GPC Leaders Fear Return of Targeting, Assassinations by Houthis in Sanaa

Today, leaders of Yemen’s General People's Congress (GPC) are fearing for their lives after their supposed ally, the Houthi militia, have ordered its affiliated media outlets to scale up attacks against GPC chairman Sadeq Amin Abu Rass.

GPC leaders fear that the falling-out with Houthis will escalate to a campaign of assassinations, arrests and raids that targets them.

It is worth noting that it was Houthis had appointed Rass as head of the GPC after killing the party’s founder and the war-torn country’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, in December 2017.

GPC sources in the Houthi-run Yemeni capital, Sanaa, have pointed out that the quarrel between the Iran-backed militia and their party’s leaders can be traced back to the former marginalizing and pursuing the later.

The latest example of Houthi targeting of GPC leaders was their exiling of Rass during a joint meeting between the GPC and the militia in Sanaa a few days ago.

“Senior Houthi leaders have directed the militia’s affiliated media platforms to attack Rass and the GPC against the background of their recent opposition to Tariq Saleh, the nephew of the country’s late president, forming a politburo for his forces near Yemen’s west coast,” Sanaa-based sources who requested anonymity told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Houthi leaders have phoned several top GPC commanders to inform them that the militia now considers them and Rass as “hypocrites,” an accusation the Iran-aligned militia usually levels against opponents it plans to remove from the picture.

According to the sources, GPC leaders who received the calls included Yahia al-Rai and Mohammed Hussein al-Adeirous.

More so, sources warned that Houthis plan to replace Rass with Hussein Hazib, a veteran Houthi politician who served as the group’s education minister, as head of the GPC.

Hazib is known for sharing close ties with Houthi leader Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi.

Sources have stressed that Houthis have been actively imposing restrictions to limit the GPC’s influence and activities in Sanaa.

The GPC cannot as much as organize a simple event without first getting permission from Houthis.