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Yemen retaliatory attack big embarrassment for Al Saud: Activist

Yemeni supporters of the Ansarullah movement raise their weapons during a rally in the capital Sana’a on July 5, 2015, protesting against airstrikes by Saudi Arabia on the impoverished country. (© AFP)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jim W. Dean, managing editor of the Veterans Today from Atlanta, to ask for his insight on the impact of Yemeni fighters’ attacks on soil of Saudi Arabia.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: To what extent have the Ansarullah fighters been successful and effective in retaliating against the Saudis?

Dean: Well, they’ve done a very good job, actually surprised a lot of people, and being able to project force into Saudi Arabia, which people really did not expect. They thought that they would be conserving their resources to fight the Saudi forces and that they [would be opposing] them inside the country, because once you get doing cross-border operation, you start spreading your troops out, and you become more vulnerable to attacks from different areas, which is what is going on now in Aden, which it appears that the Saudi forces have got a foothold there. And their objective seems to be they’re trying to take over Aden so that…they can reinstitute some parts of the old government there and be in a stronger negotiating position. But the outrageous thing about this is that they’re doing this during the UN ceasefire. And nobody really said much about that.

Press TV: Can the Houthis take the fight to Saudi soil and will Saudi Arabia be able to repel such attacks

Dean: The attacks on Saudi Arabia are just for show, basically do embarrass the government that their troops cannot fight and [their whole] troops had been running away. And this has been a big embarrassment to show Saudi Arabia despite all its tens of billions of dollars weapons, ‘you have to have people that can fight them.’ And even the Yemenis have been fighting for long time, but there’s a risk here that now with the southern port of Aden possibly might be retaken, that will put a lot of wind in the sails of Saudi Arabia. They could care less whether they lose a few bases along the border. There’s really nothing strategic for the Houthis to gain other than embarrassing Saudi Arabia. But if they can recapture Aden, that’s going to be a big blow to the Houthis and they now have to concentrate their forces and when they do that they’re more subject to air attacks. So, what I see developing here, Saudi Arabia is being working on combined operations, counter attacks, and that will be difficult for the Houthis to deal with.


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