Ranking Commander: Yemen Ready to Enforce New Deterrence Against Saudi Arabia
In a statement on Tuesday, Commander of Yemen’s Coastal Defense Forces Major General Mohammed Al-Qadri warned Saudi Arabia that it must either end its years-long blockade and intervention against Yemen or face the consequences of further escalation.
“The decision to ban shipping for the Saudi enemy came into force immediately on Monday afternoon,” he said, stressing that the Yemeni armed forces possess the naval combat capabilities needed to enforce the measure and prevent Saudi vessels from transiting the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, “just as we did with the Zionist enemy.”
Yemen has become a powerful regional force with military capabilities that allow it to impose a new deterrence balance, the commander emphasized, adding that Riyadh now has only two options, “either lift the blockade and end its intervention or continue escalating, a course that will carry a heavy price”.
Qadri further stressed that “we are fully prepared to enforce the equation: blockade for blockade, airport for airport, and port for port”, while slamming the Arab kingdom for spending the four years of the UN- and Omani-mediated ceasefire delaying implementation of the agreements reached.
The commander added that “economic security is no longer separate from military security”, stressing that Yemen’s options remain unlimited and that its forces are at the highest level of readiness.
Tensions flared between Riyadh and Sana’a earlier this month when Saudi Arabia bombed Sana’a International Airport to prevent the landing of an Iranian plane carrying a delegation of Yemeni officials. The plane, however, landed safely in the port city of Hudaydah.
Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched the blockade on Yemen as part of a full-scale war in March 2015, with military, political, and logistical support from the United States and other Western states.
The war has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis, while falling short of its main objective of restoring power to Yemen’s former Riyadh-friendly regime.
The government had fled the country amid a power struggle, prompting Ansarullah, Yemen’s popular resistance movement, to start running state affairs.
Following a fragile UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022, the United States, Britain, and the Israeli regime waged many rounds of wholesale onslaught against Yemen.
The attacks sought to cripple Sana’a’s capability to stage solidarity strikes against Israeli targets in response to Tel Aviv’s war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.