The siege of Dammaj started in October 2011 when the Houthis, a Zaydi-led rebel group which controls the Sa'dah Governorate, accused Salafis loyal to the Yemeni government of smuggling weapons into their religious center in the town of Dammaj and demanded they hand over their weapons and military posts in the town. As the Salafis refused, Houthi rebels responded by imposing a siege on Dammaj, closing the main entrances leading to the town. The town was controlled by the Houthis and the fighting was mainly centered at Dar al-Hadith religious school, which is run by Salafis, although its founder imam Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i rejected Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. The Salafis from Dammaj and its Dar al-Hadith imam Sheikh Yahya al-Hajuri claimed that they are totally against al-Qaeda and all that they stand for. In December 2011, a tribal ceasefire was first signed in which both sides temporarily agreed to the removal of all their military checkpoints and barriers around Dammaj. Neutral armed men from the Hashid and Bakil tribes were deployed around the town to ensure both sides adhere to the ceasefire. However, fighting erupted again in October 2013 when Houthis shelled a Salafi mosque and the adjacent Quranic religious school, anticipating an attack from Salafi fighters who had gathered in Dammaj. Houthi rebels later advanced and took over many positions evacuated by outgunned Salafi fighters and subsequently blows up the symbolic Dar al-Hadith religious school after months of fighting. The second ceasefire was brokered by the Yemeni government under president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in January 2014. Yemeni troops have been deployed to the town of Dammaj and evacuated all Salafi fighters and their families as well as foreign students to the neighboring governorates, handing over victory to the Houthis. Media and analysts have described the fighting in Dammaj as a sectarian conflict that may worsen Sunni-Shia relations in Yemen. Others believe that Dammaj represents part of regional contest between Saudi Arabia, who supported the Salafis traditionally, and Iran who backed the Houthi movement. Background Salafi establishment in Yemen The roots of the sectarian conflict in Yemen can be arguably connected to Saudi Arabia's systematic proselytization of Salafism, a puritanical form of Islam, inside Yemen. Such effect of this proselytizing has somewhat caused resistance from Zaydi Shia demographics who perceives Wahhabism as a threat to their existence. Sheikh Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi’i, a Yemeni student of the