By Faisal Abu Bakr | 2025-05-16

ADEN -- A secretive intelligence unit has gained a reputation as the Houthis' most feared internal security force, regional security experts said.

The Preventative Security Service (PSS) wields enormous power through surveillance, kidnapping and assassination, they told Al-Fassel.

After the Houthis' September 2014 coup, the PSS evolved into a 3,000-member force serving as the primary counterintelligence agency of the group's hardline Saada Wing, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) reported in May 2022.

The agency employs technology, communications, special operations, recruitment and propaganda experts, and oversees technology transfers to and from the Iranian regime, according to a CNN report.

It gained notoriety for its reported role in the 2017 assassination of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, per UANI.

Headed by Ahsan Abdullah Ahsan Ali al-Humran, the PSS reports directly to Abdul Malik al-Houthi.

Al-Humran is linked to Houthi leadership through kinship and marriage, per Abaad Center for Strategic Studies director Abdul Salam Mohammed.

"The PSS focuses on monitoring leadership and members, securing internal information, and measuring loyalty levels within the group," he said.

"The PSS is primarily focused on counterintelligence, but it has also carried out dirty work, such kidnapping politicians, journalists and soldiers on charges of foreign loyalty, with many tortured and some dying" in prison, he added.

The agency is run by intelligence agencies in Iran, Deputy Justice Minister Faisal al-Majeedi said, adding that al-Humran serves as al-Houthi's "shadow" and "has a record of eliminating opponents within the group."

Running parallel to the PSS is the Houthi Military Intelligence Service led by Abdullah "Abu Ali" al-Hakim, who is under US and UK sanctions.

"Because of his powerful position and swift strategic moves, some people likened him to the queen piece in a chess game," Houthi expert Marieke Brandt said.

"While Military Intelligence focuses on external operations both inside and outside Yemen, the PSS takes precedence because it safeguards the very foundation of the Houthi movement," Mohammed explained.

Senior leaders killed

From mid-March until May 7, when a ceasefire agreement was announced, US forces conducted an air campaign against the Houthis to restore freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.

US forces have struck over 800 targets, killing hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders, including senior missile and drone officials, US Central Command said in an April 27 statement.

"The strikes have destroyed multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities, and advanced weapons storage locations," it said.

"These storage facilities housed advanced conventional weapons, including anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles," it said, along with air and boat drones employed in the group's attacks on international shipping lanes.

Senior Houthi field commander Abu Abdullah al-Hamran was among the high-ranking officials killed in a US airstrike on Saada province, media outlets reported in early April.