Assiri: Glad to have this conversation over the phone with you, especially because you are currently in Sana’a witnessing all the events, meaning your questions will be coming from inquiries circulating among every Yemeni citizen in the country. Before we start, I would like to say to all Yemenis that Ali Abdullah Saleh is the cause of all the current battles in Yemen, he handed over the state’s arsenals, the army, and the Yemeni public to the Houthis with the aim of destroying Yemen and its people.
Yemen Times: Some say that the coalition forces stopped at the gates of the north, what is the goal of the delay in resolving the battles in the north, especially in Taiz governorate, which people say you have abandoned?
Assiri: Those who say the collation have stopped at the borders between the south and the north to prepare for separation are wrong, we did not stop at the gates of the north, an evidence of that is the fact that we are continuing to fight in Marib governorate and the air raids are striking in many governorates.
As for why the southern fighters along with the military hardware we provided them stopped at the end of the southern borders and haven’t proceeded towards the north, that happened for several reason none of which is an intention of separation as some media outlets have reported, and these reasons are:
Fighters cannot fight in another governorate, the way they fight in their own governorate or city because the landscape in north differs from the south; they also don’t know the people in these areas. Another reason for why members of the Resistance need to stay in their governorates is to maintain peace and security, and not to allow other armed groups to take advantage of the Resistance’s absence.
Is this a confirmation of your support for Yemeni unity?
We assure all Yemenis that stopping the military power from proceeding to the north is not a sign of separation and has nothing to do with that, these are merely our plans in times of war. We assure all our Yemeni brothers that the coalition supports the Yemeni unity, we treat Yemen as one entity, we don’t differentiate between one governorate and another one.
“The collation came to answer the request made by President Abed Rabu Mansur Hadi, the president of the Republic of Yemen, not the president of the south or the north only. The coalition will continue to support the Yemeni unity and will not support any measures leading to the separation of Yemen. We will return the legitimacy, the army and the arms to one state called the Republic of Yemen.
The topic of unification or separation is a Yemeni matter, the coalition doesn’t determine this matter, it is a choice for Yemenis to make not for the coalition. When the war is over and Yemen is safe, Yemenis can determine the form of their state and decide whether to keep the unity or not.
But the coalition have abandoned the Taiz-based Resistance although they were very close to victory, how do you explain that?
We did not abandon the Resistance nor have we let them down, but every governorate needs different military plans and tactics in order to liberate it, Taiz is different from the governorates that were liberated.
Military actions differ from one governorate to another, this is not a 90-minute football game where everything is resolved by the end of the game. This is a war against militias fighting with the arms of the army which was handed to them by Ali Saleh.
Everyone knows that Taiz has millions of residents, it is a has a high population density, and it is part of our duty to protect civilians’ lives, this is why resolving the battle in Taiz was delayed but it will happen very soon. We could not support the resistance in Taiz like we did in the south because it has a large number of Houthi and Saleh supporters, who are ready to burn down and kill its people, we do not want that. Taiz’s situation is sensitive and we are carefully planning to liberate it with the aim of avoiding heavy civilian causalities
Liberating the southern provinces was faster than Taiz due to the population number, the landscape, and the number of Houthi and Saleh supporters.
Why did you choose to start the battles for the north in Marib governorate and work your way towards Sana’a, instead of starting from Taiz or Ibb?
Asiri: When the coalition chose to start from Marib or from the south it was not due to any prejudice towards any governorate, but the battles and military plans differ from one governorate to the other, we are obliged to liberate all of Yemen.
It is said that the Houthis and Saleh’s forces withdrew from the south according to a political agreement which binds them to withdraw and guarantees that UAE forces takes over in order to guarantee unity, so their withdrawal was not due to their defeat as the coalition claims, how do you respond?
Asiri: This is not true, we evicted them from the south , the south was liberated due to their military defeat as their power and influence weakened, and this will happen on the rest of the governorates.
As for the presence of the UAE forces, it is merely to help the national army and the Popular Resitance to keep the peace and security.The coalition is obligated to support the legitimacy forces with arms ,logistical assistance and other kinds of support, the presence of UAE forces is part of our obligation to the legitimate government in order to keep the peace in Aden
Coalition forces claim that they have destroyed all the strategic weapons controlled by Saleh and the Houthis, however every once in awhile we hear that a missile was launched from a mobile missiles launcher, does that mean that some of your targets are built on missing information?
Asiri: “It is true that we have said in more than one conference that we have destroyed strategic weapons owned by Houthis. We discovered that we have missing information, when Houthis launched several missiles into Saudi Arabia (which were intercepted mid-air), but we continue to hit our targets, and our intelligence continue to feed us with all the information needed in order to eliminate the rest of the arms belonging to Saleh and Houthis.
The coalition forces, as we hear, suffer from betrayals on the battlefields from those who seem loyal to them, this disrupts and prolongs the battles, are you still suffering from this problem…and how are you confronting it?
Asiri: this is a very good remark, we can replace the word betrayal with disagreement. Because disagreements and lack of unanimous decisions are what prolonged and delayed some battles, the Popular Resistance fighters that we coordinate with are not trained as army soldiers and they are not regular troops, there are some difficulties in coordination and communications when it comes to military planning as some of the resistance fighters lack military experience and this is only in some fronts not all of them.
Add to that, the Yemeni tribes sometimes disagree among themselves on understanding some concepts, clarifying ideas, unify their decisions ,and their ability to accept the opinions of others, it takes times to resolve these issues, and we have suffered from such issue, but we are about to overcome these problems completely.
Some media outlets reported that the collation attempted to carry out soldiers landing operations in several northern provinces, and that Egyptian and Sudanese soldiers were supposed to land in Al-Hodeidah and Makha, but the United States interfered and stopped this operation, how true are these reports?
Asiri: these are all baseless allegations, the US did not interfere in any landing operations and so far we did not attempt to perform such operations in any of the governorates you mentioned.
let us talk about the border area between the two countries, the Houthis are always claiming that their fighters have infiltrated the Saudi territories and that they control parts of Najran and Jaizan, how do you respond?
Asiri: these are all lies, those who claim must prove it.
Houthis are posting videos and photographs of Saudi locations they claim they have taken control of, aren’t these evidences of their advancement into Saudi lands?
Asiri: some of their footage are real, only the footage are real, but their incursion claims are false. Sadly, Houthi militants risk their lives trying to take a photo in order to claim that they have taken over our lands. Unfortunately most of those who take these photos or videos get immediately killed by our forces. They basically sacrifice their lives
Sadly, the Houthi fighters are trying to take those photos and record those videos by risking their lives, only to pretend they have infiltrated our territories. Most of those who tape those videos get immediately killed by our forces, they basically kill themselves in order to photograph themselves inside the Saudi territories to give the allusion that they have infiltrated the Saudi borders.
Houthis spread propaganda to compensate for their repeated loses in all fighting fronts, we assure everyone that the Saudi borders are fully secured and they have not infiltrated it, and all their claims are baseless.
In a recent interview with Al-Qaeda leader Jalal Baleedi and on social media AQAP members have been threatening to seize the coalition’s machines and equipment after the war is over, and use it to control Yemen and start an Islamic Caliphate. What do you think?
Asiri: we have developed military plans to avoid the all bad scenarios including what you mentioned in your question, and Al-Qaeda will not achieve any of their goals. And there is no truth to the rumors spread by Saleh and Houthis regarding Al-Qaeda’s control over areas in the south. Al-Qaeda took advantage of the weak former army and expanded within Yemen, , but the coalition will train a strong national army that will fend off and eradicate Al-Qaeda.
When there is a strong army and a strong government it would be difficult for Al-Qaeda or any other militia to control any part of Yemen, we will cooperate with the Yemeni government to build a strong army that will protect every inch of its land. We assure everyone that the collation have taken all necessary measures for the post-Houthi era.
The UAE is sacrificing its soldiers for the war against Houthis and Saleh and on other hand it is harboring Saleh’s son, and Khalfan appears to be supporting Saleh and his son’s position while their troops are killing UAE soldiers in Aden, does this duality serve the collation’s objectives in the war? If not, how would you explain it?
This is an Emirati affair, however we assure you that the UAE did not and will not take any measures that will hinder the collation’s goals; any measures taken by the UAE are all in the coalition’s best interest. Victory is close, righteousness will triumph, the conspirators against Yemenis will be exposed, and the truth about Saleh and the extent of his haterd towards the Yemeni public will be revealed.
Brigadier General Asiri refused to talk about the fate of the capital Sana’a, whether the solution is going to be a political or a military one. He also refused to talk about the coalition’s future plans or about anything outside the military framework.