Sanaa:

The head of the Houthi Prisoner Affairs Committee, Abdul Qader al-Murtada, said the Iran-backed movement would release 100 prisoners on Saturday belonging to Yemen’s government forces.

A decision was issued by the leader of the Houthi movement, Abdul-Malik Badr Al-Din al-Houthi, Murtada said on Friday.

Yemen’s Houthis last released prisoners in April 2023 in an exchange of 250 Houthis for 70 members of Yemen’s government forces.

“Tomorrow we will implement a unilateral humanitarian initiative in which we will release more than 100 prisoners,” Murtada said in a statement.

Yemen’s conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people and left millions hungry, has widely been seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Houthis are the de facto authorities in northern Yemen. The internationally recognised government is represented by the Political Leadership Council, which was formed under Saudi auspices last year and took over power from Yemen’s president-in-exile.

A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Iran-aligned Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa in 2014.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Armed Houthi followers. Image used for representative purpose only.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

An attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Friday set off explosions ahead of a Singapore-flagged vessel in the Gulf of Aden, authorities said.

The attack targeted the bulk carrier Propel Fortune, which continued on its way, according to the United States military’s Central Command.

“The missiles did not impact the vessel,” Central Command said. “There were no injuries or damages reported.”

The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack. A statement from Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree was delayed Friday night over “urgent military developments in the theatre of military operations,” according to the rebel-controlled SABA news agency. He was scheduled to speak Saturday.

Early Saturday, the U.S. Navy, allied warships and aircraft shot down 15 bomb-carrying Houthi drones in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, American officials said.

Friday’s explosions came after a Houthi missile struck a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, killing three of its crew members and forcing survivors to abandon the vessel.

It was the first fatal strike in a campaign of assaults by the Iranian-backed group over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis describe the attacks as trying to pressure Israel into stopping the war, but their targets increasingly have little or nothing to do with the conflict.

Other recent Houthi actions include an attack in February on a fertiliser-carrying cargo ship, the Rubymar, which sank on Saturday after drifting for several days, and the downing of an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars.

The U.S. also conducted airstrikes Friday that it said destroyed two Houthi truck-mounted anti-ship missiles in Yemen. The rebels similarly did not directly acknowledge any destruction from those strikes.

The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014. They’ve battled a Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in a long-stalemated war there. Since the U.S. began its airstrike campaign in January, the Houthis have acknowledged the killing of at least 22 of its fighters. One civilian has also been reported killed.

An armed civil defence woman holds a Kalashnikov assault rifle while patrolling an empty street due to a curfew in Kyiv, Ukraine. The U.S. has transferred to Ukraine 1.1 million rounds of small arms ammunition that it seized from Iran, U.S. Central Command said on October 4, 2023. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Russia has long turned to Iranian-made drones to attack Ukraine. Now Ukrainian forces will be using bullets seized from Iran against Russia troops.

A U.S. Navy ship seized the 1.1 million rounds off of a vessel that was being used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to arm Houthi rebels in Yemen’s civil war in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Those 7.62 mm rounds have now been transferred to Ukraine, U.S. Central Command said on October 4. The much-needed ammunition has been sent at a time when continued U.S. financial support for Kyiv’s fight to defend itself remains in question.

The 7.62 mm ammunition is the standard round for Soviet-era Kalashnikov assault rifles and their many derivatives. Ukraine, as a former Soviet republic, still relies on the Kalashnikov for many of its units.

“With this weapons transfer, the Justice Department’s forfeiture actions against one authoritarian regime are now directly supporting the Ukrainian people’s fight against another authoritarian regime. We will continue to use every legal authority at our disposal to support Ukraine in their fight for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law,” Attorney-General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet and its allies have intercepted numerous ships believed to be transporting weapons and ammunition from Iran to Yemen in support of the Iranian-backed Houthis. This is the first time that the seized weaponry has been handed over to Ukraine, Central Command spokeswoman Capt. Abigail Hammock said.

This shipment was seized by Central Command naval forces in December off of a vessel the command described as a “stateless dhow,” a traditional wooden sailing ship, that was being used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to arm the Houthis.

A fragile cease-fire is in place in Yemen after the almost decadelong war, but Iran has continued to supply the Houthis with lethal aid, Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, head of U.S. Air Forces Central, told reporters on October 4. He said this was a major threat to Yemen finding a durable peace.

U.S. Central Command said the U.S. “obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.

A United Nations arms embargo has prohibited weapons transfers to the Houthis since 2014. Iran insists it adheres to the ban, even as it has long been transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Houthis via the sea.

Independent experts, Western nations and U.N. experts have traced components seized aboard detained vessels back to Iran.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Even though the shipment of more than 1 million rounds of small arms ammunition is substantial, it pales in comparison with the amount that the U.S. has already sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, much of which has already been used in the intense ground battle.

The U.S. has provided more than 300 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades as part of the almost $44 billion in military aid it has sent to help Ukraine.

Further U.S. funding for Ukraine’s war was not included in a stopgap measure that prevented a government shutdown last weekend. With the ouster of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, it was unclear whether the future leader will be able to generate enough support from the party’s hard-liners, who have opposed sending more money to Ukraine.