Infighting shows Saudi-led war deadlocked: Experts

Young journalists club

News ID: 42901
Publish Date: 11:07 - 11 August 2019
TEHRAN, August 11 -Political experts say the recent armed clashes between Saudi-backed militants and Emirati-backed separatists in southern Yemen indicate how the war against the impoverished country has ended up in a deadlock.

TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -

Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of its allies, most importantly the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in an invasion of Yemen since March 2015. The war has been trying unsuccessfully to restore the government of Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Besides directly bombing the country, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have been lending support to various armed groups aligned with them on the ground.

Throughout the war, sporadic skirmishes have broken out between the Saudi- and UAE-allied militants. This week, however, the two sides engaged in what has been a major escalation in the southern city of Aden. Coalition forces then attacked the positions of Emirati-backed militia.

Saeb Shaath, an author and Middle East expert from Belfast, told Press TV on Saturday that the Houthi Ansarullah movement running Yemen had managed to “push the Saudi war to a stalemate” by successfully deploying its “indigenous weapons” against the aggressors.

Brian Downing, a political commentator from Fort Myers, Florida, agreed by noting that the conflict had been “stalemated,” saying it had reached a point where “neither side can win.”

Enumerating the instances of failure experienced by the Saudi-led coalition, Downing referred to the siege of the western Yemeni port of Hudaydah, which “has gone nowhere.”

“[At this point,] you see debates beginning between the UAE and Saudi Arabia [about] who wants to do what,” he observed.

He also described Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the engineer of the invasion, as “a figure who is ruthless, power hungry, and just wants to dominate the region, and he’s not going to do that…if he can’t dominate Yemen.”

Source: Press TV

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