Arab Republic, names ambassador

Updated 13 March 2025
Follow

Canada eases sanctions on Syrian Arab Republic, names ambassador

  • Easing of sanctions would help prevent Syria from falling into chaos and instability, said Canada’s special envoy Omar Alghabra
  • Liberated from the Assad regime last December after 13 years of war, Syria is now led by former rebel leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa

OTTAWA: Canada announced plans Wednesday to ease its financial sanctions against Syria and to appoint an ambassador, as the Damascus interim government seeks international support.
Canada’s special envoy for Syria, Omar Alghabra, said: “Canada can play a meaningful role in enabling Syrians to build an inclusive country that respects all of its citizens.
“We also can help prevent Syria from falling into chaos and instability.”
A statement from Canada’s foreign ministry said sanctions would be eased “to allow funds to be sent through certain banks in the country, such as Syria’s Central Bank.”
Canada’s ambassador to Lebanon, Stefanie McCollum, will now take on a parallel role as a non-resident ambassador to neighboring Syria.
Previously, Canada — along with many other world powers — had strict sanctions in place to punish the now-ousted government of Bashar Assad.
“These sanctions had been used as a tool against the Assad regime and easing them will help to enable the stable and sustainable delivery of aid, support local redevelopment efforts, and contribute to a swift recovery for Syria,” the Canadian statement said.
Assad fled Syria late last year and opposition forces overthrew his administration in early December. An interim government under former jihadist leader President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is now in place.
Many capitals welcomed Assad’s fall, but gave only a cautious welcome to the victorious rebels.
Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group has its roots in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
The new government has vowed to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, but security forces have reportedly killed hundreds of Alawite civilians in recent days.
In the statement announcing sanctions relief, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joy and Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen expressed concern over the killings.
“We utterly condemn these atrocities and call on the interim authorities to take all necessary measures to end the violence,” they said.
“Civilians must be protected, the dignity and human rights of all religious and ethnic groups must be upheld, and perpetrators must be held accountable.”
 


Syria’s interim President Sharaa forms national security council

Updated 13 March 2025
Follow

Syria’s interim President Sharaa forms national security council

CAIRO: Syrian Arab Republic’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa issued a decree on Wednesday to form the country’s national security council, according to a statement by the Syrian president’s office.
The council will take decisions related to the country’s national security and challenges facing the state.


‘Nobody is expelling any Palestinians’ from Gaza, says US President Trump

US President Donald Trump meets with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC
Updated 48 min 43 sec ago
Follow

‘Nobody is expelling any Palestinians’ from Gaza, says US President Trump

  • Comment seems to contradict his previous plan for the US to take over the territory, relocate the Palestinian population and turn it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’
  • Arab foreign ministers say they will continue to consult with Trump’s Middle East envoy about a $53bn Egyptian plan to rebuild Gaza

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump insisted on Wednesday that “nobody is expelling any Palestinians” from Gaza.

His comment, in response to a question from a reporter, came during a meeting on Wednesday with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin at the White House.

It seemed to contradict the president’s previously suggested plan for the US to take ownership of Gaza, relocate the Palestinian population, and turn the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

His proposal, voiced in February during the early stages of a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, drew widespread international condemnation and rejection, amid concern that it reinforced long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes.

Egypt, Jordan and Gulf Arab states warned that any such plan could destabilize the entire region. In response, Arab states adopted a $53 billion Egyptian plan for the reconstruction of Gaza that would avoid any displacement of Palestinians.

Arab foreign ministers said on Wednesday they would continue to consult with Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, about the Egyptian plan to rebuild Gaza as an alternative to the US president’s proposed takeover of the territory.

“The Arab foreign ministers discussed the Gaza reconstruction plan, which was approved during the Arab League Summit held in Cairo on March 4, 2025. They also agreed with the US envoy to continue consultations and coordination on the plan as a foundation for the reconstruction efforts,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The talks will serve as a “basis for the reconstruction efforts” in Gaza, the ministers said in a joint statement following a meeting in Doha.


‘Humiliated’: Palestinian victims of Israel sexual abuse testify at UN

Israeli soldiers patrol near the Israel-Lebanon border, in Israel, March 12, 2025. (Reuters)
Updated 12 March 2025
Follow

‘Humiliated’: Palestinian victims of Israel sexual abuse testify at UN

  • Experts and advocates who testified Tuesday spoke of a “systematic” trend of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention

GENEVA: Palestinians who say they suffered brutal beatings and sexual abuse in Israeli detention and at the hands of Israeli settlers testified about their ordeals at the United Nations this week.
“I was humiliated and tortured,” said Said Abdel Fattah, a 28-year-old nurse detained in November 2023 near Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital where he worked.
Ahead of the hearings Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva dismissed them as a waste of time, saying Israel investigated and prosecuted any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces.
Fattah gave his testimony from Gaza via video-link to a public hearing, speaking through an interpreter.
He described being stripped naked in the cold, suffering beatings, threats of rape and other abuse over the next two months as he was shuttled between overcrowded detention facilities.
“I was like a punching bag,” he said of one particularly harrowing interrogation he endured in January 2024.
The interrogator, he said, “kept hitting me on my genitals... I was bleeding everywhere, I was bleeding from my penis, I was bleeding from my anus.”
“I felt like my soul (left) my body.”
Fattah spoke Tuesday during the latest of a series of public hearings hosted by the UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
This week’s hearings, harshly criticized by Israel, are specifically focused on allegations of “sexual and reproductive violence” committed by Israeli security forces and settlers.
“It’s important,” COI member Chris Sidoti, who hosted the meeting, told AFP. Victims of such abuse are “entitled to be heard,” he said.
Experts and advocates who testified Tuesday spoke of a “systematic” trend of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention, but also at checkpoints and other settings since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel sparked the war in Gaza.
Meron, for Israel, slammed attempts to equate allegations against individual Israelis with Hamas’s “shocking... sexual violence toward Israeli hostages, toward victims on October 7.”
Any such comparison was “reprehensible,” he told reporters on Monday.
He insisted the hearings were “wasting time,” since Israel as “a country with law and order” would investigate and prosecute any wrongdoings.
But Palestinian lawyer Sahar Francis decried a glaring lack of accountability, alleging that abuse had become “a widespread policy.”
All those arrested from Gaza were strip-searched, she said, with the soldiers in some cases “pushing the sticks” into the prisoner’s anus.
Sexual abuse happened “in a very massive way” especially in the first months of the war, she said.
“I think you can say that most of those who were arrested in these months were subjected to such practice.”
The allegations of abuse are not limited to detention centers.
Mohamed Matar, a West Bank resident, said he suffered hours of torture at the hands of security agents and settlers, even as Israeli police refused to intervene.
Just days after the October 7 attack, he and other Palestinian activists went to help protect a Bedouin community facing settler attacks.
As they were leaving the compound, they were chased and caught by a group of settlers, who he said were joined by members of Israel’s Shabak security agency.
He and two other men were blindfolded, stripped to their underwear and, had their hands tied before being taken into a nearby stable.
The leader stood “on my head and ordered me to eat ... the faeces of the sheep,” said Matar.
With dozens of settlers around, the man urinated on the three, and beat them so badly during the nearly 12 hours of abuse that Matar said he cried: “just shoot me in the head.”
The man, he said, jumped on his back and repeatedly “tried to introduce a stick into my anus.”
Blinking back tears, Matar showed Sidoti a photograph taken by the settlers showing the three blindfolded men lying in the dirt in their underwear.
Other pictures taken after the ordeal showed him with massive bruises all over his body.
Speaking to journalists after his testimony, he said he had spent months “in a state of psychological shock.”
“I didn’t think there were people on Earth with such a level of ugliness, sadism and cruelty.”


Financial reform plan can unlock foreign support for Lebanon, IMF says

Updated 12 March 2025
Follow

Financial reform plan can unlock foreign support for Lebanon, IMF says

  • Negotiations between Lebanon and the IMF aim to pave the way for essential reforms to put the country on the path to financial recovery
  • Follows worsening financial and economic crises that Lebanon has been grappling with since 2019 due to economic mismanagement, rampant corruption and accumulated debt

BEIRUT: A unified financial reform plan will allow Lebanon to overcome its economic issues and unlock foreign funding, the head of the IMF’s mission to the country said on Wednesday.

Ernesto Ramirez Rigo was speaking in a meeting with President Joseph Aoun, who said that Lebanon was “committed to moving forward with implementing reforms.”

Negotiations between Lebanon and the IMF aim to pave the way for essential reforms to put the country on the path to financial recovery.

It follows worsening financial and economic crises that Lebanon has been grappling with since 2019 due to economic mismanagement, rampant corruption and accumulated debt.

Presidential media adviser Najat Charafeddine told Arab News: “The IMF delegation emphasized that Lebanon’s proposed plan must be approved by all relevant parties in order to pass in parliament.

Implementing reforms will enable Lebanon to receive aid, including grants, particularly from countries with close ties, the delegation said.

“Achieving the plan will serve as an IMF seal of approval that will unlock assistance,” Lebanese officials were told.

The delegation also highlighted “the necessity of Lebanon returning to the fundamentals, particularly in restructuring banks and revisiting banking secrecy laws, which have yet to see the light of day due to disagreements.”

Over the past two days, specialized technical meetings have continued between experts from the IMF and a World Bank delegation, along with directors of departments and specialized experts at the Lebanese Ministry of Finance.

The talks aimed “to reach conclusions on proposed issues to promote transparency in public finances and more comprehensive reforms,” a Ministry of Finance statement said.

The IMF delegation met Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Finance Minister Yassine Jaber to discuss the details of the economic plan and required reforms.

Jaber said he discussed “the priorities, namely the appointment of the governor of Banque du Liban, who will play a crucial role in working with the IMF.

“Preparations for reforms are ongoing to enable Lebanon to implement its financial plan,” he added, highlighting support for amending Lebanon’s Monetary and Credit Law.

Jaber said: “The issue of frozen deposits in banks will be addressed in stages, and as minister of finance, I have no authority over the banking sector.”

Ousmane Dione, World Bank VP for the Middle East and North Africa, who met Jaber in Beirut in late February, had previously called on the Lebanese government to implement reforms.

This would “ensure credibility and transparency, reassure investors and improve the business environment,” he said.

The IMF delegation will meet a technical committee at the Association of Banks on Thursday.

According to media reports, the meeting will focus on “the performance of the exchange market and the Banque du Liban’s interventions, the banking restrictions on transfers and the authorization of certain outgoing transfers.

“This is seen as an attempt to monitor Lebanon’s cash economy, which has flourished since the country’s financial collapse.”

Meanwhile, diplomatic pressure exerted by Lebanon on the five-member committee overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel led to the release of four captives held by the latter on Tuesday evening.

The development was welcomed by Hezbollah supporters.

Israel is set to release a fifth person, a Lebanese soldier, on Wednesday evening, after he underwent surgery in an Israeli hospital.

It follows the release of four Lebanese captives a day earlier.

On social media, activists supporting Hezbollah celebrated the release of prisoners held by Israel for three months as a result of “diplomatic, not military, efforts.”

One activist claimed that President Joseph Aoun “had achieved what 100,000 rockets failed to accomplish,” while another said: “Diplomacy succeeded in releasing five prisoners, and tomorrow it could resolve the issues surrounding the disputed border points.”

Axios quoted a US official on Tuesday: “The Trump administration had been mediating between Israel and Lebanon for several weeks with the aim of strengthening the ceasefire and reaching a broader agreement.

“All parties are committed to upholding the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon and fulfilling all its conditions. We look forward to convening swift meetings of the working groups regarding Lebanon to address the outstanding issues. Israel and Lebanon have agreed to initiate negotiations to resolve disputes concerning their land borders.”

Six of 13 points remain unresolved since the establishment of the Blue Line following Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

Additionally, Israel has yet to withdraw from five Lebanese hills it occupies in the border area following the recent conflict.

Reporters in the south have said that the Israeli army has expanded its presence around the hills, where it has established military facilities.

A joint statement issued by the US and French embassies in Lebanon and UNIFIL on Tuesday said: “The ceasefire implementation mechanism committee will continue to hold regular meetings to ensure full implementation of the cessation of hostilities.”

Israeli Channel 12 quoted an Israeli politician as saying: “Discussions with Lebanon are part of a broader and comprehensive plan. Israel aims to achieve normalization with Lebanon.

“The prime minister’s policy has already transformed the Middle East, and we wish to maintain this momentum and reach normalization with Lebanon.

“Just as Lebanon has claims regarding the borders, we also have our own border claims ... we will address these matters.”