Houthi summer camps for children aimed at exporting terror | Opinion

There is nothing more innocent and beautiful than the birth of a child, especially where that child is allowed to thrive. But in some parts of the world, shocking numbers of children are being exploited, abused and brainwashed into becoming the world’s worst nightmare: future terrorist suicide bombers on our doorstep.

That’s why I’m sounding the alarm.

The photograph that stays in my mind is one I took while covering a coffee conference in Sanaa, Yemen, in 2010. At the time, Yemen was on the brink of either emerging as a prosperous, peaceful country or becoming the terrorist state it is today, ruled by the Houthi rebels. The decline was felt swiftly, and the world was silent.

On that trip, I saw groups of girls happily leaving school in colorful clothes, carrying knapsacks and sketchbooks with Disney characters on them. This was a time when America was highly respected in the Middle East. Compare this to the 1 million children forced to attend terrorism training summer camps proudly announced by the Houthi-led Foreign Ministry.

To take away the souls of these children, to rob them of their freedom, their learning, and their fulfilling lives, is sacrilegious and an evil most of us cannot imagine.

For too long the world has turned a blind eye to the plight of people abroad, but this incomprehension will ultimately cost Western civilization its freedom and life.

The UN has identified 14 countries where children are widely used as soldiers, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Last July, as in previous summers, Hamas also trained children and teenagers in the use of weapons and tunnel warfare.

In January of this year, Israeli President Isaac Herzog released internal documents detailing plans by Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades to hold summer training camps to “spread among children a culture of resistance and the values ​​of jihad, tenacity and sacrifice, and contribute to the militarization of society.” Some of these children would then be recruited as suicide bombers.

Gaza is in ruins this summer, but one positive outcome is that children will no longer be attending these camps any time soon.

Families are either forced to attend these free camps or are lured there through incentives offered, primarily in poor areas.

The Media Line exposed how this has been happening in Yemen for seven years, revealing that parents who refuse to allow their children into the camps are accused of disloyalty to the state and can be denied basic humanitarian assistance, such as subsidized cooking gas.

Muammar al-Eliani, Yemen’s exiled information minister, said tens of thousands of children attend these camps every year, and while exact figures are unavailable, with new children joining each year, the number of children indoctrinated in the ways of Houthi life could reach one million.

Tens of thousands of these children have been designated as child soldiers and killing machines. “These students are being prepared to die not for their country, but for the Houthis,” one teacher told The Media Line.

One needs to understand the Houthi mentality, which is born out of hatred for the West, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jews and anything that does not align with their philosophy and is beholden to Tehran.

The events we are witnessing, including the Houthi targeting of cargo ships and warships in the Red Sea, are merely a test.

The Houthis are one of the most dangerous terrorist groups today. Based in the Red Sea, they have launched missiles at Israel, demonstrating to the world that they can seize and attack ships at sea along one of the world’s busiest trade routes, and have threatened to intensify attacks if the world does not comply with their demands. The Houthis support their sister group Hamas in the ongoing war, and Israel’s immediate ultimatum is a ceasefire in Gaza.

For years, when I would talk about Yemen, most Americans had no idea where Yemen was, much less its impact on the world. The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah (Supporters of God), are a Shiite Islamist party formed in the 1990s under the leadership of Hussein al-Houthi. They currently wage a civil war against Yemen’s elected Sunni government, which is in exile in Saudi Arabia.

Yemen’s Houthis will further disrupt international shipping, seize more ships and crews, continue to acquire and use long-range weapons, and may cut internet cables across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. They will take people hostage and cut off media coverage.

So why is no one listening?

Why are nearly a million children being brainwashed into hatred by this same group and potentially used as weapons of war, and why no government is willing to put an end to such atrocities?

Imagine what the Houthis could do with tens of thousands of child fighters – potentially battling them on the streets of New York or London, slipping through porous borders and into adult terrorist situations.

Now is the time to listen to the leaders of these terrorist groups – they mean it and they need to be stopped.

What can America do?

Wake up America and the world. Use your intelligence, government and influence to stop terrorists, or brainwashed child suicide bombers may blow themselves up and kill many innocent people in our own backyards.

Ferris Friedson is president and CEO of The Media Line news agency and founder of the Journalism and Policy Student Program, Middle East Press Club and Women’s Empowerment Program. He can be reached at ffriedson@themedialine.org.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.