Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced this Monday the arrest of five people who allegedly informed the United States and Israel about the location of missile and drone firing points in attacks in the Red Sea.
The Ministry of Interior, controlled by the Houthis, said in a statement that the five detainees had been recruited by an intelligence agency called “Force 400”, run by Ammar Saleh, nephew of Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The objective of the mission, according to the note, was “to collect information and identify launch sites” used by the rebels on the western coast of Yemen “in the name of the American and Israeli enemy”.
The five men were recruited shortly after the Houthis began military operations targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea on November 19, 2023, and launched several missile and drone attacks against Eilat, in southern Israel.
According to the Houthi ministry, the detainees confessed to “monitoring launch sites for missiles, drones and military ships” and “providing the coordinates” to superiors of “Force 400” so that these points “would be attacked by US and British fighters “.
The five were accused of “carrying out criminal and sabotage operations” and planning “assassination operations using silenced weapons and explosive materials”, with the aim of “provoking instability” in areas controlled by the Houthi, which represent a large part of the northwest Yemen.
The statement recalls that “working for hostile spy agencies carries the death penalty”, while promising “no effort spared” to stop “infiltration attempts by the American and Israeli enemy”.
Houthi leader Abdelmalek al-Huti said last Thursday that the US- and UK-led military coalition had launched 425 attacks on rebel positions in Yemen, killing 40 fighters and injuring 35 others since the start of the campaign. in mid-January.
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