Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s governments both claim Iran is actively helping the Houthi rebels by providing them with shipments of arms, conducting intelligence meetings with its leaders, and housing Houthi rebels within its borders.
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SANAA, Sept 26- A top official in Yemen’s armed Houthi movement on Sunday offered to stop attacks on Saudi Arabia and an amnesty for Yemeni fighters opposing the group if the kingdom stopped air strikes and lifted a near blockade on the country.
The advances by the Iran-allied Shiites prompted an aggressive counterattack by a Sunni-led coalition.
He insisted that the Government is “using a very, very wide variety of information sources about what is happening to acquaint ourselves with the details” about the war in Yemen, where a Saudi Arabia-led coalition is accused of committing war crimes.
Sammad’s organization is not recognized by the worldwide community, but he also urged the United Nations and “peace-loving states” to exert pressure on the Saudi regime to accept the offer.
The Houthis, who rose up against the Hadi government in 2014, are allied with soldiers loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Despite Tehran urging restraint, the Houthi rebels took the capital of Sana’a and other provinces in Yemen in 2015, provoking a counter-insurgency by an Arab coalition dominated by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States.
The United Kingdom has blocked European Union efforts to launch an independent worldwide inquiry into Saudi Arabia’s war of aggression in Yemen, while several non-governmental organizations including Amnesty global have condemned the Riyadh regime for its war crimes against the Yemeni people.
The UN warned on Friday of rising civilian casualties, saying that 180 people were killed and 268 injured in August, a 40 percent rise on the previous month.
The latest round of UN-led talks over the crisis in Yemen ended last month without any progress and a fragile cease-fire established in April was broken.
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“We shall extract Yemen from the claws of Iran”, Hadi told the General Assembly.
