Al-Houthi's arrest of foreigners without charges... blackmail, terrorism, and service to Iran
English - Monday 28 February 2022 الساعة 08:21 am
Sana'a, NewsYemen:
Yemenis do not know detainees from friendly countries except when Iran and its arm in Sana'a have traded them for its own ends.
The Houthis arrested US, French and British citizens without charge.
Security sources close to the Houthi militia told NewsYemen that these arrests have no security motives, but rather have political goals within the messages of mutual pressure between the countries of the world and Iran, while the victim, along with the detainees, is Yemen's reputation and interests.
According to the sources, Iran is convincing the Houthi militia that these arrests force the West to open a negotiating channel of communication with it.
The Houthis have previously used the kidnapped as bait to achieve their goals, especially related to the expulsion and return of some of its leaders and their wounded to and from Yemen away from the control of the coalition, as well as allowing the entry of ships of oil and gas derivatives and some ships loaded with goods and commercial goods belonging to companies owned by Houthi leaders or merchants loyal to them.
And political sources in Sana’a revealed to NewsYemen that the Houthi militia’s arrest of a number of local employees of the US embassy in Sanaa and employees of the United Nations, in November of last year, aimed at extortion, bribery, and the operation of a flight to Muscat.
Diplomatic sources in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Houthi militia authority told NewsYemen: The Houthis' resort to arresting Yemeni citizens on the pretext that they are employees of the Washington embassy or in any embassy of any other country in Yemen is a rejected and condemned method and has nothing to do with diplomatic relations between peoples and countries.
The sources added: But the Houthi militia's method and method is a systematic imitation of the Iranian regime's methods of storming foreign embassies, especially the US embassy, kidnapping and arresting foreign citizens, or Iranian citizens who hold foreign nationalities, and using this method to blackmail Western countries.
The sources went further, linking the Houthis’ detention of a media employee at the Washington embassy with the ongoing talks in Vienna regarding the Iranian nuclear file, noting that this arrest may come within Tehran’s quest to blackmail Western countries, led by Washington, with the justification that it is able to persuade the Houthis to release Employees or citizens holding US nationalities, even if they are primarily Yemeni citizens.
The sources concluded by pointing out that the Houthi militias’ treatment and method of blackmailing the Americans confirms the reality of the mistakes made by the administration of current US President Joe Biden, who hastened to cancel the designation of the Houthi militias as a terrorist organization, which was approved by the administration of former President Donald Trump, noting that the current administration’s approach is based on imposing Sanctions on Houthi leaders personally, or even imposing sanctions on companies that finance or facilitate Houthi financing, is useless and cannot achieve any success on them, as is the case with US sanctions on the Iranian regime.
It is worth noting that the Houthi militia, after its coup against the authority and its control of state institutions on September 21, 2014, proceeded to storm the headquarters of Arab and foreign embassies after it had placed armed affiliated with it to guard the headquarters of these embassies, which closed their doors after that coup, with the exception of the Embassy of the Russian Federation, which continued to operate. Before it was forced to close its door and evacuate all its Russian diplomats and employees following the martyrdom of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh at the hands of the Houthi militias after he declared the uprising against them on December 2, 2017.
