Drug smuggling to the Houthis is a source of wealth ... and the Al-Atlan tribe wastes the smugglers' blood
English - Saturday 07 November 2020 الساعة 04:10 pm
Marib, NewsYemen, Exclusive:
Tribal sources confirmed that Marib Governorate has become the main route for smuggling shipments of hashish and drugs towards the northern governorates under the control of the Houthi militia.
The sources added to NewsYemen that the drug trade and smuggling is taking place in the governorate with protection and facilities provided by some "weak souls and outcasts from their tribes, openly in exchange for very large financial commissions, as the sudden immense wealth appeared on some of them shortly after their entry into this field."
Sources explained that drug shipments pass through secondary roads in remote districts linking the governorate of Ma'rib with Sanaa, Dhamar, Al-Bayda and Al-Jawf, through which smugglers use four-wheel drive cars and trucks transporting small and medium goods.
The sources pointed out that drug smugglers tend to use women to pass some quantities of security points across the governorates, noting that the quantities that the security points were able to control are almost negligible, given the quantities of shipments that can reach their destination.
In light of the inadequacy of the government’s role in curbing this trade, one of the tribes of the Ma'rib governorate reached a tribal document requiring confronting drug traffickers and smugglers through its lands.
The Al-Athlan tribe (one of the Murad tribes) announced that any member of it would reject the drug trade, confiscate the means of transport, money and weapons that he possessed, and waste his blood if he tried to resist, and his family has no right to demand his compensation or avenge him.
The tribe that connects it with borders with Bani Dabyan in Sanaa governorate, in which it acknowledged that its lands have become a major drug smuggling line, and that it bears its responsibility in guarding, monitoring and protecting the country and its people from this scourge.
According to the "tribal rule," the same penalty of "ostracization, waste of blood, destruction of seizures, and confiscation of money, weapons and cars" is applied to anyone who tries to defend the traffickers and promoters of hashish and drugs, or who hosts, conceals, or helps them to cross from the tribe’s lands.
The tribe disavowed any obligations towards any of its members working in the drug business, whether he was arrested, killed, or his money confiscated by other tribes or the state.
It indicated that this document applies to the Al-Athan tribes and those adjacent to them or reside in their countries anywhere and anytime.
