Nation’s steadfastness turned Yemen into aggressors’ graveyard: Ansarullah

The spokesman for Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement says the Yemeni nation, through its resistance, has proved that their country has turned into the aggressors’ “graveyard,” stressing that the Saudi-led mercenaries’ offensive to take control of the western coastal city of Hudaydah would lead to nothing but failure.

“Our people, with full-scale defense of Hudaydah, once again proved that Yemen is the graveyard of the aggressors,” Mohammed Abdulsalam said in a tweet late on Friday.

Abdulsalam further said that the Saudi-led aggressors had already failed to achieve any of their objectives in the war on Yemen due to the “exemplary steadfastness” of the Yemeni people.

“The American-British-Israeli coalition, along with domestic and foreign mercenaries and terrorists groups, including Daesh and al-Qaeda … have failed to achieve any of their objectives after four years of aggression, due to the exemplary steadfastness of the nation,” he tweeted.

Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi announced in a statement on Friday that they had begun a military operation to take over Hudaydah, claiming that they had advanced towards the northern and the western flanks of the port city.

The statement further alleged that pro-Hadi forces were progressing from all fronts with the support of the Saudi-led military coalition.

Yemeni officials say the extent of Saudi-led military aggression on the conflict-ridden country has intensified ever since US President Donald Trump’s administration demanded a ceasefire and the launch of UN-led political talks to end the war.

The chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee of Yemen Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said in an opinion article in The Washington Post on Saturday that “the continued escalation of attacks against the port city of Hodeida in Yemen by the US-Saudi-Emirati coalition confirms that the American calls for a cease-fire are nothing but empty talk.”

“The recent statements are trying to mislead the world. Saudi leaders are reckless and have no interest in diplomacy. The United States has the clout to bring an end to the conflict but it has decided to protect a corrupt ally,” he said.

Al-Houthi said that “Trump and his administration clearly prefer to continue this devastating war because of the economic returns it produces — they drool over those arms sales profits.”

On October 30, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis called for a ceasefire in Yemen and for all parties to come to the negotiating table within the next 30 days.

Al-Houthi further said “the blockade of the port city is meant to bring the Yemeni people to their knees. The coalition is using famine and cholera as weapons of war. It is also extorting the United Nations by threatening to cut their funds as if it were a charity and not a responsibility required under international law and Security Council resolutions.”

He further emphasized that Ansarullah was ready to stop the retaliatory missile attacks if the Saudi-led coalition stopped its airstrikes against the impoverished nation.

The escalating violence in Hudaydah comes as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned that many people were trapped in Hudaydah. Other UN bodies have said an all-out attack on Hudaydah could trigger famine in Yemen.

The port has been an entry point for 80 percent of Yemen’s food imports and aid relief. The conflict has cut off the routes to the city both in the sea and on the land.

In an interview with Press TV, David William Pear, a political columnist, described the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen as a “war crime”.

“No one is really stepping in to help the Yemenis. The people are starving. This is a war crime and a clear war crime. This has been the intended purpose of Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“They have been trying to starve the Yemenis out and there has been actually famine for quite some time and it’s the worst cholera epidemic in history,” he said.

Colin Cavell, a university lecturer, also told Press TV that Saudi Arabia “is doing a massive humanitarian catastrophe on the people of Yemen and the world needs to take notice of this massive humanitarian catastrophe.”

He accused the UK and the United States of complicity in war crimes being committed in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah.

Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression.

More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster on record.