AtlasIslamica

Sa’dah Old city

The Houthis, as the Zaidi Shia Muslims are called, are firmly entrenched in Saada, and are also active in several neighboring governorates

Sa’dah, Yemen

Coordinates:16.950900, 43.747800

Nearby Places

Sa’dah is the capital city of Saada Governorate in north-western Yemen at an elevation of about 1,800 meters. Its population in 2004 was estimated at 51,870. It was formerly identified with Qarn, the kingdom of the ancient kingdom of Ma’in, which is now known to be identical to the ancient Qarnawu near the modern Ma’in in the Al Jawf Governorate.

Houthi movement

The Houthi movement officially called Ansar Allah “Supporters of Allah” and colloquially simply Houthis, is an Islamic political and armed movement that emerged from Sa’dah in northern Yemen in the 1990s.

The movement was called Houthis because its founder is from the Houthi tribe. They are of the Zaidi school of Shai Islam.

Under the leadership of Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the group emerged as an opposition to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they charged with massive financial corruption and criticized for being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States at the expense of the Yemeni people and Yemen’s sovereignty. Resisting Saleh’s order for his arrest, Hussein was killed in Sa’dah in 2004 along with a number of his guards by the Yemeni army, sparking the Houthi insurgency in Yemen. Since then, except for a short intervening period, the movement has been led by his brother Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

Conflict in Sa’dah

Since June 2004, violent conflict has taken place in Saada, killing several thousand and displacing 250,000 people countrywide. A ceasefire brokered in June 2007, was followed by a peace agreement in February 2008. By April 2008, however, the peace process was in jeopardy as each side of the conflict accused the other of failing to implement the peace agreement. Analysts suggest that renewed conflict will damage the humanitarian situation in the region. In May 2008, it was estimated that there were 77,000 internally displaced persons in Sa’dah due to the conflict.

As of 2013, the Houthis, as the Zaidi rebels are called, were firmly entrenched in Sa’dah, and were also active in several neighboring governorates.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%27dah

Image Sources

1626px-Beauty_(8720062880)
By Julien Harneis from Sana’a, Yemen – Beauty, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38582963

1626px-Bombed_school,still_working(8718951005)
By Julien Harneis from Sana’a, Yemen – Bombed school, still working, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38582966

1435px-Bombed_school,still_working(8720067680)
By Julien Harneis from Sana’a, Yemen – Bombed school, still working, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38582961

1744px-Sa’dah_01
By Bernard Gagnon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4444303

3840px-Edge_of_Sa’ada_city_(8718935671)
By Julien Harneis from Sana’a, Yemen – Edge of Sa’ada city, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38582960

Sa’ada
By No machine-readable author provided. Raf24~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1368350

Sa’ada_house
By No machine-readable author provided. Raf24~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1368385

Sa’dah_03
By Bernard Gagnon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4444330

Saadah_-_View_form_the_city_walls
By Raf24 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2878431

Sa’ada_mosque
By No machine-readable author provided. Raf24~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1368366

1666px-Sa’dah_02
By Bernard Gagnon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4444310