Tuesday, 07 September 2010 02:13

SANAA, 10 Oct — Former field commander of the Shiite rebels in north Yemen, Abdullah al-Mahdoun Saturday said “Abdul-Malik al-Huthi is not the real field commander but others are leading the war in Sadaa,” adding “prior to the first round of war, the rebels did not possess heavy artillery and only had automatic weapons but afterwards, they received heavy weaponry from local elements who harbor rancorous animosity towards the state.  The rebels later began manufacturing arms using CDs, programs, chemists and physicists some of them were members of the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah and others were from the Iranian al-Qods militant wing.”  Al-Mahdoun who led the rebels in Sadaa during the previous five rounds of war said in an interview with al-Jumhuriyya magazine: “I was recruited by Hussein al-Huthi who possessed a powerful way of convincing people using Qura’nic verses in his house in Maran.  I was persuaded that we were the only allies of God and the rest were allies of Satan .. when the first war erupted, I contacted Hussein al-Huthi and told him: We are fighting our brothers in the army.  He told me: They are worse than Americans and Israelis and that we would rule the world and re-build the Persian empire destroyed by the Arabs.”

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 02:13

SANAA, 10 Oct — Speaking to air force pilots during a visit to al-Dilami military base, President Ali Abdullah Saleh Saturday vowed to crush the Shiite rebels in northern Yemen saying “we will never be lenient in confronting the gang of terrorism and sabotage,” and urged pilots to be “vigilant and alarmed.”  “The rebels caused more than 120 thousand people to be displaced from Sadaa and Harf Sufian,” Saleh told the pilots, adding “this gang came back from ancient caves trying to turn history back unaware that history would never turn back.”  He said “the Yemeni people will teach this gang its deserving lesson,” stressing “the people are resolved to get rid of this cancer,” adding “the state dealt responsibly with citizens from the governorate of Sadaa and from Harf Sufian.”  He lauded the ‘heroic’ efforts of the pilots and stressed “we are determined to move forward in our path to achieve development and construction goals and remove all obstacles from the way of the development process.”  Later the President, accompanied by prime minister, the vice president and senior state officials met with Yemeni expatriates and called on them to establish a bank to invest in Yemen.  “We have more than five million Yemenis living in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore alone,” Saleh said.