Saudi Arabia violator of truce in Yemen: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Hussain al-Bukhaiti, activist and political commentator in Sana’a, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing airstrikes on Yemen.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: When you have a ceasefire announced on Friday and then almost as soon as it is announced, Saudi Arabia continues pounding Yemen, do you think that Saudi Arabia is endangering its world standing or is it doing so because it wants to stand up to the international community saying, ‘I am going to do whatever I want to do on Yemen’?

Bukhaiti: I think they cannot really stand in front of the international community but they know that most of the international community countries are to their side, so they work side by side. But this ceasefire or this truce, the advantage of it, although Saudis keep bombing Yemen, is just this truce has showed the entire world how the Saudis are violating this truce as they did in the previous truce.

But because the previous one they have not directly attacked the capital Sana’a where most of journalists and international media [are] based in, so that is why the international media did not realize that the Saudis violated the previous one and they did violate this one.

And just in the first hour of the truce on Friday there were attacks across Yemen including Sana’a and there was as well attack on wheat trucks and food trucks in Shabwah. Those trucks started moving into Shabwah after the beginning of the truce. They wanted to use the ceasefire to reach and to bring humanitarian aid to that area but, I do not know if you have heard, the spokesperson of the Saudi coalition has announced in the morning of Friday that this truce does not concern them, it does not interest them and they [will] not abide by it and soon after they blamed Ansarullah, the Houthis, of violating the truce. So it is really strange how you do not accept this truce and then you blame the other party that they violated it?

I heard Mr. Asiri has said the same thing on Saudi TV and as well he had a statement that was released on Saudi main newspaper saying the exact thing that they are not interested in this truce and they [will] not abide by it.

Press TV: Here we are looking over a hundred days of these bombardments by Saudi Arabia. I am guessing that in the AQAP, the al-Qaeda terrorists, where they are located, there cannot be so many of them that a hundred days of airstrikes would not have eliminated them. Why is it that these airstrikes have not gotten rid of these al-Qaeda terrorists if indeed killing terrorists would be one of the goals of Saudi Arabia?

Bukhaiti: They do not want really to kill terrorists. They want terrorists to stay active in Yemen and they want to give them air cover. So Yemen would become like Syria, a hub for international terrorists and as well like what is happening in Iraq and Libya and now they might start the same story in Tunisia and in Egypt.

And they do not need these 109 days of airstrikes against al-Qaeda to eliminate it. If they had only a few airstrikes when thousands of al-Qaeda fighters on hundreds of cars have moved from Shabwah after they were kicked out by the Popular Committee and the Yemeni army, they moved from Shabwah towards al-Mukalla in a long convoy. If the Saudis had targeted only this convoy, they could have eliminated about 70 percent of al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen but they have not done that and that is why al-Qaeda is in control now of a large area of Hadhramaut including the capital which is called al-Mukalla.

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