Houthis abduct 428 Yemenis during September revolution anniversary crackdown

Fighters loyal to Yemen’s Houthi group chant slogans in a military parade marking the anniversary of the Houthis’ 2014 takeover of the capital Sanaa, Sanaa, Sept. 21, 2024. (AFP)
Fighters loyal to Yemen’s Houthi group chant slogans in a military parade marking the anniversary of the Houthis’ 2014 takeover of the capital Sanaa, Sanaa, Sept. 21, 2024. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 29 September 2024
Follow

Houthis abduct 428 Yemenis during September revolution anniversary crackdown

Houthis abduct 428 Yemenis during September revolution anniversary crackdown
  • Rights Radar, a human rights organization based in Amsterdam, reported on Sunday that the Houthis have arrested people in 10 provinces

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthi militia has detained 428 people during a crackdown on commemorations of the 62nd anniversary of the country’s 1962 revolution, a human rights group said.

Rights Radar, a human rights organization based in Amsterdam, reported on Sunday that the Houthis have arrested people in 10 provinces under their control since early last week for commemorating the Sept. 26 revolution in the streets, honoring it on social media, or calling on the others to celebrate.

During the crackdown, the Houthis physically and verbally assaulted people, abducted them, and have prevented them from contacting or seeing their families, according to the organization. 

“Rights Radar has called on the Houthi militia to release all those abducted and detained during these campaigns immediately and to end the ongoing prosecutions related to these celebrations, as security forces are still pursuing dozens in many areas under Houthi control,” it said in a statement.

The province of Ibb had the most detentions, with 179, followed by Sanaa with 109, Dhamar with 56, Hodeidah with 37, and Taiz with 13 cases.

Mahweet, Amran, Hajjah, Al-Bayda, and Dhale also saw people abducted by the militia.

The revolution deposed northern Yemen’s Zaidi Imamate rulers, who had controlled the country for centuries, and paved the way for establishing the Yemen Arab Republic.

Yemenis say that the Houthis and Imamate rulers share the same ideologies that restricted the country’s rule to Hashemite families.

The Houthis have accused the revolutionaries of being tools for the US and other countries to undermine security in areas under their control, as well as to put pressure on them to stop attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The American Center for Justice also said on Saturday that the Houthis launched a “large-scale” campaign against Yemenis commemorating the anniversary, resulting in the abduction of hundreds of people, including lawyers, human rights activists, political party leaders, and others in Ibb, Hodeidah, Dhamar, Sanaa, and Amran.

The center said that the Houthis deployed heavy military vehicles and forces dressed in military uniforms and civilian clothing to disperse gatherings, accusing the Houthis of violating international and local laws protecting people’s rights to free expression and peaceful assembly.

The center “calls on the international community and human rights organizations to pressure the Houthi group to end all forms of repression against Yemenis, immediately release all detainees, and ensure the right of citizens to express their opinions and participate in national celebrations without fear or intimidation,” it said.


More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say
Updated 13 sec ago
Follow

More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say
  • As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May

BENGHAZI: More than 100 migrants, including five women, have been freed from captivity after being held for ransom by a gang in eastern Libya, the country’s attorney general said on Monday.

“A criminal group involved in organizing the smuggling of migrants, depriving them of their freedom, trafficking them, and torturing them to force their families to pay ransoms for their release,” a statement from the attorney general said.

Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via the dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean following the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

Many migrants desperate to make the crossing have fallen into the hands of traffickers. The freed migrants had been held in Ajdabiya, some 160 km (100 miles) from Libya’s second city Benghazi.

Five suspected traffickers from Libya, Sudan and Egypt, have been arrested, officials said.

The attorney general and Ajdabiya security directorate posted pictures of the migrants on their Facebook pages which they said had been retrieved from the suspects’ mobile phones.

They showed migrants with hands and legs cuffed with signs that they had been beaten.

In February, at least 28 bodies were recovered from a mass grave in the desert north of Kufra city. Officials said a gang had subjected the migrants to torture and inhumane treatment.

That followed another 19 bodies being found in a mass grave in the Jikharra area, also in southeastern Libya, a security directorate said, blaming a known smuggling network.

As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May.

Last week, the EU migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece met with the internationally recognized prime minister of the national unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and discussed the migration crisis. 

 


Israeli ultra-orthodox party leaves Netanyahu’s government due to dispute over military conscription bill, statement says

Lawmakers attend a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Lawmakers attend a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Updated 10 min 13 sec ago
Follow

Israeli ultra-orthodox party leaves Netanyahu’s government due to dispute over military conscription bill, statement says

Lawmakers attend a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

TEL AVIV: Israel’s ultra-orthodox party Degel HaTorah said in a statement its Knesset members have resigned from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government due to a dispute over failure to draft a bill to exempt Yeshiva students from military service. 

 


Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks
Updated 24 min 33 sec ago
Follow

Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks
  • Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP
  • US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week”

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks entered a second week on Monday, with meditators seeking to close the gap between Israel and Hamas, as more than 20 people were killed across the Palestinian territory.

The indirect negotiations in Qatar appear deadlocked after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for the release of hostages and a 60-day ceasefire after 21 months of fighting.

An official with knowledge of the talks said they were “ongoing” in Doha on Monday, telling AFP: “Discussions are currently focused on the proposed maps for the deployment of Israeli forces within Gaza.”

“Mediators are actively exploring innovative mechanisms to bridge the remaining gaps and maintain momentum in the negotiations,” the source added on condition of anonymity.

Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who wants to see the Palestinian militant group destroyed — of being the main obstacle.

“Netanyahu is skilled at sabotaging one round of negotiations after another, and is unwilling to reach any agreement,” the group wrote on Telegram.

In Gaza, the civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed Monday in the latest Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City and in Khan Yunis in the south.

An Israeli military statement said troops had destroyed “buildings and terrorist infrastructure” used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza City’s Shujaiya and Zeitun areas.

The Al-Quds Brigades — the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas — released footage on Monday that it said showed its fighters firing missiles at an Israeli army command and control center near Shujaiya.

The military later on Monday said three soldiers — aged 19, 20 and 21 — “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip” and died in hospital on Monday. Another from the same battalion was severely injured.

US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week.”

Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.

“Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators continue their efforts that make Israel present a modified withdrawal map that would be acceptable,” they added.

On Saturday, the same source said Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in more than 40 percent of Gaza, as well as plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.

A senior Israeli political official countered by accusing Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”

Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire once a deal for a temporary truce is agreed, but only when Hamas lays down its arms.

He is under pressure to wrap up the war, with military casualties rising and with public frustration mounting at both the continued captivity of the hostages taken on October 7 and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.

Politically, Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but he denies being beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.

He also faces a backlash over the feasibility, cost and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.

Israel’s security establishment is reported to be unhappy with the plan, which the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert have described as a “concentration camp.”

“If they (Palestinians) will be deported there into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing,” Olmert was quoted as saying by The Guardian newspaper late on Sunday.

Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of whom 49 are still being held, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,386 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

 


Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor
Updated 42 min 16 sec ago
Follow

Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor
  • Over 4 million refugees have fled Sudan’s more than two-year civil war to seven neighboring countries where shelter conditions are widely viewed as inadequate due to chronic funding shortages

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 48 civilians in an attack on a village in the center of the war-torn country, a monitoring group reported Monday.

The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the two-year conflict between the regular army and the RSF, reported civilians were killed en masse Sunday when paramilitary fighters stormed the village of Um Garfa in North Kordofan state, razing houses and looting property.

 

 


Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says

Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says
Updated 53 min 16 sec ago
Follow

Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says

Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says
  • An investigation into the incident was launched in coordination with security forces in Kurdistan

BAGHDAD: Two drones fell in the Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement on Monday.

Khurmala oilfield is located near the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil.

The Iraqi Security Media Cell, an official body responsible for disseminating security information, said in a statement that no casualties were reported and only material damage was recorded.

An investigation into the incident was launched in coordination with security forces in Kurdistan, it added.