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The Shia rebel group of the Houthis boasts of having dealt a heavy blow to Saudi Arabia in recent days. The organization has claimed a military operation on the Yemeni border that would have resulted in 500 dead Saudi soldiers, another 2,000 captured and dozens of destroyed or confiscated armored vehicles.
"Operation Victoria de Dios is the largest military campaign carried out since the brutal aggression began," said Houthi spokesman Mohamed Abdelsalam in reference to the airstrikes launched on Yemen by the Arab coalition leading Saudi Arabia since March 2015 "The enemy suffered serious losses and wide swaths of territory have been released in just a few days, " he added.
For now, Riad has chosen to remain silent. In a press conference, the Houthis have presented as evidence supposed images of the operation. The photograms and video fragments published by the al-Masirah related channel show Saudi armored vehicles in rebel hands, as well as fighters trapped by the Houthis , mostly without uniforms. Two of the captured men claim to come from Saudi Arabia.
The operation was carried out last week in the southern Saudi region of Najran, bordering Yemen. In recent months, Saudi government troops - backed by coalition bombings - have faced Houthis in the Yemeni region of Kataf, in Saada province, near the border with the Saudi kingdom and the land of origin of the Houthi movement that controls since late 2014 large areas of the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula.
In the onslaught, the Houthis claim to have captured three Saudi brigades in the nth blow to the interests of the neighboring kingdom. The organization, backed by Iran, has claimed the attack on two refineries of Saudi oil giant Aramco registered on September 14. Riyadh and Washington have questioned their implication alleging that the aggression with drones and missiles came from the north and pointing directly to Tehran.
The Houthis have launched attacks against Saudi airports near the border and attributed the attack to a Saudi oil pipeline last May. "Our military capacity is not fictitious. Our drones have attacked oil fields , military bases and airports and will do so again if Saudi Arabia maintains its hostilities," Mohamed Ali al Huti, one of the group's leaders, told EL MUNDO recently. "We do not anticipate events. When the operation is executed, the Ministry of Defense will be in charge of announcing it," he added when asked about possible new attacks.
The organization has offered to stop the attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates if, in return, the coalition ceases the bombing. An offer that has not received a public response from Riyadh. In recent days, the US press has echoed the Saudi movements to commit to a partial ceasefire in Yemen , restricted to some areas of the country, in order to relaunch political negotiations and revive the exchange of 7,000 prisoners of each side agreed last December in Sweden, suspended since then.
According to the American newspaper 'The Wall Street Journal', if the truce is respected, the Saudis would even be interested in extending it to other areas of the country, victim of four years of war that have caused, according to the UN, the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet . Independent organizations raise the death toll to more than 90,000 . 14 million civilians - half of the population - are on the verge of famine and diseases such as cholera or diphtheria are at large, fueled by a fierce blockade.
The Houth dome has denied, however, that this offer is being applied. "The leak to some US newspapers about the alleged agreement to cease the bombing in four zones is unofficial. Yemen will only accept a complete ceasefire of the aggression and the lifting of the blockade, " Ali al Huti said. In a hopeful advance, the Houthis have announced Monday that they have released 350 prisoners, including three Saudis, included in the prisoner exchange list signed in December.
In an interview to the '60 minutes' program of CBS television, broadcast in recent hours, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman has repeated his request to Iran to stop backing the Houthis and has claimed to be open to "all the initiatives for a political solution "that puts an end to the contest. "If the world does not take a hard and firm position to deter Iran, we will see new escalations that will threaten world interests," he argued.
"Oil supplies will be affected and crude oil will reach unimaginably high prices, something we have never seen," he added after denying that he ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which this week is making a year. The crown prince, however, assumes "full responsibility" in the crime as leader of the country.
The conflict that Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting in Yemen over their regional hegemony has been transfigured into an endless tragedy for its 27 million people. Since the bombing of the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates began in 2015, the Sana'a international airport - controlled by the Houthis - has remained closed to civil aviation.
The agreement signed last December in Sweden by the Houthis and the Government of southern Yemen has barely made progress. In May, the Houthis completed the withdrawal of their troops from three key ports in the country, a measure supervised by the UN and included in a truce that has not succeeded in ending the violence. The situation has been complicated since the end of last August after the start of clashes between government troops and southern separatists, until then allies in the war against the Houthis.
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