Houthi Real Estate and Oil Empire Devours Ibb's Economy

The province of Ibb, historically known as the "Green Governorate" and the capital of Yemeni tourism, has become a facade for one of the most egregious forms of "coup economy" plaguing areas under Houthi militia control. Behind its enchanting nature and sprawling agricultural terraces, a dark economic engine, valued in hundreds of billions of riyals, churns. This engine is managed by a complex network of sectarian leaders and Houthi affiliates, including those from the militia's strongholds in the far north and local loyalists.

The province has transformed, due to the record-breaking and exorbitant rise in land and real estate prices, which are now the most valuable in all of Yemen, into a magnet for the avarice of the militia's first and second-tier leaders. According to information and statistics closely related to the militia's inner workings in the province, these leaders have succeeded in forming a cross-institutional financial and investment lobby. They exploit their security, military, and plundered public service influence to convert public resources and state assets into private property and giant commercial projects.

At the forefront of this financial lobby is the Houthi affiliate Qassem Al-Masawi, who holds the position of Undersecretary of Ibb Province for Oil, Gas, and Industry. Al-Masawi exemplifies the fusion of militia authority with illicit trade. Since his appointment to this vital post, he has tightened his grip on the petroleum products and domestic gas sectors, commodities most directly linked to citizens' daily lives and the quickest generators of cash through crisis manipulation and feeding parallel markets. Documented data indicates that Al-Masawi's personal wealth derived from this sector has grown astronomically. He now possesses a vast portfolio of real estate and land in key urban areas and outskirts of Ibb city, valued in the billions at old currency rates. This extends beyond fixed real estate assets to continuous cash flows, with a net monthly income of approximately four million riyals from unofficial oil and gas sales and distribution.

To ensure the flow of these millions and protect them from other Houthi factions, Al-Masawi relies on a private security apparatus led by one of his relatives, Abu Ahmed Al-Saffad. Known locally for a criminal record, Al-Saffad was appointed by the militia to a sensitive security position in rural Ibb. His specific duties involve managing collections, overseeing monthly financial receipts from fuel and gas stations, and imposing extortion on traders through brute force. Al-Saffad's security role has become a shield for his relative's illicit investments and a tool to suppress any dissent or complaints from station owners or local distributors, clearly demonstrating how security institutions serve the private interests of supervisors.

The second pillar of this formidable financial lobby is Houthi leader Yahya Al-Qasimi, appointed by the militia to the so-called Grievance Redress Committee in Ibb province. Ironically, this committee, allegedly established by the Houthis to provide justice and resolve disputes, has become an instrument for extorting legitimate landowners and facilitating the confiscation of state and endowment properties for influential leaders. Al-Qasimi has leveraged his oversight position to build an extensive private investment empire. Leaked information suggests he owns and manages over five major investment projects, including luxury hotels, commercial centers, and large markets recently constructed in the province. Notably, Al-Qasimi is a covert partner in the Ibb Tourist Resort, a major recreational and tourism project. This forced partnership serves as a form of militia protection, granting the Houthi supervisor a share of profits and stocks in exchange for shielding the original investors from extortion and harassment by other supervisors.

Joining this financial alliance as a key figure is Abdul Wahed Al-Marou'i, Undersecretary of Ibb Province for Technical Affairs and Public Works, who stands as one of the province's most dangerous real estate and financial magnates, ranking third among the wealthiest and most influential leaders. Al-Marou'i's danger lies in his direct control over urban and structural planning, road construction permits, and technical supervision. He manipulates these powers to deliberately alter urban plans to serve his personal interests, inflating the market value of lands he previously acquired. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens' properties are destroyed or encroached upon by the construction of spurious roads if they refuse to comply with extortion. Al-Marou'i's investments extend beyond real estate to monopolizing heavy goods and service markets through a vast network of modern car showrooms, spare parts import and sales centers, and construction equipment, benefiting from customs and tax exemptions and broad influence to facilitate his private trade.

Observers of Yemeni affairs pose a fundamental question about the fierce increase in Houthi leaders' greed for land and real estate in Ibb specifically. The answer lies in the province's unique demographic and economic characteristics. Ibb is the primary source of Yemeni expatriates in Gulf countries and worldwide, with millions of dollars flowing monthly in remittances. These expatriates prefer to invest in land and real estate in their home regions, driving land prices to record levels, sometimes exceeding those in Arab and European capitals. Additionally, the high population density and massive influx of displaced people from conflict zones have created unprecedented demand for housing and commercial spaces, doubling rental values. Furthermore, Ibb's vast and fertile endowment lands are easy prey for the newly established Houthi Endowment Authority, which seizes them and leases them at nominal prices to sectarian leaders for their private investments.

This systematic dismantling of Ibb's local economy and the replacement of the traditional private sector with a lobby of supervisors and Houthi affiliates carries catastrophic implications for the future of the province and Yemen as a whole. It has moved beyond merely plundering state revenues and depriving employees of salaries to an economic and demographic engineering process aimed at concentrating wealth in the hands of a select few, reducing original landowners to mere laborers or tenants. Moreover, the fierce conflict among Houthi factions over these properties and collections threatens to shatter the fragile social peace in the province. Ibb has repeatedly witnessed bloody armed clashes and casualties between factions loyal to supervisors from outside the province and factions of local Houthi affiliates, stemming from disputes over dividing plundered lands and oil and gas revenues. This illustrates how the state of extortion fully exploits the Yemeni humanitarian tragedy to build private commercial empires for warlords.