Seyed Nasrallah:

Saudi war on Yemen has failed

Rasa - Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement, says the Al Saud regime has failed to achieve its goals in its brutal military aggression against the Yemeni nation.

News ID: 2468

Date: 06 May 2015 - 18:37

RNA - “Tell me about a single objective that has been achieved. Has Saudi Arabia restored the so-called legitimacy in Yemen? Has it managed to prevent the expansion of the Yemeni army and popular committees? Has it confiscated the arms of Ansarullah? Has it been able to return [former fugitive Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh] Mansur Hadi to his country?” Nasrallah asked in a televised address on the latest developments in the region on Tuesday.

Riyadh launched its military aggression against its southern neighbor on March 26 - without a United Nations mandate - in a bid to undermine Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement and to restore power to Hadi, a staunch ally of Saudis.

The Hezbollah chief rejected as lies the Riyadh regime’s claims of victory in the war on Yemen, asking, “Do Arab citizens accept such deception and misinformation? As an Arab citizen I want information about the objectives that were allegedly realized.”

He further said the Saudi kingdom seeks to gain dominance over Yemen by launching a bloody war on the neighboring nation, saying, “Have they managed to achieve their real objective by restoring their hegemony over Yemen?”

He lauded Yemeni people’s resistance against the Saudi aggression, saying Riyadh could not weaken the Yemenis.

“We are before a clear and obvious Saudi failure and a clear Yemeni victory. This is the result of the firmness and steadfastness of the Yemenis,” the Hezbollah chief said.

On April 21, Riyadh announced the end of the first phase of its military operation, but airstrikes have continued with Saudi bombers targeting different areas across the country in a new phase.

The Saudis claim the airstrikes only target military positions. However, reports show civilians and infrastructure in civilian areas are being attacked. Recent reports also show Saudis have used cluster munitions in the northern province of Sa’ada.

The attacks have so far killed over 1,200 Yemenis, including many women and children, and injured thousands of others.

Riyadh declared the end of “Decisive Storm” operation against Yemen and announced the beginning of a new phase dubbed “Operation Restoring Hope.”

“The launch of Operation Renewal of Hope was an attempt to cover up for the failure of the first round of the war against Yemen,” he stressed.

He further criticized Saudi Arabia and its backers in the aggression against Yemen for their hypocrisy in the war and blocking humanitarian aid to the Yemeni people.

“They claimed that they want to fight terrorism but they are offering arms to al-Qaeda and bombing the popular committees to prevent them from reaching the regions where al-Qaida is operating. They have prevented any humanitarian aid from reaching Yemen,” he stressed.

Nasrallah added that the main reason behind the assault on Yemen is “that Saudi Arabia is seeking hegemony.”

He further praised the victories by Yemeni people, calling on the international community to step up efforts to help the Yemenis.

“The world has a responsibility to confront this aggression's repercussions at the humanitarian level,” the Hezbollah chief added, condemning Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemeni and destroying the infrastructure of the country.

He said, “Exerting pressure by killing children and women is a futile policy.”

Iraq

Hezbollah chief further referred to the developments in Iraq, saying the US is seeking to split Iraq under the pretext of fighting the ISIL Takfiri group.

“After the IS [ISIL] seized control of Mosul and started threatening the rest of the provinces and the region, a US-led international coalition was formed to fight it. Back then we said that the US is not serious in fighting the IS [ISIL] and that it would utilize the threat of the IS [ISIL] in the region to realize its own scheme for the region. We said that the US has a scheme to fragment these regions on sectarian and ethnic basis -- Arabs, Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites,” Nasrallah added.

Nowadays, the Americans have revealed their true intentions through their attempt to bestow legitimacy on the fragmentation of Iraq, and this is what the US Congress is trying to do, he noted.

The draft of a US annual defense bill, which was released on April 27 by the House Armed Services Committee, urges the US government to recognize separate Kurdish and Sunni states and provide them with at least 25 percent of the USD-715-million aid money allegedly planned to be given to the Iraqi government to help it fight the ISIL terrorist group.

The draft bill also says the figure could even amount to 60 percent of the money, about USD 429 million.

The bill mandates that “the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Sunni tribal security forces with a national security mission, and the Iraqi Sunni National Guard be deemed a country,” adding that doing so “would allow these security forces to directly receive assistance from the United States.”

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