‘Al-Qaeda working hand in glove with Saudis in Yemen’: Activist

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

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Looking at the siege on Yemen by Saudi Arabia and of course these bombs that keep dropping and at the same time there are people who are starving to death, adding to the death toll that is almost daily rising. What can be done here to try to get more of a humanitarian relief for the people of Yemen?

Bukhaiti: What the Yemeni people need at this time is to end this blockade on Yemen because we have seen that for nine months there is a sea, land and air blockade on Yemen and banning and not allowing food, materials and medicine to reach Yemeni people and on the other side we have seen that Western countries like the United States are selling weapons to the Saudis.

We hear that the United States has agreed to provide Saudis with the so-called smart bombs that will cost one and a half billion dollars and this is not what the Yemeni people need. We want to end this blockade to allow food and medicine come into Yemen, the same way that the coalition allowing weapons to reach extremists in Yemen especially in the south.   

Press TV: Well let’s talk about those extremists. They just released a video and it was pretty brutal, so the reports indicate at this point that both al-Qaeda and ISIL (Daesh) are gaining ground. There are people that are being obviously influenced by both groups. However, the area of the AQAP is an area that is not being targeted by Saudi Arabia. Do you think Saudi Arabia wants al-Qaeda since they are fighting the Ansarullah fighters not to be targeted, that is they are not targeting them because of their gains against perhaps Ansarullah fighters which is not reported that widely at this point?

Bukhaiti: Exactly. This is the reason to start this war because Saudi Arabia and its coalition and the United States, UK and France have noticed that Ansarullah, the Houthi and the Yemeni army has cleared many areas in the south like Abyan, Shabwah, Lahij and Aden from al-Qaeda members and they want Yemen to be the next al-Qaeda hub after Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan because those fighters of al-Qaeda and extremists, they have to be moved from one country to another country and we have seen that any area that the Saudi money and American weapons are interfering like in Iraq and Syria and Libya, we have seen that they make al-Qaeda exist in those areas.

There was no al-Qaeda or Daesh in Syria. Now we have it there as well in Libya and the same way in Iraq and from the start of this war on Yemen they have not targeted any members of al-Qaeda, which I mean the Saudi coalition has not done that. They used to move freely especially in Hadhramaut and on the top of that after the invasion of Aden we have seen al-Qaeda seizing and controlling area used to be under Ansarullah control and the Yemeni army and they have used as well weapons like Humvees provided by the United Arab Emirates to attack and target civilians in the south.

And in this latest video it is the first time that we have seen the same style Daesh or al-Qaeda used in Iraq and Syria and in Libya by making their victims wear a red uniform and using explosive to kill about six people in a boat and another nine were slaughtered, another four they used Katyusha rocket against them. So this is a clear evidence of al-Qaeda in the south and this is clear evidence that Ansarullah, the Houthi and the Yemeni army they used to fight al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda was working side by side with the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. Until now there are no clashes or any attack from the coalition against al-Qaeda who move freely in a large convoy across the south.

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