Obscene wealth and imaginary assets... Houthi leaders are fighting over the plundering of Yemen's lands

English - Monday 28 November 2022 الساعة 03:36 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, exclusive:

The heirs of Hajj "Abdullah Bliss" were surprised by a military force belonging to the Houthi militia - Iran's arm in Yemen - storming the land they own on the southern 60th Street in Sana'a, claiming that it belongs to a Houthi leader under divine guidance.

The land was seized by an influential Houthi named Manea Al-Tayhafi by force of arms, taking advantage of his influence in the controlling authority in Sana’a to spread it over, with the aim of selling it for hundreds of millions.

The heirs of Hajj "Abdullah Bliss" did not find any way to defend their right other than to launch an appeal to all the media and human rights, civil and humanitarian organizations, to stand with them and remove the injustice inflicted on them and their family by the influential Houthi who exploited his influence and with the support of the director of the Police Department of the industrial complex, the leader Hadi Aslan.  And extending the force of arms on their rights and property in the land.

Organized looting

Since the beginning of the current year 2022, the expansion and seizure operations carried out by the Houthi militia on lands and vast areas belonging to citizens or belonging to any government agency, especially the lands of endowments, which have become subject to looting and looting, have escalated.

According to a source in the State Land and Real Estate Authority in Sana'a, who reported to "Newsyemen", the authority receives many complaints of land looting by Houthi supervisors and leaders, without any deterrence to return the right to its owners.

The source said that the Houthi leaders, who control the State Lands and Real Estate Authority, manage the process of looting citizens and the state lands, as the administration provides information about areas belonging to the state that can be spread or spaces belonging to citizens inside and around Sana'a, and many forged papers and documents are issued from inside  The interest around those lands and their ownership is for the influential Houthi leaders.

He pointed out that citizens' complaints files are not dealt with or even paid attention to. Rather, citizens and rights holders are procrastinating while the enforcer, with the help of their military and security forces, builds, sells, and builds within those areas.

Obscene wealth sparks a conflict

A frantic race between the Houthi leaders to seize the largest amount of lands and areas belonging to the state and citizens, as the land file has become one of the most important resources and methods pursued by the Houthi militia to get rich.

The Houthi leaders were not satisfied with the lands of Sana'a, but extended operations to other governorates, as those leaders target areas with a high location and value in order to loot them and claim their ownership, in preparation for selling them and making a lot of money.

The land-grabbing race created a violent conflict between the Houthi leaders looking for wealth, after the revenues of levies and royalties became weak and insufficient to be shared.

The increasing intensity of internal conflicts within the Houthi militias over the plundering of lands caused dozens of deaths and injuries in repeated incidents in the regions and governorates under their control, and revealed the reality of the outrageous wealth of many Houthi leaders after they seized power in 2015.

During the month of October, a number of cases of armed conflict were documented between Houthi leaders to control governmental and private spaces. These conflicts turned into violent clashes that led to the death of dozens of their members.

Dozens of incidents and armed confrontations that took place in separate areas in Yemen between prominent Houthi leaders to extend and seize large areas, which left dozens dead and wounded among the militias.

Among these conflicts was the armed confrontations that took place in the Arhab district, north of Sana'a, between two Houthi leaders to lay on a ground where there is a water well that will generate large sums of money, and these confrontations resulted between the two leaders.  Faris al-Habbari and Nabih Abu Nashtan, killing and injuring more than 10 gunmen from both sides.

In Amran governorate, a number of gunmen were killed and wounded by two Houthi leaders belonging to the "Al-Faraj family" and "Bayt Al-Naqeeb" in the village of Al-Dahdah, a terrifying isolation in the Dhibin district, following a dispute that arose between them over a piece of agricultural land after their return from the fighting fronts.

Sharing loot and rugs

 The two leaders, Abd al-Majid al-Houthi and Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, share control over the lands of endowments and state lands and real estate in militia-controlled areas, through the first controlling the Ministry of Endowments and the second over the Ministry of Justice - in the unrecognized government - and establishing the so-called "justice system";  To legitimize the plundering of state property and citizens.

The head of the Houthi "Awqaf Authority", Abdul Majeed Al-Houthi, which was established by the militia, admitted, in a recent interview, that they are in the process of controlling one million and two hundred thousand endowment properties, which their owners stopped in exchange for a quarter of the yield at the time of harvest, as the militia seeks to lease them with exorbitant money on an annual basis, most of which are agricultural lands.  It depends on rain water, which may deprive the beneficiaries of these lands after their inability to pay rents, especially in times of hardship and drought.

He pointed out that there are arrangements for the establishment of courts dedicated to endowments, as part of their continuous efforts to plunder the lands of citizens and farmers after the neutralization of official courts and laws.

Dynastic leaders among the Houthis take advantage of their control of state institutions and their functional positions and their empowerment with weapons to plunder the lands of civilians, whether they are private property or belonging to the state, under several pretexts, including that it is the property of endowments and the property of their ancestors who lived during the era of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom, whose rule was overthrown by the glorious revolution of September 26 in the year 1962 .  And under the pretense of preserving public lands and belonging to the endowment.

Ibb is in the foreground

 Ibb governorate is witnessing an open war and systematic operations launched by the terrorist Houthi militia, the Iranian arm, to plunder and usurp public lands and citizens' property, in exchange for the growing protests against it.

The great competition in the looting and acquisition of land in the districts of Ibb was the most prominent of which was the increase in robberies of public spaces, especially lands belonging to the Ministry of endowment.

In the latest crime of burglary on public and private lands in Ibb Governorate, a Houthi enforcer named "Khaled Muharram" seized a public street in the "Akma Issa" area in the Al-Mashnah district after closing it by force of arms, and his seizure of the street caused damage to all the neighboring houses and residential buildings.  Being the only outlet for them, while the militia leadership appointed in the Public Works Office branch in Ibb and the security and local authorities did not move any resident or stop the process of seizing the street despite the citizens' reports about it.

An influential Houthi called "Al-Awadi" brought in a bulldozer and assaulted the cemetery adjacent to the Al-Ghufran Mosque and tampered with the land of the cemetery and the graves inside it, in full view of the people, as a prelude to burglary and fencing it.

The incident was preceded by a Houthi leader named "Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad al-Mutawakel", who came from Sana'a with two military teams, to seize a large land owned by the heirs of the citizen "Abdullah Salem" by force in the Al-Sahul area in Ibb under the protection of Houthi security leaders.

Hodeidah was not spared from looting.

The Houthi robbery of lands extended to a public cemetery and large lands in the Al-Duha district and Wadi Sardoud in the northeast of Al-Hodeidah governorate, while a Houthi leader, under military protection, bulldozed the Al-Muhaisem cemetery and the adjacent lands in the Al-Duha district, north of Al-Hodeidah, and exhumed the graves of the dead and crushed the bones of the deceased with the aim of robbing  The old cemetery and the surrounding grounds.

The process of spreading over citizens’ lands is preceded by arbitrary movements and measures, as happened in the Al-Zahra district, where the leader, Muhammad Ali Al-Houthi, last October, cut off the waters of Wadi More from the valley in the Al-Zahra district, Al-Hodeidah governorate, and turned it into vast lands that he seized by force, which was greatly reflected  civilians and threatened thousands with forced displacement.  This prompted the people of Moore Valley to organize a mass protest to condemn its confiscation, as they have lease contracts for more than seventy years.

This comes a month after Iran’s arm displaced and razed the lands of the residents in the areas of al-Qasra in the country of al-Zaraniq, south of Hodeidah, as well as land in the districts of Beit al-Faqih, al-Marawa’a, Bajil, al-Hali, al-Hawk, al-Durayhimi, al-Tahita and Zabid, confiscating their property and displacing them.

popular anger

With the Houthis' continued looting of public and private lands, dozens of citizens staged a protest demonstration in front of the "Awqaf Authority" building at the 30th line, west of the city of Ibb.  To denounce the organized looting of public lands, endowment properties, and citizens in the governorate, and the attacks against them by influential and leaders of the Houthi militia.

These protests come in conjunction with the efforts of senior militia leaders, including the leader Abd al-Majid al-Houthi and the leader Nasser al-Arjali, to rob more than 7,500 reeds in the Sha'ab al-Ma'ram area of al-Aridh al-Ula in the al-Dhahar district, northwest of the city of Ibb, estimated at hundreds of billions of riyals.

Expansion operations on lands in other areas in the governorates of Al-Jawf, Amran and Sana'a also led to the outbreak of a massive tribal and popular uprising, most notably what the Al-Jawf governorate witnessed recently between the tribes of Dhu Muhammad and the Houthi militia, after the latter's attempt to expand on large lands belonging to the tribes.  The confrontations caused the destruction of Houthi vehicles, in addition to dozens of deaths and injuries.