Pak Sahafat – At the end of the seventh year of the war imposed on Yemen, the Yemeni army, in response to the incessant Saudi attacks on residential areas and the siege of their country, targeted targets in Saudi Arabia, including the Aramco facility, to end the war.
A spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Yahya Sari, explained the attack on Friday night that Friday’s operation was the third operation aimed at defeating the siege of Yemen to find a way out of the deadly siege.
Friday’s attacks on Saudi Arabia after seven years show that the spirit of war in the region has not yet been counted and that the Saudis, who initially had the support of a coalition of 30-40 countries, have not succeeded in this unequal aggression.
Now, seven years later, the Saudis can be proud that they have killed 370,000 Yemeni Muslims and injured more than a million more. In return, neither Abdurrahman Hadi Mansour was able to return to power, nor did they succeed on the battlefield.
Geographically, the National Army and Ansarullah now have the upper hand, and while at the beginning of the war in 2016 they carried the title of the weakest Arab army, they are now hitting anywhere in Saudi Arabia with their missiles and drones.
Saudi Arabia did not achieve much politically either, because in the first 30-40 countries, there was no one left except the UAE, which has become a serious rival of Dariman, and the war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s position not only in the Arab League but also in GCC has also shrunk, leaving the cost of the war to Saudi Arabia, which Muhammad bin Salman himself had to explain.
The intensification of this trend, on the first day of the eighth year of the war imposed on the Yemeni people, reminds us of the old questions related to the war in Yemen; Questions that have not yet been answered in detail; why did Saudi Arabia enter this swamp and who encouraged Riyadh to dive into it? And who are the main winners and losers of this war?
To answer these questions, one must take a moment back from the Saudi invasion of Yemen on March 25, 2015, coinciding with March 25, 2015; in the days when the equations of war on both sides of the regional front, namely, terrorist forces and defenders in Iraq and Syria, had changed.
Defeat in regional games
Saudi Arabia, which has invested heavily in Syria since entering the game in 2011 and laid all its eggs in the basket of several al-Qaeda-born terrorist groups with great confidence, has entered the battlefield in Syria and Iraq after ISIS entered the arena of the success of his plans as certain, but Iraq shattered all predictions and equations.
The day after the fall of Mosul in northern Iraq and the proclamation of the caliphate by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a nationwide mobilization was formed in Iraq with the historic fatwa of Ayatollah Sistani, and Russia was preparing to enter the equations of crisis in the region, especially in the Syrian war; In particular, the commander of the war on terror, the martyred General Qassem Soleimani, had succeeded in convincing the Russians of the dangers that would affect the future of the region and even large areas of Russia, especially the Caucasus.
Operation Tikrit and the beginning of a change in the balance of power in the region
With this background, we are approaching the last days of the year 93; the days when the operation to liberate Tikrit began in the first decade of March of that year.
The operation to liberate Tikrit began with the full participation of al-Hashdal al-Shaabi and the Iraqi army Special Forces, as well as the federal police, at a time when the resistance forces in Syria and Iraq were in a defensive and offensive position in the war against terrorists, especially ISIS.
Finally, March 11, 2015, the day when the forces of Al-Hashdal Shaabi and the special units of the Iraqi army called “Swat” entered the city of Tikrit from several axes after 9 months, and while the city was on the verge of complete liberation, the same noon Iraqi Prime Minister’s Day issued an order to withdraw.
Everyone was surprised; from the forces that penetrated to the heart of ISIL with individual and hand weapons and crossed the streets of Tikrit one after another, to the commanders who were confused about the order that was issued?
On the evening of March 11, most commanders were silent; in the evening after the evacuation of Tikrit, there was no news of Ahmad al-Assad being ousted by the forces under the command of the “Books of Jundalamam” who had broken the heart of ISIL.
When we left Tikrit for the city of Samarra on the evening of March 11, there was a serious discussion between the commanders and the forces of Al-Hashdal al-Shaabi and even the Swat forces, which ordered the withdrawal under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Haidar al-Mayahi, a photographer in those days who later led foreign journalists to al-Hashdal al-Shaabi and was martyred in the operation to liberate Mosul late in the war, said the order to withdraw was issued under Saudi pressure.
From the existing analyzes and perceptions about that strange and unreasonable withdrawal, there were two reasons; One is that the Saudis humiliated the liberation of a Sunni city, especially Saddam’s hometown, one of the most dreaded dictators of the century by Shiite forces, a jihadist organization formed following Ayatollah Sistani’s historic fatwa, and even in joint messages with the Americans.
The second reason was the news of the presence of Ezzat Ibrahim al-Duri, Saddam Hussein’s deputy and dictator’s right-hand man, as well as Saddam’s daughter Raghad in Tikrit, whom the Americans and Saudis sought to save in any way possible.
A few days later, the Iraqi media reported that the two had left Tikrit by helicopter with several ISIL commanders, and that the city was completely cleared about two weeks later in mid-April 2015.
The Saudis had been pushing hard for weeks to prevent the start of the operation in Tikrit, and in the midst of the operation, they had put intense political pressure on the Iraqi government to prevent al-Hashdal al-Shaabi forces from entering the city.
The Saudis later made extensive efforts to prevent the liberation of the city of Fallujah; A city that had completely fallen into the hands of ISIS since December 2013 and many crimes had taken place there.
Is it possible to find a connection between the Tikrit operation and the Saudi invasion of Yemen?
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Operation Tikrit was, in fact, the end of the Saudis’ regional dreams, which, without reckoning and with huge investments in Syria and Iraq. In fact, Operation Tikrit was the starting point for Riyadh’s failures in its regional plans.
Saudi Arabia is entering a new phase
The operation on March 11, 2014 to liberate Tikrit was halted in order to fulfill the possibilities that were never officially announced, and of course, it was unofficially announced that Ibrahim Ezzat al-Duri and Raghad Saddam were transferred from Tikrit to an unknown location. About two weeks later, on March 25, 2015, Tikrit fell to Iraqi army forces without a fight.
The operation in Tikrit and the defeat of ISIS in the city, in which the terrorists were said to have stood in a dignified manner, was perhaps the main bullet fired at the supporters of terrorist groups in the region.
The operation practically disappointed the pro-ISIS countries, as most of them later changed their tactics and Saudi Arabia is at the top, but no one knew what the next move of the Saudi leaders would be, and in those days it might be thought that it was difficult to attack Yemen.
However, exactly two weeks after the semi-finished operation on March 11, 2014, in Tikrit, the Saudis started the war against Yemen in the form of a coalition on April 26, 2015, coinciding with March 24, 2015.
Falling from hole to well
A question that has arisen after 7 years is whether the regional defeat, especially in Iraq and Syria, and the disruption of all plans and predictions, influenced the Saudi decision to attack Yemen?
The fact is that the time of the beginning of the unequal war in Yemen coincided with the beginning of the successive defeats of the takfiri groups affiliated in Syria, and especially ISIS in Iraq. In the months and weeks leading up to the Yemeni war, the equation of war in Syria and Iraq shifted in favor of the resistance forces, and the resistance entered an offensive phase.
There have been many analyzes in this regard, which mainly attribute the attack on Yemen to the heavy blows in Iraq and the beginning of the change of pace of the battle from defense to offensive by the resistance forces in Syria.
Who encouraged Saudi Arabia?
Who, what circumstances and factors encouraged Saudi Arabia to go to war against Yemen, has a wide range, For example, we can mention the nature of the role played by regional and supra-regional powers with the aim of destabilizing the past half century in Yemen.
The imbalance of forces in the region with the start of whispers of US migration from the Middle East and Washington’s focus on the Far East can also be considered as one of the reasons for the Saudi invasion of Yemen.
But the main point is that some pushed Saudi Arabia into the swamp of Yemen, which can be justified for each of the incentives;
Israel; The Zionists have been extremely sensitive about the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea for decades; The Zionists are arguing over who can control this waterway, and finally, after normalizing relations with the UAE, they have fulfilled part of this demand; With the occupation of the island of Socotra by the Emirati people at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden and along the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb, they established a foothold for themselves.
Western countries, especially the United States, Britain and France, should not be ignored in igniting the crisis in Yemen. Over the past seven years, these countries have sold significant amounts of heavy weapons, equipment and weapons to Saudi Arabia and the southern countries of the Persian Gulf, and have reaped special benefits from the war in Yemen.
Perhaps another reason for encouraging Saudi Arabia to enter the Yemeni swamp should be sought within the Arab League; where at first about 30 countries joined the Saudi coalition and after a year this number even reached about 40 countries and Riyadh, thinking that it has a great support of its allies, even made efforts to religiousize the war.
But the passage of time has left the Saudi leaders facing a bitter reality, with virtually no one from the 40 countries except the UAE, which after a few years became Riyadh’s rival in the Yemeni war, and Sudan only sent mercenaries to Yemen and did not enter the scene of the war in Yemen, and its allies, such as Bahrain, do not have a local Arab militia.
The Saudis did not even succeed in dragging some countries, such as Pakistan and Egypt, into the unequal war in Yemen.
The Yemeni National Army and Ansarullah, along with the people who stand up to the aggression, are making things difficult for Saudi Arabia these days.
Saudi Arabia, which first entered the hole by entering the security crisis in Syria and Iraq, has fallen into the hole seven years ago by entering the Yemeni war.
The prolongation of the war in Yemen is certainly not in Saudi Arabia’s interest; The Israelis are the first winners of this war, and the European powers and the United States are the second winners, and the continuation of the war will create safe grounds for the growth of terrorism in the region, and Saudi Arabia will again be the main loser in this game!