Houthis publish 'confessions' of US, Israel spy network

Yemen’s Houthis published what they described as the confessions of spies working for the US and Israel.

The footage, released on Al-Masirah TV, affiliated with the group, came after the Houthis announced on Sunday that they had arrested an American-Israeli spy network equipped with technologies and devices that enable it to operate secretly, accusing its members of playing “espionage and sabotage roles in official and unofficial institutions for decades, benefiting the enemy.”

The group added that the network is “directly linked to the CIA.”

On Tuesday, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called on the Houthis to release 17 UN employees held in Yemen, 13 of whom were detained a few days ago. It is believed that a number of them are part of the “spy network” the Houthis spoke about.

It appears from the confessions that all of the defendants worked at the American embassy in Sanaa, and that they worked with American organisations such as USAID.

According to Al-Masirah TV, Amer Al-Aghbari was given a job at the American Embassy in 2010, and worked on targeting agricultural marketing and agricultural production, promoting American products, and providing Americans with information about the state’s developments in this field.

He confessed that he worked for the USAID basic education improvement project between the years 2004 and 2007, and he stated that the reading books for the elementary grades were copied from an Israeli model that was applied in Jordan with the complicity of the specialised educational personnel in the curriculum sector.

Al-Aghbari also said he was assigned in 1993 to plant listening devices in the house of then-Prime Minister of Yemen Haider Al-Attas, and that in the same year he was also assigned by the American agency to collect information about weapons located in the north and south of the country.

The United States’s Ambassador to Yemen, Steven Fagin, today called on the Houthis to immediately release the detained staff of international organisations including employees of the US embassy in Sanaa.

“The Houthis owe all of these Yemenis thanks, not false accusations and imprisonment. The people of Yemen deserve better than fanciful Houthi lies meant to bolster their abusive and autocratic rule,” he said in a statement.

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