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Protest by Ansar Allah supporters. Ansar Allah is a strong, broad-based resistance movement. Ansar Allah, their supporters and their fighters come from all sorts of backgrounds, united around the common goal of removing the occupiers from their land. File photo.
Since 2015, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and others have been conducting a brutal and genocidal imperialist invasion of Yemen. The Yemeni people have been subjected to what has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, as a direct result of the invasion and blockade. The invasion has been fully supported and aided by the United States, Britain, France, and other imperialist powers. The following is an interview I conducted with my friend Abu Ezzedine Al Yaguri, a representative of Ansar Allah, or as it is sometimes erroneously termed, the ”Houthi Movement.” Ansar Allah is leading the Yemeni people in resisting the imperial onslaught and leading Yemen’s people towards liberation.
Q: First, what is the ultimate goal of Ansar Allah, and how do you envision Ansar Allah Yemen in the future?
A: Ansar are not intruders on the Yemeni people, but Ansar Allah are the sons of the Yemeni people and their goal is to protect the land and honor from the Saudi-Emirati invasion and occupation. And they want to build a modern Yemeni state with a high and good economy.
Q: As you know, but our readers may not, Ansar Allah was founded in 1994 by the late Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi. What are the events and circumstances that led to the establishment of Ansar Allah?
A: When we saw the injustice, with our own eyes, from the Yemeni authorities, and when we saw the … betrayal with America and Britain … when we see false cultures dominating the minds of our sons and daughters, the martyr leader Sayyid Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi taught the students the guidance of God, and the culture of the Holy Qur’an and correction from the false paths. The false Wahhabi paths and cultures were imported from abroad.
Q: In 2004, Ansar Allah began an armed struggle against the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh. Why and under what circumstances did Ansar Allah wage this armed struggle? Can you also explain Ansar Allah’s view of the Saleh regime in general?
A: Ali Abdullah Saleh, under the American-Saudi leadership, waged six wars on the province of Saada in order to destroy Ansar Allah. They used all Yemeni and Saudi means and weapons against Ansar Allah until they reached the point of bombing by planes, but they could not destroy us, because God is with us and we by God is stronger.
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Q: In 2012, Saleh was overthrown after a popular uprising that began in 2011. What role did Ansar Allah play in overthrowing Saleh, and what was Ansar Allah’s reaction to it?
A: When we went out with demonstrations in 2011 in the revolution of the Arab Spring, we had a real goal of overthrowing the rule of the tyrant Ali Abdullah Saleh, because the people that had been ruling Yemen for 33 years were the Saudi ambassador, the American and British ambassador, and Saleh, seated in a chair of power under his American and Saudi puppet masters.
Q: Since 2015, Saudi Arabia, with the full and unconditional support of the United States, Britain, and the United Arab Emirates, has waged a war of genocidal aggression against Yemen. Can you explain to our readers the reality of the brutality unleashed by Saudi Arabia and its allies on Yemen?
A: The states of the coalition of aggression launched an aggressive and absurd war against the Yemeni people in all its sects and social groups, killing children, women, and the elderly. They used internationally prohibited contract bombs in their war on Yemenis of faith, and their supporters. We are the ones who put the Security Council resolutions and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council under our feet, and praise be to God, who changed our conditions and returned us from the state of defending our land, to the state of attack with our drones and our ballistic missiles, with which we strategically target deep within the borders of the states of absurd aggression, led by the quartet of aggression: America, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates.
Q: Ansar Allah played the leading role in resisting the Saudi-led invasion. Can you explain how Ansar Allah resists the invasion, and what progress Ansar Allah has made in liberating Yemen from invaders?
A: Brother, if Ansar Allah were not inside Sana’a, and if we did not defend and fight the coalition countries, they would have occupied Yemen as they are doing now in southern Yemen. The coalition countries loot wealth from natural resources, such as gold and crude oil, in front of the hypocritical “world community,“ and we do not hear any condemnation or denunciation from them, but when the Yemeni people react powerfully and rightly, the hypocritical world barks like rabid dogs, and then you hear the wailing and crying of the countries of the coalition of aggression, and we tell them that they should fight us with honor and manliness, not with their weeping and wailing.
Q: Some, especially in the West, have tried to portray Ansar Allah as a “sectarian” movement, “who are only interested in fighting for the Shiite community in Yemen.” Can you explain why and how this depiction is wrong, and what is actually the relationship of Ansar Allah with other communities in Yemen, as opposed to the Western narrative?
A: Brother, these are strange ideas, and they serve the American project. If they want to possess a country, invade it, or plunder its wealth, they will classify you as a Shiite, a Rafida, and a Magi. These are their intentions and false flags. The coalition is killing the Yemeni people, whose population is about 30 million Yemenis, on the pretext that they are killing the so-called “Persian tide” inside Yemen, and that is supposedly why they are killing us. Truly, why are America, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates killing us? Are we supposed to be Iranians within the Yemeni people? Is it us who have robbed our blood, our land, and our honor?
Q: After the liberation of Yemen from the invasion, how do Ansar Allah plan to rebuild the country from the destruction caused by the invasion? How does Ansar Allah plan to rebuild the Yemeni economy, for example?
A: We will certainly liberate every inch of Yemeni lands, no matter what the cost to us. The occupying and invading states will be expelled like the forces of the British colonial occupation and Ottoman Turkish occupation. Once these forces have been expelled, we will start extracting oil at that time. Yemen has a huge oil reserve, and we will export it abroad, and when we extract Yemen’s oil and export it abroad, Saudi oil reserves will dry up.
Q: One of the groups involved in the invasion of Yemen is the terrorist group al-Qaeda. What is the role of these terrorists in Yemen, and is al-Qaeda supported by Saudi Arabia and the UAE?
A: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the ones who use this terrorist group to destabilize the Arab and Islamic peoples as a pressure card in order to get what they want from the poor countries. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, these two dictatorial regimes, are the Arab Zionists, and the enemies of the Islamic and Arab nation; they work to implement the American project.
Q: Finally, what can the friends of Yemen do, internationally, to support the struggle of the Yemeni people?
A: The world has become hypocritical. There is no country standing with us except for the countries of the Axis of Resistance.
(Medium) by libyajamahiriya
