Yemen's Houthis, controlling the country's northwest, have taken a new escalatory step in the currency war against the part of Yemen outside their control including the government-administered areas, economists have said.

The Shiit terrorist militia's "central bank" in Sana'a ordered major commercial banks within their areas of control this week to suspend customer withdraw and deposit transactions involving the new (blue-stripped) 100 dollar notes and use only the old notes (2003 and 2006 print years); and not to trade hard currency with banks and money exchange business in the regions outside the militia's control.

"This initiative by the Houthis is meant to increase pressure on foreign cash reserves in the government –administered areas," one source said.

"Already divided, the Yemeni currency will see further divergence in the exchange rate between the stable Houthi-used old riyal notes and the government's relatively new printed notes," economic analyst Abdulkarim Alsaeedi said.

"This is no political war, this is an economic war and the harm is passed right to the millions of people living in the remaining parts of Yemen: to their purchase power," he said.

The Yemeni currency war began when Houthis in 2020 banned the government's newly printed notes in their areas of control allowing the use of only the old riyals from former president Ali Abdullah Saleh's era.

Not in the country and exerting authority as it should, the government was not able to counter-act the Houthi step and the country's currency began to split into stable riyal in Houthi areas and a down-spiraling riyal in the remaining parts of Yemen contested by the government and other militias created by foreign actors to undermine the government.