Ibb Governorate: A Mirror of the Escalating Repression and Internal Conflict in Houthi-Controlled Areas in Yemen

Away from the high waters of the Red Sea, where the Houthis have launched hundreds of attacks on commercial shipping, the group inside Yemen faces growing domestic unrest. In recent months, the movement has carried out mass arrests of opposition figures, civil society groups, influencers and humanitarian workers on charges of conspiring with the enemy.

Increasingly restive tribes and alleged factional divisions add to the paranoia that characterizes Houthi rule, which they fear could be threatened if the country slides into conflict.

Nowhere are these dynamics better evident than in Ibb Governorate, a Sunni-majority governorate in central Yemen, home to nearly 4 million people and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people.

Once known as Yemen’s “hotbed of internal fighting,” Ibb remains a scene of considerable instability despite Houthi efforts to co-opt local elites and ward off potential threats. Rampant crime and a spate of revenge killings reveal ongoing struggles to restore security.

At a high-level meeting in December, the “Houthi-aligned” governor of Ibb, Abdul Wahid Salah, acknowledged the challenges and called on the military and security services to work alongside local authorities.

The investigation into Houthi repression and political unrest in Ibb is a barometer of the escalating unrest in Houthi-controlled areas. It highlights many of the patterns present in other governorates, including the suppression of political pluralism and freedom of expression, unrest over land and tribal disputes, and Houthi infighting.

Shrinking space for political activism and opposition

In April 2022, a UN-brokered national truce came into effect in Yemen. In the 34 months following the truce, fighting between the warring parties decreased by about 70% compared to the same period before the truce.

As the war effort has waned, the Houthis have turned their attention to the home front, seizing the opportunity to tighten their grip on power. This has translated into increased levels of civil repression, and spaces for popular activism, political opposition, and freedom of expression have been dramatically reduced across Houthi-controlled Yemen.

This is particularly evident in Ibb Governorate. Since the beginning of the conflict, the Houthis have struggled to consolidate their control over this area, in the face of entrenched opposition driven by sectarian divisions and distinct cultural identities.

Since April 2022, Ibb has witnessed a severe crackdown on civil society, with Houthi attacks and kidnappings nearly tripling compared to the pre-truce period (see chart below).

The repression intensified further in June 2022, as the Houthis launched a comprehensive campaign against civil society activists and human rights defenders, underscoring the governorate’s importance as a hub for political opposition.

As part of a coordinated security campaign across several governorates—most notably the capital, Sanaa—the Houthis have stepped up their crackdown on activists critical of the regime on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. In Ibb alone, at least 13 individuals have been kidnapped on trumped-up charges.

Among these incidents, the kidnapping and subsequent killing of Hamdi Abdul Razzaq Al-Khawlani, an influential social media activist nicknamed “Al-Mukhal,” sparked widespread public outrage. His death, which human rights organizations attribute to the Houthis, sparked a wave of political unrest, which was promptly suppressed by Houthi security forces.

Overall, the repression of popular activism signals a shrinking of freedom of expression, coupled with increased efforts to impose Houthi ideology, resulting in largely muted but persistent pockets of popular dissent.

However, this campaign has also extended to organized political groups, such as the General People’s Congress – the party of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The suppression of the commemoration of the September 26 Revolution illustrates this emerging trend well.

Historically, the Houthis allowed the anniversary celebrations of the September 26 Revolution to go ahead until 2023, when the GPC used the anniversary to demand the payment of public sector salaries that had been frozen by the Houthi-aligned government in Sanaa. In response, the Houthis suppressed the celebrations, launching a wave of arrests in areas surrounding Sanaa.

In Ibb, repression remained relatively low in 2023, but escalated in September 2024, when the Houthis reportedly kidnapped hundreds (see chart above), including tribal sheikhs, local political figures, and children, in the run-up to the anniversary.

The crackdown comes about six weeks after the announcement of a new Houthi government that excluded the GPC. These developments underscore the increased surveillance of former republican figures, the use of the September 26 anniversary to target GPC sympathizers, and a broader crackdown on the GPC leadership, including the gradual replacement or co-optation of its leaders in public institutions.

More broadly, the Houthis have carried out a campaign of arrests targeting Yemeni employees of international organizations in response to US and UK airstrikes on Houthi sites in Yemen since January 2024.

Many of them are accused of belonging to an international spy network affiliated with the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and other Western countries plotting against Yemen. Most of the arrests have occurred around Sanaa, Amran and Saada, reflecting the Houthis’ view of security priorities: while Ibb is seen as a hotbed of internal opposition, northern strongholds such as Saada are seen as potential targets for foreign intelligence activities.

Tribal unrest and property confiscation

Although the role of tribes is less prominent than in the far north of the country, it remains critical in Ibb, where tribes continue to act as key actors in conflict resolution and mediation.

However, after the UN-brokered truce, tribal mechanisms came under pressure due to increased land disputes, either due to Houthi-led property seizures or escalating intra-tribal conflicts. This led to a significant 60% increase in tribal unrest compared to the pre-truce period.

Since the outbreak of the war, Ibb has seen a significant increase in the price of land and real estate, driven by a large influx of internally displaced persons and increased investment from expatriates.

Exploiting this rise in value, the Houthis have forcibly seized private property, for example, by expropriating land and property for infrastructure projects without adequate compensation; seizing Sunni religious property as a means of enforcing sectarian repression; seizing religious endowments; and confiscating tribal lands for select Houthi factions, which often compete with each other for revenue.

Since April 2022, Houthi land-related violence has increased more than sevenfold compared to the pre-truce period (see maps below). This violence has mostly taken the form of attacks and kidnappings targeting civilians and non-compliant tribesmen, but has also escalated into armed clashes between Houthi factions and tribal militias. In a few cases, violence has arisen from the imposition of higher fees on local populations.

Most of the Houthi property-seizure violence occurred around the two main roads that cross Ibb governorate, from north to south and from east to west, underscoring the higher value of properties located near main roads.

In contrast, land-related tribal unrest appears to be more randomly distributed across the governorate, reflecting the local nature of the tribal conflicts involved.

Case Study: Endowment Reforms and Houthi Infighting

The Houthi authorities reformed the religious endowment system in January 2021 with the aim of extracting resources for their authority and war effort while securing loyalty through their spoils system.

The establishment of the General Authority for Religious Endowments, led by Abdul Majeed al-Houthi, strengthened the group’s control over religious endowments, leading to increased rents and the displacement of vulnerable tenants.

In Sana’a, religious endowments fell under the influence of Supreme Political Council member Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, while in Ibb, Abdul Majeed exercised control through his intermediary, Bandar al-Asal, head of the region’s religious endowments authority.

In September 2022, Al-Asal and Nasser Al-Arjali, a Houthi leader from Amran, exchanged gunfire during a dispute over endowment land, and Al-Asal killed Al-Arjali’s brother. Al-Asal was later arrested in connection with the murder.

Following his imprisonment in 2022, Houthi-led endowment confiscations in Ibb governorate rose dramatically, demonstrating the complex dynamics driving internal competition within the Houthi movement.

In parallel, intra-tribal conflicts appear to be on the rise, with tribal violence against civilians more than tripling compared to the pre-truce period. Several factors are contributing to this unrest.

The volatile land market and the dire economic situation caused by the war are putting pressure on residents to sell valuable land, fueling competition between families and factions. The return of fighters from the front lines has also reignited unresolved disputes and sparked new conflicts over land and water.

In addition to the political layer of unrest, tribal unrest in Ibb also appears to be the result of deliberate governance strategies. The Houthis are allying with specific tribal factions to fuel local conflicts as part of a broader strategy of division, with the aim of reining in dissident tribes and weakening tribal mechanisms.

As observed in other governorates, perpetrators of violations by Houthi officers are rarely prosecuted, despite tribal demands for retribution. Loyal tribes are rewarded with financial and political incentives, undermining traditional mechanisms of tribal solidarity. The killing of tribal mediators by the Houthis, with the most recent incident reported in Ibb in December 2024, further heightens tensions and weakens customary arbitration mechanisms.

Case Study: Houthi-Led Tribal Conflicts

Al-Saqqaf’s loss to the Houthis did not completely stop the infighting in the governorate. After a peak in 2019 and 2020—when 27 distinct events were recorded—at least 20 more distinct events of infighting occurred between January 2022 and January 2025.

This represents nearly 40% of the total internal fighting recorded in Houthi-controlled Yemen during this period (see map below). During this time, the Houthis appointed Hadi al-Kahlani, Abdulmalik al-Houthi’s former bodyguard and security chief in Hodeidah, as security supervisor in Ibb.

The appointment of a prominent Houthi loyalist after a long rotation in the governorate’s security apparatus reveals that the movement’s central leadership views the security situation in Ibb as extremely critical.

Internal conflicts within the ranks of the Houthis (January 2022 - January 2025)

Growing resentment toward Houthi loyalists outside Ibb continues to generate friction between the movement’s various wings. A recent case involved Abu Imad al-Jalal (an official close to Houthi leader Yahya al-Razami), whose kidnapping of an Ibb resident on December 9, 2024, prompted Deputy Governor Abdul Hamid al-Shahri to mobilize armed fighters.

As an influential sheikh affiliated with the GPC, Al-Shahri has maintained a relative degree of autonomy thanks to his tribal connections, expressing occasional criticism of the Houthis. In 2022, Abu Imad and his men were involved in another incident in which they clashed with local armed Houthis over a plot of land.

Disputes over taxes, arbitrary property seizures, and power sow recurring discontent not only among tribes—many of whom have reluctantly surrendered to the Houthis—but also among local Houthi leaders who joined the movement out of pragmatic realism.

Source: ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Center)