Siege of Dammaj

The Siege of Dammaj started in October 2011 when the Houthis, a Shia Zaidi rebel group which control the Saada Governorate, accused a Sunni Salafi loyal to the Yemeni regime of smuggling weapons into their religious center in the town of Dammaj and demanded they hand over their weapons and military posts in the town. When the Salafis refused the Houthis imposed a siege on the town. The town is controlled by the Houthis and the fighting was mainly centered on Dar al-Hadith religious school, which is run by Salafis, although its founder (imam Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i) rejected Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. The Salafis from Dammaj and the current imam of Dar al-Hadith, Sheikh Yahya Hajoori are totally against al-Qaeda and all that they stand for.

On 22 December, a ceasefire was signed in which both sides agreed to the removal of all their military checkpoints and barriers around the town. Neutral armed men from the Hashid and Bakil tribes would be deployed around the town to ensure both sides adhere to the ceasefire. However, fighting started again on 29 October 2013 when Houthis shelled a Salafi mosque and the adjacent religious school, anticipating an attack from Salafist fighters who had gathered in Dammaj. Houthi fighters later took over many positions evacuated by Salafist gunmen in the area of Kitaf wa Al Boqe'e District, north of Sa'dah city and subsequently destroyed the symbolic Dar al-Hadith Salafist religious school.

Dammaj

Dammaj (Arabic: دماج‎) is a small town in the Sa'dah Governorate of north-western Yemen, southeast by road from Sa'dah in a valley of the same name.

Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i established the Madrasah Dar al-Hadith in Dammaj in 1979, an important center of learning for Salafi Sunnis. Terrorism and extreme views about Islam were both strictly forbidden in the Dar-al-hadith and has been criticized and warned against by the Madrasah leaders. In 2014 the non-local Sunnis, including all of the students there, were evicted.

The town was at the epicenter of the Siege of Dammaj, and in November 2013, further sectarian violence between militants of the Houthi-led Shia movement and Sunni Salafists erupted in the town, creating many casualties; some 50 had been killed by the start of the second week. In one incident in late November a mine exploded as a military vehicle was passing by, killing two Yemeni soldiers.

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