Yemen ceasefire may ‘contribute to downfall of Saudi regime’

A year of relentless state terrorism against the Yemeni people by Saudi Arabia through indiscriminate bombardment of all and sundry including mosque, schools, hospitals, power plants, markets, and residential houses, has left at least 8,400 people, among them 2,236 children, martyred so far, while 16,015 other Yemenis have sustained injuries, some of them serious.

The raw, roguish, inexperienced, and overtly pro Zionist trio of crown prince Mohammad bin Nayef, Defence Minster Mohammad bin Salman, and Jewish-looking Foreign Minister, Adel Jubair, which has virtually hijacked the administration of the ailing, aged and imbecile king Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, ought to be tried for war crimes against the Arab World’s most impoverished country. They had dreamt of bludgeoning into submission the popular Ansarullah Movement led by Seyyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, within a matter of days, if not weeks, through their brutal use of superior air power, but failed to dent the resolve of the battle-hardened Yemeni defenders. The result has been a humiliating ceasefire by Riyadh, which observers believe may contribute to the downfall of the Wahhabi Saudi entity – a creation of the crafty British similar to the rootless Zionist entity in Palestine.

Now we have excerpts from an interview conducted by Russia’s Sputnik network with Canada-based international journalist Zafar Bangash and with US political analyst Daniel Patrick Welch as follows:

On Wednesday, the UN’s Special Envoy for Yemen announced that Saudi Arabia and the Ansarullah movement agreed to a “cessation of hostilities,” one year since a Saudi-led coalition began its military intervention in Yemen and days after a US airstrike killed 50 people in the country’s southeast. Zafar Bangash of Crescent International told Radio Sputnik's Brian Becker, the host of Loud & Clear that though the news is welcome, it is too early to talk about real peace. Saudi Arabia has yet to reach its political objectives, which were, as he believes, to install a proxy government in Yemen to rule the country on its behalf.

Bangash said: “The Saudis had been bombing the poor country for a year and they have caused a massive amount of damage, they've destroyed the infrastructure, thousands of people have been killed, 22 million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation, but the objectives for which the Saudis launched their war of aggression on Yemen have not been achieved, and that was, of course, to install their own puppet of the Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi back in power.”

According to Bangash, Saudis have lost the war from the perspective of their objectives, and now they are trying to find way out of the mess "without losing face."

Yemen is strategically important for Saudi Arabia and the US, Bangash said, because it controls the entrance to the Red Sea, a critical sea lane for the export of oil from the region. Saudi Arabia and its allies don't want to lose control of that waterway.

According to political analyst Daniel Patrick Welch, the reason Washington welcomes the ceasefire is because it is very important for the US that 2016 is a "peace year," proving to the public that there's a difference between the foreign policy of Democrats and Republicans. Normalizing relations with Cuba, formalizing the Iran nuclear deal, and implementing ceasefires in Syria and Yemen are necessary "just to give the veneer that something is actually happening, and Obama can retire with his peace in track."

Bangash believes that Saudi failure in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq "are all going to contribute to the downfall of the Saudi dynasty." While Riyadh is accustomed to buying people's loyalty, it can't continue this tradition any longer due to the high costs of its military interventions and falling oil prices. However, this doesn't mean that a Saudi regime change will affect the US.

He said: "I believe that the US probably has lined up maybe 2-3 other groups, factions within Saudi Arabia, that are likely to take over, so [that] if this family falls, it does not mean that this part of Arabia goes out of the orbit of US influence.

Bangash concluded: “It's just that there'll be a change of faces.”

Meanwhile, Yemen's Ansarullah movement leader, Seyyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, says Saudi Arabia is committing genocide against the Yemeni people as it continues with its deadly aggression against the impoverished nation. He asserted that the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen targets all the axis of resistance, meaning Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah and its charismatic leader Seyyed Hasan Nasrallah, for supporting the Yemenis against the terrorist war launched against them.

During his televised address on the first anniversary of the unprovoked Saudi aggression, Seyyed Abdul-Malik said: The Saudi forces and their mercenaries have come to Yemen to wipe out a generation; and they want to raze Yemen to the ground. He said the Saudi regime has committed numerous crimes against the Yemenis. The Saudi regime knows no limit in its massacre of women and children, he said, adding, the Saudis are however, are ignorant of the Yemeni popular will.

Seyyed Abdul-Malik pointed out that the US and the UK are helping Saudi Arabia in the aggression against Yemen. This Saudi regime has neither respected the concept of neighborliness nor Islam, he added, noting that the Aal-e Saud regime and its mercenaries fighting in Yemen are under the sway of the Saudi-Israeli-US axis. The Leader of the Ansarullah Movement slammed the silence of the UN Security Council regarding the Saudi aggression, saying the body is providing security only for arrogant powers, in violation of the UN charter that was not drawn up for the oppressed and only serve bullying and dictatorial regimes. It is shameful to remain silent vis-à-vis such crimes, he said, adding that some countries have openly taken the side of the Yemeni people and provided some assistance they could to the nation. The resistance shown by the Yemenis shows the legitimacy of the demands of the Yemeni people, he added. He said the main objective of the Saudi aggression is the destruction of the entire region so that the Zionist regime of Israel will turn into an unrivaled power in the region. According to Seyyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi the Saudi crimes have overshadowed the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians, the Ansarullah leader said.

The Ansarullah Leader pointing to retaliatory attacks by the popular forces said that heavy and deadly blows have been inflicted on the Saudi war machine. He said: “The Yemenis do not have a great amount of military equipment, but we have been standing against the enemy. The Yemenis feel obliged to defend their principles.”

He said: The Saudis launched their aggression under the slogan of serving the Yemenis; however, we have seen how they have served the Yemenis with their missiles and destruction by killing women and children.

The Ansarullah Leader said the enemies cannot and will not be able to reach their objectives because Yemenis of all walks of life will continue to stand by their national commitments. He concluded: “What we are seeing now is the result of our steadfastness; the blood of our martyrs has struck heavy blows at the aggressive enemy.”

AS/AS/ME