Information minister says Shabwa raid seized 500 rifles and detained 13 men

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ATAQ, Yemen — Security forces in Yemen’s Shabwa governorate detained 13 men and seized about 500 automatic rifles in a raid on a rented house, the information minister said.

Moammar al-Eryani said the house had been used to receive smuggled arms shipments, according to Saba, the news agency of the internationally recognised government.

The account rests on that announcement. No independent confirmation of it has been published.

A truck loaded with weapons and explosives, and two shipping containers, were seized at the site, he said.

Alongside the rifles, the minister listed sniper rifles, artillery shells, explosives, drone bombs and drone components among the items recovered.

Preliminary investigations indicated the weapons had been landed by sea through the coast of Rodum district, al-Eryani said.

He described the operation as a “major achievement in combating arms-smuggling networks”.

Al-Eryani called on the international community to halt weapons supplies to the Houthis, to deepen cooperation with the Yemeni government, and to help secure the country’s coastline and shipping lanes.

The National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, reported the seizure separately on Sunday, citing Shabwa’s governor’s office and a report submitted to the governor.

That account described the cargo as including sniper rifles, improvised explosive devices that authorities called highly destructive, projectiles and ammunition.

Preliminary findings cited in the same report said the weapons had been brought in by boat and handed to cell members along the southern coast.

Both accounts trace to Yemeni government bodies. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of the quantities said to have been seized.

The governor’s office called on units to increase readiness and to strengthen surveillance and inspections along land and maritime routes, according to The National.

The description of the detained men as a Houthi cell is the government’s. Neither account carried a response from the Houthis, and the government has not said whether the men have been charged.

Shabwa has been a focus of fighting this month.

A Houthi ballistic missile struck a camp of the Rapid Intervention Forces in the governorate earlier in October, killing 77 people and wounding 195, according to the governor’s office.

The Houthis acknowledged that attack and described the targets as “Saudi enemy” forces, saying Saudi personnel were among the casualties.

Those tolls come from the governorate authorities and from the group’s own statements. Yemen Herald could not verify them independently.

Yemen held a mass funeral in Shabwa for security recruits killed in the strike.

A member of the Presidential Leadership Council, Sultan al-Aradah, offered condolences over the camp attack.

Arms smuggling by sea has been a recurring theme in government statements through the current escalation.

The Saudi-led coalition warned this month against the use of traditional boats to move weapons to the Houthis.

Shabwa lies on Yemen’s southern coast, facing the Gulf of Aden, and contains the Balhaf liquefied natural gas site.

Rodum district, named in the minister’s account as the landing point, sits on that coastline.

The governorate is held by forces aligned with the internationally recognised government.

The Rapid Intervention Forces, whose camp was struck in October, are a government-aligned unit deployed in the governorate.

Fighting has run in parallel elsewhere. Government forces were reported advancing in Marib in mid-October, while Houthi attacks continued in Taiz.

The United Nations said more than 250,000 people had been displaced inside Yemen since fighting flared in August.

The coalition’s warning this month named traditional wooden boats, long used for coastal trade along the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, as a route for moving arms.

The minister’s appeal to foreign governments tracks a broader campaign by the Yemeni government this autumn to have the Houthis designated a terrorist organisation.

President Rashad al-Alimi asked the UN secretary-general to support a Security Council designation, Saba reported this month.

Yemen’s human rights minister asked Germany to back a European Union designation, and the Gulf Cooperation Council’s ministerial council urged the same step while affirming Yemen’s unity.

Yemen’s foreign ministry welcomed a statement by the R4 group condemning Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.

The Arab League condemned Houthi attacks on Dammam airport and the Shaybah oil field.

The seizure was announced during a sustained exchange of long-range fire between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition.

The coalition said it intercepted and destroyed 10 ballistic missiles aimed at the kingdom’s southern region.

Two people were injured by shrapnel in Khamis Mushait and Ahad Rafidah, according to Saudi civil defence. Yemen Herald has not independently confirmed that account.

A missile and drone attack on the presidential palace killed five security personnel, The National reported, citing Yemeni officials.

The United States ordered some diplomats and the families of staff to leave Saudi Arabia over the attacks, and its embassy told remaining staff to obtain special authorisation before using Saudi airports.

Yemen’s transport ministry reported a fourth Houthi missile attack on Aden airport this month.

Weapons routes into Houthi-held areas have been contested ground in UN reporting for years, and the government has used seizures of this kind to argue that interdiction at sea is incomplete.

The government did not say when the raid took place, or over what period the house had been used.

It also did not say where the detained men were being held.

Saba filed the minister’s announcement from Aden in the early hours of Sunday.

The National published its account later the same day.