POWDER KEG MIDDLE EAST: Yemeni Leader Calls for National Mobilization against Iran-Backed Houthi Militias, Urges Citizens To Join Armed Forces

Can Yemeni assemble an army to face the formidable Houthi militias in its tracks?

Since 2014, Since 2014, the Houthi rebels have fought a Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

Described by the US State Department as a terrorist proxy of Iran, the Houthis signed a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022, but now they’re back into action – a bigger, more organized and much better armed force.

Earlier this month, the Houthis launched a rapid offensive along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, overrunning government positions in days.

The districts of Hays and al-Khawkhah fell, along with the last major Red Sea port of Mokha. They also conquered Dhubab, the Hanish Islands, and Perim Island in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Now, they control Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline and positions between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Now they are threatening shipping through the strait of Bab al-Mandeb and sending missile and drone attacks on Saudi and Israeli targets.

For a while, the war seemed focused on Houthis attacking Saudis and vice versa, as you can read in Flames and Smoke Seen Rising in Riyadh Airport After Warnings of Strikes by the Houthis and Saudi Forces Bomb Houthi Targets in Yemen – Iran Reports Strikes.

But now, Yemen’s Presidential Council chairman, Rashad al-Alimi, who is also the Supreme Commander of the Yemeni Armed Forces, is calling on his countrymen to unite against the terrorists.

Deutsche Welle reported:

“Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council, on Friday called for a general mobilization in the war-torn country.

‘I call upon the sons of our great people to engage in general mobilization and national mobilization, to rally around their armed and security forces’, al-Alimi said in a televised address.

The head of the governing body urged his compatriots to join the government forces weeks after Yemen’s government was dealt a major blow by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.”

Rashad al-Alimi added that anyone defecting from the Houthis to the government side will be pardoned in an upcoming amnesty, he added.

The Jerusalem Post reported:

“He decried the recent uptick in Houthi attacks as a “dangerous escalation” caused by the terrorist group choosing to act with force and weapons instead of pursuing dialogue and peace.

‘Experience has proven that making concessions to militias does not lead to peace, but rather gives them an opportunity to reorganize their ranks and prepare for a new round of escalation’, Alimi continued.

[…] ‘It is time for this long chapter of suffering to end, and for the Yemeni family to regain its security, tranquility, and normal life’, Alimi urged. ‘Every young person who is saved today from the project of this terrorist group is a building block in the construction of a new Yemen that is reconciled with itself, its neighbors, and the international community’.”

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