Ansarullah: Saudi Appeals for Foreign Military Support Show Riyadh’s Helplessness

A senior member of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement says Saudi Arabia’s appeals to foreign powers to deploy military forces to Yemen demonstrate Riyadh’s inability to confront Yemen’s Armed Forces on its own. Mohammed al-Farah, a senior member of Ansarullah’s political bureau, said Saudi efforts to rally Muslim and international support for its military campaign against Yemen since March 2015 had failed.

Al-Farah said Riyadh had repeatedly sought to portray the Yemen conflict as a threat to Muslim holy sites and international maritime navigation in an effort to justify its military actions and secure international backing. He also rejected allegations that Yemeni forces had targeted Mecca, saying Sana’a had maintained that its military operations were directed at strategic and military targets inside Saudi Arabia in response to what it describes as the blockade and aggression against Yemen.

The Ansarullah official further accused Saudi Arabia of raising new concerns about Yemeni air-defense capabilities in an attempt to create fears over international air traffic and provide grounds for foreign intervention. He said such claims were part of Riyadh’s broader effort to build an international case for increased military involvement in Yemen.