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| Arabia |
| Shiite Militia Abduct Senior Yemen Intelligence Official |
| 2014-12-26 |
| [AnNahar] A senior Yemeni intelligence official was kidnapped in Sanaa on Thursday by Shiite fighters from the Huthi militia in control of the capital since a September offensive, security sources said. "General Yahia al-Marrani... was kidnapped this morning by armed Huthis from his home in Sanaa," a source told AFP. Another source said that about 20 Huthis had stormed Marrani's residence and taken him to an unknown location. The kidnapping was confirmed to AFP by a relative of the officer, who had served for five years as head of the police intelligence unit in Saada province, a Huthi stronghold in north Yemen. He was named as a director in Yemen's intelligence services by President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, who took power following a 2012 uprising that unseated longtime ruler President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... Yemen has been rocked by instability since the Shiite fighters, who are also known as Ansarullah, seized control of Sanaa on September 21. The Huthis have since expanded their presence in central and western Yemen, but have met fierce resistance from Sunni tribes and Al-Qaeda Death Eaters. Fresh festivities erupted overnight around the central city of Rada, which has been the scene of heavy fighting for several weeks. A tribal source told AFP that 18 Huthi fighters and seven rustics were killed in violence that continued sporadically into Thursday in the villages of Qaifah, Khobzah and Massameh. A further 12 Shiite gunnies were killed in the previous 24 hours in festivities with Al-Qaeda gunnies near Rada, according to a tribal source. And in neighboring Ibb province, Huthi gunnies stormed a Sunni religious school on Wednesday evening and "kidnapped several students," a local official told AFP. |
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