Saudi-led coalition, Hadi regime liable for ‘shameful defeat’ in Ma’rib battle: Yemeni parties

Several Yemeni parties, including al-Islah, have blasted Saudi Arabia and its allied regime of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi for failing to stop the advances of Yemeni armed forces in strategic Ma’rib Province.

In a joint statement released on Tuesday, the parties expressed surprise at the ill performance of the Saudi-led coalition and its mismanagement of the tasks assigned to it in the Ma’rib fighting.

“Hadi and his government failed miserably in managing the battle in Marib,” they said, according to the Beirut-based al-Mayadeen news network.

They further slammed the performance of Hadi’s forces as “a miserable failure in fulfilling its responsibilities at various levels, politically, militarily, economically, as well as in the media at all levels locally, regionally and internationally.”

The Hadi regime’s failure, according to the Yemeni parties, was reflected in the project of confronting and resisting the forces of the Sana’a government, which is run by the Ansarullah movement.

“The Hadi government is fully responsible for this shameful defeat and we condemn it. All forces should be mobilized to confront the Sana’a troops and prevent them from entering Ma’rib.”

Meanwhile, according to a pro-Hadi news website, nearly 3,000 Saudi-backed militants were killed and injured in the battle for Ma’rib in October.

On Sunday, al-Khabar al-Yemeni cited medical sources as saying that 1,323 pro-Hadi militants, including senior commanders, were killed in Ma’rib last month, while 1,615 others were injured.

Yemeni forces close to liberating Ma’rib as major tribe switches sides to back Ansarullah

Yemeni army soldiers and allied fighters from Popular Committees are close to liberating Ma’rib city on the back of tribal support.

Ma’rib residents used as human shields

On Monday, a member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council censured the Saudi-led coalition and its mercenaries in Ma’rib for using residents as “human shields.”

“It is not fair for the residents of Ma’rib to be used as human shields on the front line of hostilities,” Mohammad al-Bakhiti wrote in a tweet.

Bakhiti also renewed the call for the safe handover of Ma’rib to Yemeni government forces.

The oil and natural gas-rich province of Ma’rib has turned into a focus of the Yemeni army’s liberation operations since last year.

Currently, Yemeni army soldiers and allied fighters from Popular Committees are inching towards Ma’rib’s provincial capital following new gains on the ground that ensued clashes with Saudi-backed militants and reconciliation agreements with local tribes.

The Saudi-led coalition has been conducting deadly air raids to prevent the Yemeni troops from reaching Ma’rib city.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on its southern neighbor in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies, and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western countries.

The aim was to return to power the Hadi regime and crush the popular Ansarullah movement which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

The war killed tens of thousands of Yemenis and turned entire Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. However, the war coalition has stopped well shy of reaching its goals.

Yemeni forces have gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the impoverished country.

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