Return of the Death Hunter: Houthi snipers target civilians in Taiz and Lahj
Outside his home in the Sala district, east of the city of Taiz, Yemen, 55-year-old Said Nasher Mansour was sitting when a Houthi sniper targeted him on Thursday evening.
Mansour was struck by two bullets — the first hit his left leg, and as he fell to the ground, the Houthi sniper stationed at Mohammed Ali Othman School in eastern Taiz fired again, hitting his left thigh.
This is not the first time Said Mansour has been targeted by Houthi snipers. This is his third injury from sniper fire near his home, having narrowly escaped death in previous attacks.
The attack on Mansour occurred barely 24 hours after a Houthi sniper positioned on Mount Jaridam shot and killed a Yemeni woman named Saeeda Mohammed Abdullah in Al-Quhayfa village, Maqbana district, west of the governorate.
On June 23, 13-year-old Oday Abdulaziz Mohammed Saleh was shot by a sniper outside his home in the village of Qaddash, north of Kresh in Lahj governorate (south). He remains in intensive care at a hospital in Aden.
The return of a terrifying killing method
Despite the truce sponsored by the United Nations since April 2022, the resurgence of Houthi sniper attacks sounds the alarm for the return of one of the most horrifying methods of death used by the militia to collectively terrorize civilians.
According to military sources, the Houthis use more than 11 types of sniper rifles, including one known as the “Sayyad” (Hunter), an Iranian-made weapon with a range of 1,500 meters.
Human rights reports classify sniper rifles used by the Houthis as one of the four deadliest means of killing civilians, alongside missile and artillery bombardment, drone strikes, and landmines.
Taiz: the most affected
Between March 2015 and the end of 2020, at least 725 civilians were killed by sniper fire in various Yemeni governorates — approximately 365 of them in Taiz alone, accounting for nearly half.
According to rights statistics, 141 children and 78 women were among the victims, along with hundreds of wounded. Taiz remains the most affected area by sniper-related crimes.
Most sniper attacks are carried out by highly trained Houthi fighters in eastern and western Taiz, along contact lines with the group.
These crimes led to the displacement of residents from neighborhoods like Kalabah, Al-Shamassi, and Hawdh Al-Ashraf, though some have returned in recent years following the UN-brokered truce.
Human rights reports say that “sniping has become a clear indicator of deliberate killing by the Houthis, whose pace of targeting civilians — including farmers, their livestock, and pedestrians near conflict lines — has intensified in recent years.”
The latest UN expert panel report on Yemen documented the killing of 128 civilians — including 33 children and 6 women — and the injury of 93 others, including 35 children and 8 women, due to indiscriminate attacks and Houthi sniper fire during the first half of 2024.
