A senior member of the Yemeni terrorist Houthi organization claimed that the jihadists have weapons “capable of reaching the US” and threatened to bomb Saudi Arabia if it aided American airstrikes on his group, the Iranian state media outlet PressTV reported on Monday.
PressTV cited a senior member of what is formally known as “Ansar Allah,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, who appeared on television on Sunday local time to address the ongoing Houthi terrorist campaign against global shipping.
“We conveyed a message to Saudi Arabia that it would be a target [for Yemen’s retaliatory strikes] if it allowed the US aircraft to use its territories or airspace in the aggression on Yemen,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, reportedly said. PressTV added that he “stressed that Yemen has weapons in its possession that are capable of reaching the US.”
Ansar Allah – the Shiite, Iranian-backed terrorist outfit more commonly known as the Houthis – is not the legitimate government of Yemen. It launched a civil war to overthrow the government of the country in 2014 and has retained control of the national capital, Sana’a, since. From the southern port city of Aden, the Yemeni government has attempted to galvanize international support to expel the invading terrorists, with little success.
Saudi Arabia has been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the government of Yemen and regularly attacked the Houthis for much of the time that the civil war has transpired, prompting the Houthis to launch missiles and rocket barrages across the border toward Saudi territory.
Ahead of big F1 race, reports of Iran-backed forces striking Aramco’s oil tanks in Jeddahpic.twitter.com/9BasltmPtU
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Active hostilities between the Houthis and the Saudis diminished significantly after peace talks in September. Houthi leaders then redirected their attention away from the conflict within Yemeni borders in October, declaring war on Israel to support the genocidal fellow Iran proxy Hamas in the aftermath of the massacre of over 1,200 civilians in Israel on October 7.
As part of its war on Israel, the Houthi terrorist organization has used its strategic position south of the Red Sea to target commercial ships attempting to connect Europe and Asia, bombing them seemingly at random. Houthi leaders claim that they are only targeting ships doing business with Israel or those linked to America and Britain, which have jointly launched airstrikes intended to reduce Houthi strike capabilities. In reality, however, the Houthis claim to have targeted 73 ships between October and last week, including ships with links to Houthi funders Iran and friendly rogue states such as Russia and China.
The most recent Houthi attack in the Red Sea region occurred on Saturday against an oil tanker known as the Huang Pu, a Chinese-owned and Chinese-operated ship. That same week, a top Houthi official reportedly met with Chinese and Russian diplomats to ensure those countries their ships were safe from Houthi strikes.
The Houthi warning against Saudi Arabia follows a tumultuous period in diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Washington. Shortly before his election in 2020, President Joe Biden promised to turn the longtime American ally into a “pariah,” responding to the gruesome killing of Islamist writer Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi embassy. As one of his first acts in office, Biden removed the Houthis from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, outraging the Saudi government, which was facing a barrage of Houthi terrorist attacks at the time.
Biden also froze sales of American offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia in 2021, emboldening the Houthis while limiting the Saudis’ defense capabilities.
As a result, the Saudi government has abstained from supporting American interests in the region, including taking no meaningful action against the Houthi Red Sea attacks. The Saudi government did not join Biden’s “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” a failed naval coalition to protect commercial ships, when it was announced in December. No information indicates that the Saudis have participated in or supported the airstrikes against Houthi targets led by the U.S. and U.K. meant to destroy Houthi drones, missiles, and other weaponry used to disrupt commercial shipping.
Following the first American airstrikes on the Houthis, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded “restraint and avoiding escalation” from the United States, after years of being accused of war crimes for its own bombing of Yemen.
The Houthi threats against Saudi Arabia and attack on a Chinese ship follow a claim by Houthi “political bureau” member Ali al-Qahoum on March 17 that the terrorists were receiving support from BRICS. BRICS is an international coalition largely led by China that Saudi Arabia joined last year. The Houthis’ top ally, Iran, and friendly Russia are also in the alliance, alongside India, South Africa, Brazil, and new members Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Ethiopia.
“Yemen plans for the foreseeable future and prepares for the historic defeat of the US, the UK and the West, and the collapse of the colonial project and Western hegemony in the region and the world,” al-Qahoum said, claiming “Russia, China, and the BRICS countries” were helping.
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