AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: Yemen’s central bank has frozen the assets and accounts of 12 business groups and traders for supporting or having connections with the Iran-backed Houthis.

The move was part of a list of measures approved by the internationally recognized government of Yemen to punish the militia for attacks on oil installations.

Ahmed Ahmed Ghaleb, head of the Aden-based central bank, has formally instructed local exchange firms to close the accounts of the 12 oil and trade organizations and businesspeople and cease doing business with them.

“You must freeze all accounts, prohibit commercial and financial activities with the aforementioned persons and organizations, and add them to your blacklists,” the governor said in a letter to the firms, adding that the decision was based on Yemen’s National Defense Council’s designation of the Houthi militia as a terrorist organization.

SAM Industrial Supplies and Oil Field Services (owned by Saddam Al-Fagih and Zaid Ali Al-Sharafi), Al-Zahraa for Trade and Agencies (owned by Nabeil Abdullah Al-Wazer, Black Gold Company (owned by Ali Nasser Qaresha), and Fuel Oil for Import of Petroleum Products (owned by Ismael Al-Wazer and Qusi Al-Wazer) were among the blacklisted companies.

The majority of the 12 enterprises and dealers were also among 19 companies and individuals sanctioned by Saudi Arabia in June for supporting the Houthis.

During a meeting with a delegation of EU ambassadors in Aden, Yemen’s Oil Minister Saeed Al-Shemasi on Wednesday said that oil exports accounted for 75 percent of the country’s revenues, which were spent on paying salaries, funding projects, and paying for food and goods imports.

He called for more severe punitive measures against the Houthis to stop them from attacking oil terminals.

In October, the Yemeni government designated the Houthis as terrorists and demanded that the international community do the same after the group attacked two oil terminals in the southern provinces of Shabwa and Hadramout, blocking oil shipments and depriving the government of its primary income source.

The Houthis have vowed to keep bombing oil installations in southern Yemen unless the government agrees to divide oil profits and pay public employees in areas they control.

Separately, the Houthis freed Yemeni journalist Younis Abdul Sallam on Wednesday after holding him captive for more than a year, a Sanaa-based lawyer told Arab News.

The Houthis kidnapped him from a Sanaa street in August last year after he criticized them on social media.

Yemeni journalists and his friends celebrated his release and appealed for thousands of other people being held captive by the Houthis to be freed.

In a tweet, Nabeil Al-Subai, a senior member of the Yemen Journalist Syndicate, said: “It is an opportunity to ask the Houthis to free the remaining journalists in their custody.”