Analyst: Withdrawal of UAE Forces Proves Failure of Saudi-Led Coalition in Yemen

A prominent Yemeni analyst underlined that the UAE forces’ retreat from the war in Yemen displays the Saudi-led coalition’s failure.

“The Zionist enemy supported by the western hegemonic powers sought to show the UAE army’s incapability and failure in war to pave the ground for misusing the UAE’s resources and facilities under the pretext of military support and singing (lucrative) arms contracts,” Nasser Bin Yahya al-Arjali wrote in Yemen’s al-Ittihad Press website on Wednesday.

Noting that the Zionists attained their goals and the UAE was humiliated in Yemen war, he said, “The UAE forces returned home without any tangible achievements.”

Al-Arjali stressed that the UAE’s withdrawal from the war in Yemen showed the Saudi-led coalition’s failure in war, and asked, “Have they (the Saudis) come to eventually realize that Yemen is a grave for the occupiers?”

His remarks came after Yemeni army spokesman said on Tuesday that the UAE has retreated after suffering heavy losses in his country.

Sharaf Luqman said that the Emirati military men retreated after sustaining heavy blows from the Yemeni army and Ansarullah fighters in several areas across Yemen.

He added that the aggressive countries will never achieve their goal in Yemen and “they are currently not able to advance in Yemen”.

On Oct 23, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) acknowledged that its army has sustained more casualties in Yemen.

An Emirati soldier named Hamoud Saleh al-Ameri succumbed to the injuries he received last September in Yemen’s Ma’rib province, the UAE army announced on Friday.

Al-Ameri was undergoing treatment in Germany.

Earlier in October, an official Emirati report said that the fatalities of the UAE military men killed in clashes with the Yemeni forces had risen to 70.

“Most of the fatalities are related to the Yemeni missile strikes on an arms depot in the Central parts of Ma’rib province on September 4 that left 54 Emirati soldiers killed,” the UAE Center for Studies and Information Dissemination said.

The UAE government, however, declined to announce the exact number of the Emirati soldiers injured in Yemen.

On September 4, the security sources revealed that the Yemeni forces killed a sum of 300 foreign troops, including 54 UAE soldiers, in their attack on al-Safer military base in Eastern Yemen.

The death toll of the UAE, Saudi and Bahraini officers and soldiers killed in September 4’s arms depot blast at a military base in al-Safer in Ma’rib province stood at 300, Yemeni security sources said.

The revolutionary forces in Yemen said they fired a rocket at a weapons cache in a camp used by “the Saudi-led aggressors” in Ma’rib area.

The Yemeni sources noted that high death toll of the foreign troops was the result of the ballistic missiles blast caused by Yemeni missile attack.

On Oct 6, some 18 UAE guards of Yemen’s former Prime Minister Khaled Bahah were killed in rocket-propelled grenade attacks on Bahah’s hotel in the port city of Aden.

Yemen’s former Prime Minister Khaled Bahah escaped to Saudi Arabia once again after 18 of his UAE guards were killed in the rocket-propelled grenade attacks on his hotel in Aden.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 231 days now to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 6,921 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.