Yemen's Houthi movement said on Friday that a senior member of the Houthi family had been "assassinated," according to the group's Al-Masirah TV.
"The treacherous hands affiliated with the U.S.-Israeli aggression and its tools assassinated Ibrahim Badreddin al-Houthi," it said, citing a statement from the Interior Ministry run by the Houthi movement.
But analyst Fatima Alasrar wrote on social media that this is just an “excuse.”Saying nothing happens in Sanaa without the Houthis knowing about it, she argued it is far more likely that this is nothing more than a “family feud.”
P.S. You can't even slaughter a goat in #Sanaa w/out #Houthis knowing who killed it. This excuse of "#US-#Israeli aggression" behind the assassination of a relatively low-level target in a draconian police state that Houthis established suggests a family feud. Not unusual. https://t.co/KQaS9NF5QG
— Fatima Alasrar (@YemeniFatima) August 9, 2019
At least eight civilians were killed on Friday in Aden, the temporary seat of Yemen's internationally-recognized government, amid renewed fighting between southern separatists and government forces, medical sources said.
The Saudi-owned, Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV channel said Ibrahim al-Houthi is the brother of the Houthi movement's leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi.
Yemen had been in a state of civil war since 2015. The conflict involves Iran, which backs the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia which backs the official government of Yemen. The large country in the south of the Arabian Peninsula also became one of the staging grounds for Hezbollah, al-Qaida and ISIS.
Abdel-Malek al-Houthi vowed in 2018 that should Israel start a war with Hezbollah, he will throw Houti warriors “to the fight against the Zionists.”