Sanaa, Yemen - Yemeni authorities said Thursday they have arrested 11 members of the minority Zaidi community suspected of carrying out attacks in the capital as part of an uprising against the government. The 10 men and one woman "are part of a gang which carried out acts of violence and sabotage, including bomb attacks against cars belonging to officials from the Defense Ministry, and in public places, causing death and injury to citizens," the Defense Ministry's September 26 weekly reported.
"Several grenades, weapons and pamphlets bearing fatwas (religious decrees) hostile to the regime and inciting violence were found in the apartment where these people lived." "Those arrested are followers of Badreddine al-Houthi" of the Faithful Youth movement, it said.
Badreddine is considered the spiritual leader of rebels who emerged from the extremist Faithful Youth movement of his son, Hussein Badreddine al-Houthi.
Hussein was killed in clashes last year with Yemeni forces, after which the government declared the Zaidi uprising over.
But a fresh rebellion since late March has killed around 280. In April, authorities declared that "sedition" was crushed, despite the fact that all the leaders of the latest uprising were still at large and that the group was estimated to have 3,000 supporters before the June revolt. The Zaidis are a moderate Shiite sect dominant in northwestern Yemen but in the minority in the mainly Sunni country.
They consider the Yemeni regime to lack legitimacy, having taken control after overthrowing the Zaidi imamate in a 1962 army coup referred to as the September 26 revolution.