Marib Police Uncovers Evidence on Houthis Recruiting Women, Children for Yemen Attacks

Marib police authorities have uncovered on Sunday evidence that the Houthi militia, just like ISIS, are attempting to recruit women and children for bomb attacks and assassinations in the government-controlled northern Yemeni city.
In a press conference, authorities
accused the leader of Houthis of establishing a secret apparatus focused on
luring Yemeni women into carrying out violent attacks.
This comes a few days after
security officers arresting female Houthi recruits who were plotting for
hostilities in Marib.
The arrests were exploited by Houthis
to recruit and deploy more fighters to Marib under the slogan of “victory for
the honor of the detained women.”
Houthis, over the course of
conflict in Yemen, have invoked cultural notions such as defending the honor of
women to win over support from tribesmen against internationally recognized
state institutions.
More so, Yemeni police reported
that the Houthi recruitment of women and children to carry out abhorrent
actions speaks greatly to similar methods used by other terror groups like
al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Videos of women confessing to have
been recruited by the Houthis, trained on improvised explosive devices, and
sent to Marib to plant such bombs were shown by Brig. Yahya Homeid, the
Director General of Marib Police.
“Investigations with members of a number of
Houthi terrorist cells revealed that a private service directly linked to the
Houthi leader, which operates under the pretext of relief work, is responsible
for luring and deluding Yemeni women from poor families into joining the
group’s ranks,” Homeid said.
He added that drafted women are
trained in staging terror attacks and collecting intelligence about Houthi
targets.
“These methods are Iranian and are carried under
Iranian supervision,” Homeid said about the Houthi recruitment of women.
“Houthi militias offend the morals and values of
Yemenis by employing women in malicious and terrorist acts that no Yemeni or
Arab deems acceptable,” he noted.
Homeid said the women, who come
from poor families, were recruited through blackmail, with the Houthis
implicating them in honor-damaging acts to get them to do what the militia
wants.
He called for the immediate
halting of the exploitation of women through methods that encroach on the
country’s shared values, noting that Houthis are mainly targeting civilians and
displaced Yemenis with their ballistic missiles and Iran-made drones.
Furthermore, Homeid vowed that
security forces will strike with an iron fist against any threat endangering
the safety and stability of Marib.
Houthis have launched a violent
and multi-faceted offensive against the oil-rich Marib governorate, but failed
to achieve any progress, Yemeni army media reported.
National army forces, backed by
pro-government popular resistance and air support from the Saudi-led Arab
Government, thwarted several suicide attacks launched by the Iranian-backed
militia on several fronts west of Marib.