Houthis Warn Saudi Arabia Not To Support U.S Strikes Against The Group

The Yemen-based Houthis have renewed the threats against Saudi Arabia, cautioning it not to support US strikes against the organization.

Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, a member associated with the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, said that they have sent out a message to Saudi Arabia that the country will be a target if it permits US fighter jets to access its territory/airspace in the aggression on Yemen.

The forces of the US and the UK have started striking the Houthi military facilities since the beginning of 2024 to stem the group’s assault on vessels in the waters of the Red Sea, a crucial waterway for worldwide commerce.

Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, has not joined the air assaults or a US-headed naval operation that tried to provide commercial vessels with a safe passage via the Gulf of Aden and the southern Red Sea.

Saudi Arabia is attempting to attain a peace consensus with the Houthis to cease Yemen’s civil war that raged for most of the past decade but with the sides in a delicate truce from 2022 onward. The Saudi government directed a US-supported military campaign against the Houthis beginning in 2015.

However, it sees peace in Yemen as fundamental to maintaining stability in the wider Gulf region and bolstering tremendous economic transformation schemes. Before the truce, the Houthis continued striking the Saudi territory.

In 2019, they also claimed an assault that had briefly knocked out approximately half the kingdom’s total oil production.

The Houthis, an Islamist organization that Iran backs, have remained undeterred by the UK and US airstrikes and continue attacking warships and commercial vessels with drones and missiles nearly daily. They recently mentioned expanding the campaign and targeting ships, avoiding the Red Sea and sailing via southern Africa.

Al-Houthi signaled elevated tension between the Houthis and Saudis by saying the kingdom was required to take on more severe efforts for a peace plan.

He stressed that negotiations cannot progress unless the kingdom agrees to resume the payment of electricity, some salaries, and other services in Yemen.

Al-Houthi further confirmed that the group had assured Russia and China that their vessels would not be targeted. Talking to Al-Masirah TV, a channel that the organization runs, he did not mention Huang Pu, a Chinese-owned oil tanker, which was struck by a missile on Saturday in the waters of the Red Sea.

The ship sent a distress call but experienced minimal damages and did not need aid, per the US military. The Houthis seem to have incorrectly identified many vessels with their previous assaults, and it is undetermined if they did the same once again with the Huang Pu.

Reference: BNNBloomberg, Al-Monitor

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Source: Maritime Shipping News