by Ahmed AbdulKareem, MintPress News:
While Yemen usually conjures images of conflicts with Israel and the Saudi-led coalition, a new dimension to the complex country and its people has emerged: Yemen’s secret war of spies. MintPress News delves into the largest CIA spy cell ever uncovered in Yemen, revealing a major security operation that apprehended its members and exposed American espionage activities, dramatically altering our understanding of Yemen’s complex battlefield.
In June, MintPress revealed how the Ansar Allah-led government of Sanaa had dismantled an espionage cell – Force 400 — allegedly working for the United States and Israel, detailing the cell’s members and their activities. Washington responded by calling for the release of individuals it claimed were employees of the United Nations, diplomatic bodies, and NGOs, labeling them as hostages held by the Houthis, a pejorative term often used by Western officials to describe the political and military movement known as Ansar Allah.
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MintPress News correspondent Ahmed AbdulKareem was granted exclusive access to several detainees captured by Yemeni security services, allowing him to conduct a series of interviews with the alleged spies. Additionally, a trove of top-secret documents was provided to MintPress, corroborating the testimony of many of the detainees given during these interviews. MintPress also reviewed hours of footage showing interrogations conducted by Yemeni security personnel, which confirmed the details of the allegations against the detainees that were provided to MintPress during interviews with high-level security officials from Ansar Allah.
While arrests related to the vast espionage cell began in earnest in 2021, officials in both the United States and Yemen remained tight-lipped about the discovery. However, Ansar Allah officials told MintPress that Washington was aware of the arrests and initiated a series of secret negotiations for the detainees’ release shortly thereafter. Those negotiations ultimately failed, and details began to leak in the Arab press. This led Yemeni officials to publicly disclose the discovery of the espionage ring and eventually revived negotiations between the two parties in Muscat, Oman.
In a groundbreaking investigation, MintPress News uncovers the inner workings of one of the largest spy networks ever exposed in Yemen, shedding light on how American and Israeli intelligence agencies covertly infiltrated Yemeni society. Through clandestine operations, they manipulated local dynamics, exploiting religious divisions and sowing seeds of normalization with Israel. The ultimate aim: gathering intelligence for Saudi airstrikes on military targets.
Exclusive access to top-secret documents, detainee testimonies, and interrogation footage reveals a harrowing narrative of espionage. Spies were recruited through psychological manipulation, sexual blackmail, and torture, highlighting the extent to which U.S. and Israeli operatives bent moral boundaries to secure cooperation.
This investigation offers a disturbing glimpse into the shadow war being waged in Yemen—one fueled by exploitation and coercion. It marks the beginning of an ongoing series that will unveil further layers of this covert operation in future reports.
The Double Life of Abdul Azzan
Abdul Mohsen Hussein Ali Azzan, a high-level spy arrested last June, worked for both the CIA and the Israeli Mossad for 15 years. Recruited by U.S. intelligence in 2010, his handler was Joanne Cummings, the director of the political and economic department at the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, who managed his activities until 2013. According to his account, Azzan converted from Islam to Christianity while working for an American company in Atlanta that engaged in proselytizing under the guise of selling printer ink.
Azzan did not just infiltrate and recruit Yemeni parliamentarians; he also gathered critical intelligence on shoulder-fired air defenses, unmanned aerial vehicles, and ballistic missiles. This high-value information was shared with American intelligence, as evidenced by documents reviewed by MintPress and by Azzan himself during an exclusive jailhouse interview with MintPress correspondent Ahmed AbdulKareem.
“Thanks to the Atlanta company and my new religion, I was able to form a good relationship with the Americans,” Azzan, a graduate of Sanaa University, told MintPress.
I wrote a letter to the CIA through Murad Dhafer, a friend who worked for them. I wasn’t accepted immediately, but I was enrolled in a special intelligence course. Later, I connected with Carlo Penda, the Canadian director of the Parliament Program at the [National] Democratic Institute, and eventually became a director.”
Ansar Allah accuses the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Sanaa of conducting intelligence missions under the guise of spreading democracy and promoting human rights. They claim that through this institute, the CIA recruited spies, some of whom were later arrested, while also collecting information and preparing research and studies for U.S. intelligence agencies.
“At the end of 2009, I started working at the American Embassy, where Joanne Cummins, the Director of the Political and Economic Program, recruited me for the CIA,” Azzan recounted. He underwent a series of tests, including a lie detector test, and took courses under two American intelligence officers. Subsequently, he was connected with Richard Kaufman, the representative of Israeli interests at the embassy. “In 2014, the embassy sent me to America, where I met a senior American intelligence official,” he added.
Before the war against Yemen began in March 2015, the U.S. embassy left Sanaa. However, it managed to attach its operatives to American companies still operating at the time and international organizations such as the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Azzan was among them. He moved to work with Cambridge Analytica’s UK-based parent company, SCL group, exposed in 2018 by Max Blumenthal to be conducting espionage activities on behalf of Archimedes,” a U.S.-based military contractor. Azzan identified the company as a subsidiary of Moby Media Group, owned by Afghan businessman Saad Mohseni, who has been linked to the CIA. In 2013, the company opened its headquarters in Sanaa, managed by British national Sarah Cunningham, according to Azzan.
In addition to his intelligence work, Azzan provided services to the intelligence company where he served as general manager. According to Azzan, the company operated on two tracks: collecting information, preparing field surveys and conducting media campaigns to shift public opinion toward Israel.
