Yemen: a war turned upside down

08.11.2016

Since the Saudi aggression in Yemen, they ignored all the voices of condemnation and reason that called for its cessation. The slaughter of more than 10 thousand Yemenis didn’t embarrass the kingdom for almost 20 months. Finding an honorable exit seems to be their only concern in order to save face of the deputy crown prince in his endeavor to inherit the throne of his father. No doubt, all would be lost when his father dies and he sidelined by the rest of the family.

Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir expressed his country’s desire for a cease-fire in Yemen two days ago, and knocked the ball into the court of Yemenis: “If you quit, I quit”, is an often used comment by the Saudis, summarizing their war on Yemen.

The Saudis have raised the white flag, and Mohamad bin Salman who declared the war on Yemen without coordinating with any of the Saudi officials, is now speaking of the kingdom’s desire to end it, not only after total failure to achieve its goals, but actually having the exact opposite resuls.

Finally, he uttered: “We want to stop the war,” and Saudis tweeted after that: “We have lost.”

After unilaterally taking the decision for the war, hoping that the success of his war would secure his succession to the throne to lead him to “the global stage” at a young age, turned out to be an embarrassing disaster.

Decisively, the original war objectives were:

– To restore the so-called “legitimacy” of a resigned president who does not represent the people.

– To force the Ansarullah group to withdraw from the capital Sana’a towards Saada.

– To disarm Ansarullah.

– Not to allow any role for former President Saleh in Yemen’s future.

And, quite obviously, none of these goals were achieved, rather the contrary…

They have ‘achieved’ these unintended consequences:

Destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure.
Killed and injured thousands of innocent civilians.
Wasted more than $ 700 billion of national treasure.
Reduced salaries and stopped bonuses.
Threatened the security of the Saudi state.

(Importantly, the secure extraction of Saudi coalition forces from Yemen could be the cause of their biggest head-ache and they may have to sign some serious financial concessions for them to be able to succeed. Ed)

Cross-border attacks continue

The Houthi alliance has continued their cross-border attacks in Saudi Arabia near the border town of Najran, destroying at least 3 military vehicles and killing up to 10 military servicemen.

Meanwhile, desperate Saudi coalition attacks in Taiz did not achieve any significant gains.

General Killed in bomb blast

A senior commander of the Saudi coalition was killed when a bomb exploded near Yemen's border city of Harad as heavy clashes for control there continues.

The Houthi alliance consisting of the rump Yemeni army, Anarullah and popular committees – lately joined by several tribes - inflicted heavy damage and casualties on the Saudi coalition forces in Ma'rib province and are now in full control of the Western part of the province.

They have also thwarted several counter-attacks on their military positions, and destroyed several tanks of the Saudi coalition.

Earlier, their artillery units pounded Saudi Arabia's military bases in Najran, Jizan and Assir provinces, inflicting heavy losses on troops stationed there. They hit assembly points in the Northern part of Midi desert near al-Mousem village in Jizan province and also pounded the Saudi Mos'an military base as well as the Manfaz border crossing in Assir province, killing a large number of the Saudi troops.

They destroyed two armored vehicles near al-Khazra border crossing, killing all the members of their crew.

Mercenaries killed in Jawf

A number of the US-backed Saudi-paid mercenaries were killed and others wounded in shelling by the Houthi alliance in al-Jawf province.

They also struck an armored vehicle in the al-Salan military camp in al-Ghail district. Consequently, they secured the al-Salan military base and several other strategic sites in the same district overlooking the camp.