Houthis use mosques in Yemen to recruit new militants

Ahmed Adel

The terrorist Houthi militia has transformed most of the mosques in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, from places of worship into places to mobilize and recruit new armed elements for the Iranian-backed group.

Yemeni news website Almashhad reported on Sunday, September 6 that the Houthi terrorist militia delivered a number of pre-prepared sermons from emergency vehicles on Friday, September 4 in Dhamar, Sanaa and a number of areas under the militia’s control.

The preachers spoke about the urgent need to recruit youth, claiming that whoever refrains from fighting amid the ranks of the militia is a mercenary.

Worshipers said that Houthi gunmen cordoned off and raided a mosque in a neighborhood in the center of Sanaa after its imam refused to deliver a sectarian sermon that the militia attempted to spread by force.

For his part, Yemeni Endowments and Guidance Minister Ahmed Attia called on Saturday, September 5 for imams, preachers, religious guides and media to unify the Friday sermons.

In a circular distributed to the endowment offices and mosque preachers in Yemen’s governorates, the minister pointed out the importance of getting rid of the Houthi militia.

He stressed the need to call citizens from all segments to line up behind the country’s legitimate ruler, President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Yemeni National Army.

Attia also called for exposing the Houthi and Iranian conspiracy against Yemen, clarifying the Houthi’s crimes against the Yemeni people and the damage cause on the ideological, social and economic levels.

In August 2020, the Endowments Ministry revealed statistics about the number of mosques targeted by the Houthis since their coup in late 2014 until the end of 2019. The militia has targeted approximately 750 mosques throughout Yemen’s governorates.

The Houthis have bombed and looted mosques and Quran schools, even turning them into weapons storages or khat dens.

The Endowments Ministry also condemned the targeting of the Special Security Forces mosque in Marib governorate with a ballistic missile at the time of the Friday dawn prayer, which resulted in the death and injury of more than 20 soldiers performing the prayers.

The ministry added that the Houthis’ criminal acts targeting places of worship is inconsistent with the true Islamic religion and divine laws that sanctify places of worship and contradicts humanitarian and moral principles.

It emphasized that targeting innocent people and places of worship amounts to terrorism that cannot be tolerated, noting that the Houthis do not hesitate to shed blood, abolish taboos or violate the sanctity of mosques. Rather, the militia’s activities represent a satanic creed that has been reproduced from the chaos spread by Iran in the region.