Prison inmates are fuel for battles and human shields on the Houthi fronts
English - Saturday 18 June 2022 الساعة 05:11 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, Muhammad Yahya:
With the escalation of the battle to liberate the port of Hodeidah in mid-2018, the accelerating collapse of the Houthi terrorist militia and the huge human losses it suffered on the western coast, in front of the rapid advance of the joint forces, the Iranian-backed militia sought to push prisoners to the frontlines, and then stormed the Central Prison Reformatory in Hodeidah The inmates were forcibly taken to the battlefronts, but it faced a rebellion from the prisoners who refused to submit to the orders of its armed men, which led to a clash in which a number of prisoners were wounded and killed.
The terrorist militia began implementing its plan by throwing prisoners and detainees into the fighting fronts, since the beginning of 2018, due to its human and military losses on the West Coast front.
It recruited a number of detainees in prisons in a number of governorates under its control, and then escalated the process of attracting prisoners after deceiving them and persuading them to join its ranks in exchange for promises of their release.
During the past two years, the Iranian arm in Yemen launched recruitment campaigns against hundreds of prisoners and detainees in its areas of control, some of whom are accused of murder, theft and other crimes to fight with it in exchange for their pardon.
The terrorist militia also created dozens of new prisons and basements, in order to accommodate other numbers of detainees and new kidnapped opponents of it, as it transformed many educational and military sites and buildings of government and civil institutions and offices in the governorates under its control into secret prisons and detention centers affiliated with it.
Recently, the militia trained 800 prisoners from the governorates of Dhamar, Raymah, Ibb, Al Mahwit and Hajjah as a force, within the so-called "support forces", where they were trained with others from the governorates of Hodeidah and Sana'a, and the militia promised them to release them in exchange for fighting in its ranks from 6 months to a year.
The Houthi militia uses the money it collects in the name of “zakat” in the process of recruiting prisoners, militarizing and attracting new fighters; Under the pretext of releasing insolvent people inside prisons, and intensifying military training and sectarian courses, for those who were involved in the process of polarization to turn them into fighting groups and prepare them to participate in the fighting.
According to political analysts, the recruitment of prisoners is an Iranian method, and Tehran has used it in the past, and that the exploitation of prisoners comes as a way to benefit from them by recruiting and disposing of them by using them as human shields, as the militia does not trust these prisoners to carry out difficult missions and operations.
After its involvement in the recruitment of children, women and African refugees, the criminal militia resorted to recruiting prisoners, as it considers the detainees to be additional numbers that can be used in its wars.
