Sanaa, Asharq Al-Awsat-A leading figure in Yemen’s ruling General People’s Congress[GPC] has asserted that the clashes and war were continuing and will continue until the Huthists in Sa’dah Governorate whom he called “the insurgent group” are crushed, stressing that many of their positions were falling into the government troops’ hands one after the other.
Commenting on the claim by the Huthists’ leader they had seized Al-Jabal al-Ahmar and cut off military communications from the army, Iskandar al-Asbahi, head of the GPC’s information department, said instatements to Asharq Al-Awsat that “these words are of the propaganda or war media kind” and “they want an endless war but their end is soon, God willing. Despite their continued attacks on villages and houses, they are calling for ceasefire and pleading with Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr, the sides which are helping and financing them, to stop the war on them. No state can accept an armed insurgency that carries out such terrorist and sabotage acts.” He added that the expressed desire of Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr to mediate between the Yemeni Government and Huthists “is evidence that the insurgents are agents and serving foreign agendas” and said: “Why should we accept mediation when this is an insurgent group? They are digging their own graves and there must be a final and decisive end to them so that their sedition does not spread, as they were unfortunately able to do because the state leant toward peace in the past. These did not want peace or security but were spreading more and more. They think they can stop the war like they did in the past but the war cannot stop until they comply with the six conditions drawn up by the Higher Security Committee.”
Al-Asbahi went on to say that the Huthists’ accusations of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s military participation on the side of the Yemeni forces in the war against them “is some kind of deception reiterated by the Iranian media, their teacher, and like what we hear from (Al-Alam) channel, Tehran radio, and other internet websites. We heard this entire baseless dissonant tune” and the Huthists cannot prove these allegations, adding that “Yemen is capable of confronting this deviant group which wants to rip apart the homeland and destroy everything beautiful in it.”
On his part, Muhammad Abdul-Salam, the spokesman for Abdul-Malik al-Huthi, the Huthists’ field commander in Sa’dah Governorate, said their gunmen seized the military positions in Al-Jabal al-Ahmar in Sa’dah and cut off completely the military communications from the army in the area. He added in statements to “Asharq Al-Awsat” that “cutting off communications poses a big problem for the authority and its military command in the area.”
Responding to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Selah’s statements in which he said Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq had proposed to the Yemeni Government to mediate with the Huthists, Abdul-Salam said “these remarks are not new for us and the same was said during the previous wars. They are lies by the state. We challenge him to prove what he says.”