Al-Houthi wings..negotiations for its leader, and the revenues for Al-Mashat and the government are for Mahfouz
English - Thursday 18 August 2022 الساعة 05:54 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, a special report:
Well-informed sources in Sana'a revealed that the office of the leader of the Houthi militia, the Iranian arm in Yemen, has divided powers between a number of the movement's leaders after their differences and conflicts over the interests of influence and power escalated.
The sources told NewsYemen: There are three powerful wings within the militia authority in Sana'a that have control over the mechanisms and work of the various private institutions of the militia authority, which disappear under the sign of the apparent form of state institutions that no longer exist except for the external framework that appears in the media under the name of the Supreme Political Council and the Salvation Government, while all matters are managed through militia committees and structures that were created outside the framework of the constitution and the laws in force.
According to the sources, the differences reached the most severe between the leader and head of the so-called Supreme Political Council Mahdi al-Mashat, his office manager Ahmed Hamed (Abu Mahfouz), and Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, a member of the Supreme Political Council, as each of them tried to use his influence to become the first man and the most influential person In the authority of the militias, which caused deep disputes that almost foreshadowed a catastrophe, especially after those differences began to be reflected in the rhetoric and media leaks attacking this or that party.
The sources confirm that Mahdi Al-Mashat tried to submit his resignation to the militia leader’s office more than twice because of his feeling that both his office manager, Ahmed Hamed, and a member of the Political Council, Muhammad Ali Al-Houthi, were trying to take away the powers of his position as the head of the Supreme Political Council, which is supposed to be the authority that replaces the President of the Republic and enjoys With its constitutional and legal powers, while Hamed tried to take advantage of his position as director of the presidential office to exercise the powers of the president with or without Al-Mashat’s knowledge. He assumed the presidency of the so-called Supreme Revolutionary Committee of the Houthis, which carried out the project of its coup against power on September 21, 2014, and headed it with the so-called constitutional declaration in February 2015, which abolished the legitimate state authorities and replaced it with the so-called Supreme Revolutionary Committee.
The sources who spoke to NewsYemen revealed that after the escalation of disputes between the Houthi wings in the Sana’a authority and the submission of a report by the Houthi intelligence service to the militia leader about the dangers of the continuation and escalation of these disputes, the militia leader’s office was forced to summon: Mahdi Al-Mashat, Muhammad Ali Al-Houthi, and Ahmed Hamed, To hold a meeting between them and the leader of the militias, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, where the meeting discussed the nature and causes of differences between the three parties and ended with what can be called the division of influence between the three wings.
According to the sources, the leader of the militias, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, distributed the influence of the authority and the right to supervise, act, and issue decisions among the three leaders or wings, giving each of them a different mission from the other, but they all serve the interests of implementing the militias’ policies and directions, and their disputes are governed by his office, which stipulated that the agreement that A detailed daily report is submitted to him from each of them on the progress of performance in the facilities he supervises.
The sources indicate that the division stipulated that Mahdi Al-Mashat, the head of the so-called Supreme Political Council, undertake the task of supervising revenues and financial levies through the so-called Supreme Economic Committee, where this body belongs to the Minister of Finance in the militia government, the head of the Central Bank, and revenue authorities such as the General Authority for Zakat. The General Authority for Endowments, the Tax and Customs Authorities, the Oil Company and other entities of a voluntary nature that are responsible for collecting levies, whether legal or illegal.
The sources indicate that Al-Mashat is the one who is supervising the process of collecting and collecting funds and supplying them to special accounts belonging to the so-called Economic Committee, which is authorized under his supervision to follow up on the supply and transfer of funds according to his personal directions, and to ensure their use in support of the so-called war effort of the militias on the one hand, on the other hand, in establishing investment projects for the Houthis, including projects inside Yemen, especially in Sana'a, and including foreign projects, especially in the Sultanate of Oman and Lebanon.
The sources go on to explain that despite the fact that the Minister of Finance in the militia government, Rashid Abu Lahoum, is a member of the government, he is now exercising his powers and competencies under the direct supervision of Mahdi Al-Mashat. Directives other than those of Al-Mashat, who now provides him with a detailed daily report on the revenue movement of funds, including the possibility of their disposition in transferring many amounts and allocating them in special personal accounts, or supplying them to accounts affiliated with militias.
The sources indicate that this supervision is the most important factor in the inability of the rest of the Houthi wings and leaders to harm the Minister of Finance, despite their launching media campaigns accusing him of financial and administrative corruption. Editor-in-chief of Al-Thawra newspaper, Abdul Rahman Al-Ahnoumi, one of the media leaders affiliated with the militias, as well as the campaign launched by the Water Corporation, which entered into major disputes with the Minister of Finance over the conflict with him over the exercise of his powers and deliberately confiscating the funds and budgets allocated to it.
The sources attributed the reason for the strong support and support of Mahdi Al-Mashat and behind him the office of militia leader Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi to the Minister of Finance, despite his corruption, to the fact that he is successfully implementing the policy of reducing the financial budgets and appropriations allocated to many government institutions and transferring them in favor of the so-called war effort, in addition to transferring the amounts of financial levies from various parties. The revenue goes to the special accounts managed and supervised by the Houthi leadership, led by the office of the militia leader, Mahdi Al-Mashat, and the Economic Committee, which are the only entities authorized by the Houthi leader to manage the financial aspects.
Al-Houthi is a security and judicial supervisor
The second conflicting party for influence in the authority of the militias is Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, who was the head of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee, which took over the helm of power after the militias announced their so-called constitutional declaration in February 2015, according to which they completed their coup that they started on September 21, 2014, when they announced the dissolution of the authorities The state, on top of which is the authority of the President of the Republic and the authorities of the parliaments, the Shura Council and the ministers and replaced them in governance and management of power and the state with the justification of implementing the goals of the militia revolution, before the political agreement on managing state affairs between the Houthis and the General People’s Congress in July 2016 led to the return of the work of the House of Representatives and the Shura and the establishment of what the Supreme Political Council is called to be a supreme executive authority, to be followed by a national salvation government, which is responsible for managing the ministry and institutions of the central and local authority.
After that agreement, Muhammad Ali al-Houthi felt that he had lost his influence, powers and position and tried hard to maintain the so-called revolutionary committees, which he kept using his name in his political and popular presence, until he was appointed as a member of the Supreme Political Council, and from that day he began to use this position to restore his influence and powers in various ways. This led to the emergence and escalation of differences between him and Al-Mashat on the one hand, and between him and Hamid on the other.
The sources who spoke to NewsYemen indicated that the militia leader granted Muhammad Ali al-Houthi the powers of supervising the security side, represented by the Ministry of Interior and other security agencies such as the intelligence and others. As well as supervising the judiciary, where the position of head of the justice system was created and assigned to the Houthi, thus controlling the most important independent authority within the state, which is the judiciary.
Despite the existence of the position of the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, who is supposed to be authorized to supervise and manage the judicial authority in its various branches and in coordination with the supreme executive authority (the Political Council), Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, through his position as head of the judicial system, has become the controller of all the joints of this authority and the ruler in it. So, according to the sources, he refuses and objects to any decisions issued by the President of the Political Council regarding the formation of judicial committees or appointments in the joints of this authority as heads of courts, or prosecutors without prior coordination and nomination from them. He even disrupted the work of many judicial committees that were formed by Al-Mashat to solve some problems Concerning the conditions of state lands and real estate.
Hamed is the supervisor of the government and aid
The leader Ahmed Hamed (Abu Mahfouz) is one of the most prominent Houthi leaders with influence and influence in decision-making within the militia authority, even before he became director of the presidential office and during his assumption of the media portfolio in the Salvation Government that was formed in 2016 AD after the agreement between the Houthis and the conference. Therefore, once he was appointed to the position The director of the presidential office has doubled his authority, powers, and influence, and he has become the most important and powerful man within the militia authority, to the extent that he has come to be called (the president’s chief) in reference to his control of various presidential and executive powers.
Hamid’s influence made him the focus of widespread criticism from the leaders of the Houthi militias, who launched many media campaigns against him, but he was able to confront them through his strong relationship with the militia leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who the sources say was responding to everyone who complained to Hamid by noting that the latter was one of the first to believe in the movement. The rebellion was founded by Al-Sarai’ Hussain Al-Houthi and fought alongside him since the first war launched by the state to put down the rebellion in Saada in 2004 AD, which ended with the death of the militia founder Hussain Badr Al-Din Al-Houthi.
As a result of the intensification of criticism leveled against him and the mounting accusations against him of corruption and that he became the most powerful man in the militia authority and the many complaints about him, the militia leader, in his attempts to contain the conflicts, assigned the task of direct supervision of the government and everything related to the executive authority, as well as the task of supervising the issue of aid management. Relief funded by international organizations through the so-called Supreme Council for Humanitarian Affairs, to be under the authority of Ahmed Hamed.
The sources say that Hamed thus ensured that no dispute would arise between him and Mahdi Al-Mashat, head of the Political Council, who became preoccupied with the financial aspect, and at the same time ensured his strong influence with regard to his full control of the executive aspect, which means that he assumed the task of selecting leaders whose appointment decisions are issued in various institutions And state facilities and authorities, so that Al-Mashat no longer has the power to sign appointment decisions, as well as his directives to the government as an authority and its ministries individually with all the policies or directions he wants to implement that serve the interests of the militias, leading to his assumption of the task of supervising the financial levies related to relief aid provided by the United Nations and international organizations which enables him to control millions of dollars.
Negotiations are monopolized by the militia leader
On the other hand, the militia leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, according to the sources, granted himself the authority to supervise everyone on the one hand through his office, and on the other hand, a unique authority represented by his monopoly on the right to make decisions, regarding the external negotiating aspect, which is handled by the militia spokesman, Muhammad Abdulsalam, as the head of the so-called delegation. The National Negotiation Committee, which is a formal structure whose powers were stripped and granted to Abd al-Salam and another member of the militia leaders called Abdul Malik al-Ajri, who reside in the Omani capital, Muscat, and undertake the task of managing the external negotiation file completely by communicating with the militia leader only, while it was not assigned to the Political Council, the militia government or its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Any powers other than mere formal powers that are limited to holding meetings with international officials, including the UN envoy in the event of his visit to Sana’a, or with delegations of mediators, as is the case with the Omani mediation delegation.
The sources who spoke to Newsymen indicated that what the militia leader had done greatly eased the conflicts and disagreements between the three wings in their race for influence and power, but he did not end those disputes and conflicts once and for all. On the one hand, he contributed to a complete paralysis of institutions. The state that has no powers. At the same time, it enabled these three personalities to expand their influence and turn them into centers of power, each of which is trying to monopolize power alone. No matter how much media campaigns between these parties stop for a while, they will reappear with the first direct clash between them.
The sources conclude by saying: The conflict of interests between the militia wings will return at any moment, especially since the disputes have recently focused on the issue of influence related to two issues: the first is appointments made within state institutions and facilities, where each party tries to appoint loyalists, and the other issue is controlling the sources of funds and levies, which is the most important source of the ability to win over, mobilize and guarantee the loyalty of leaders in the various state institutions and authorities, which makes the outbreak of conflicts and their emergence into the open at any time.
