Yemen monitor / special:
Yemeni fighters said that they left the front lines of fighting with the Houthis after they discovered the “Houthi trick” associated with the Israeli war on Gaza Strip.
In separate conversations to “Yemen monitor” in the provinces of Ibb, Taiz and Sana’a last week they added that they have already left the frontlines of fighting in Taiz and Marib after the Houthis promised them to fight alongside the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation.
“We had trained 160 thousand fighters within weeks in preparation for a possible American and British escalation and to confront Israel” the leader of the Houthis, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said .
The Houthis have sent a military fortifications to the front lines in Saada, Marib, Taiz, Shabwa, Hajjah and Al-Jawf over the past few weeks.
Returnees from Taiz
Muhammad Ali, 19 years old, lives in IBB, returned a week ago from the fighting front in the northwestern city of Taiz, told Yemen monitor:”I left because it is not Palestine.
”In December, we have been trained for three weeks on behalf of the Tofan Al-Aqsa in Dhamar (south Sana’a), simulating what the Palestinians are doing by targeting vehicles, armored vehicles, breaking in houses and buildings, and everything” he said.
He added:”We were a team of 15 persons who wake up and sleep together. Among dozens of others we were given lectures, and we gather in big lectures, and in regular lectures. We train in the morning and receive lectures at night”!
They said that we would be ready for any battle with the Israelis.
“The supervisor told us that the fighting in Taiz is a training for our fighting against Jewish fighters in Occupied Palestine,”he said.
Mohammed said that he and 8 of the 15 persons ,from different provinces, in his squad have left , “we handed over everything, clothes, money and guns, after threats that we had committed high treason”!
In Shara’ab Al – Salam Directorate, Hamed Al-Shara’abi (pseudonym), 22 years old, said that he left the day after his arrival to the eastern Taiz fighting front, “we arrived 23 persons from Taiz and Ibb governorate to the fighting site, 5 of us escaped on the second day with our rifles and the supervisor followed and took us from the village after we were imprisoned for five days and tribal mediation mediated to release us”.
Al-Shara’abi says that he and his comrades were recruited and trained to fight against the Zionists on November 11. They have lectured us and said that Ansar Allah is fighting in Gaza and the Battle of Yemen is the final battle against Zionism and America”.
He continued: “We graduated after three weeks of a big maneuver against the Israelis, but when they deployed us, we arrived at a nearby location in Taiz, and there was a shelling towards the city from the site, so we were surprised, but they said this was a training before moving to Palestine”!
He added: “We knew from those who were there that they were leaving the site to another site, and we are the alternative, so we ran away!
Returnees from Marib
At a qat meeting in Sana’a, we met four fighters returned back from Marib governorate, who live in one neighborhood south of Sana’a city . The three said that they had returned from the Al-jawiah Directorate.
The four young men (Abdullah, Mohammed, Ahmed, Abdulqawi) spoke to Yemen monitor on condition of anonymity that they left just two days after their arrival due to refusing to attack government forces even though ”the supervisor of Ansar Allah accused us of treason and threatened us with execution”!
The four belong to two different tribes in northern of Yemen, two of them are cousins, live in the same neighborhood and speak the dialect of their areas: “we have known each other since childhood, we know the use of weapons of all kinds, we have never fought except in tribal battles,”they said.
Abdullah said: We are not Houthis, but the imam of the mosque told us that fighters from Ansar Allah are on the side of Al- Qassam Brigades
in Gaza and they are the ones who carry out operations against the Zionists.
They pointed out that they did not need too much training, “we joined the training at ,the central security camp, in Al-Bayda governorate after the American-British aggression on Sana’a. The raids were close to the neighborhood where we live and we heard them clearly.
“We participated in a military exercise similar to the attacks of the Palestinian resistance against the Israelis, we took advantage of a new way of tribal battles,” Abdulqawi added.
“Ansar Allah supervisor told us that we will fight the Americans in Hodeidah, and we will fight with the Palestinians in Gaza,”he said.
They were surprised to be transferred to Marib “we didn’t plan for this, we wanted to go to Palestine Directly,”he said.
Their tribes and families avoided getting involved in the war and preferred to remain as “farmers”, they do not want to break the rule.
The four said that they knew others who had returned from the battlefronts after being “deceived by the Houthis”.
