Rebels commit terrible crimes against citizens in Saada

SANA'A, Aug. 13 (Saba)-
Yemen has said that the al-Houthi rebel group had committed terrible crimes against
innocent
citizens in the northwestern province of Saada, where fierce fighting is being
broken out between the rebels and the government forces.

The government accused the rebel group of killing and torturing hundreds of
citizens and kidnapping tens others as well as attacking the homes of citizens,
schools, mosques
and projects in the province, some 230 kilometres north-west of the capital Sana'a.
The military-run 26September weekly reported on Thursday some horrific crimes
committed by the elements of the insurgency and terrorism in Saada, including the
murder of
people in many of the province's districts and the destruction, bombing and arson of
more than 102 homes.
For the kidnappings, the subversive elements have kidnapped more than 182 citizens
who being abused and tortured. In a case, three terrorist rebels have abducted and
raped
a girl in Haydan district of Saada.
The report also pointed to that those elements had taken over many schools in some
districts of the province, ravaging documents, records and books of school pupils
and
abducting teachers and a number of students.
The rebels also targeted and destructed service projects in several areas of Saada,
including water projects, farms and locomotives as well as foraging cars of
engineers
in charge of the inventory of the damages caused by five waves of the fighting.
In addition, they blew up explosive devices and mines which claimed the lives of
many people and set up illegally more than 23 checkpoints, forcing many citizens to
leave
their homes.
In order to expand the area of their terrorist acts, the al-Houthi rebels killed in
July seven people and wounded seven others in al-Zaheer district of the neighboring
province
of Jawf in addition to taking over 30 mosques in the districts of al-Zaheer,
Marashy, al-Anan, al-Matoun and al-Matma of Jawf province.
The government has outlined stringent terms for ending the new wave of its
offensive against the rebels in Saada. The government has ordered the rebels to
evacuate all occupied
government offices, hand in weapons and ammunition, and free captured soldiers and
citizens.
It also demanded information as to the whereabouts of a German family of five and a
British engineer kidnapped in June in Saada.
The government was provoked into sending more troops to the north after the rebels
blocked traffic along the strategic highway linking Sana’a to the Saudi border, a
crucial
lifeline for the Yemeni economy.
The government has been engaged in an on-off war with rebels for the best part of
five years. The new offensive is significant escalation in the government’s war
against
the rebels, with the state’s iron-fist approach.
The al-Houthi group has killed more than 330 people, including 28 women and 10
children, and injured about 200 other last year in Saada. The al-Houthi followers'
crimes
have been bloodily raised in the province.
Since the fighting erupted in 2004, thousands of people, soldiers and insurgents
have been killed in Saada, which lies close to border with Saudi Arabia, after the
rebel
group was founded by rebel leader Hussein al-Houthi.
Hussein, the eldest brother of the current group leader Abdul-Malik, was killed by
the army in September 2004.
The Yemeni government accuses the al-Houthi group of trying to reinstall the rule
of imams, which was toppled by a republican revolution in northern Yemen in 1962.
North Yemen gained its independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and in 1967, the
British withdrew from what would become South Yemen.
In 1990, the two countries formally unified as the Republic of Yemen.
YA