Tabnak – More than three years after the start of Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen, the battles are still going on between the invaders and Yemeni popular forces. In their latest push to take over a strategic Yemeni port, the Saudis are enjoying the company of a number of Western countries.
According to a report by the French newspaper Le Figaro, French special forces are present on the ground in Yemen supporting the ongoing Saudi-led military operation on the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.
The Saturday report cited two military sources but provided no further details as Saudi Arabia claimed that forces under its command had entered the airport in Hudaydah. France, along with the United States and Britain, backs Saudi Arabia in the Yemen conflict and provides weapons to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The French Defense Ministry said on Friday that France was studying the possibility of carrying out a mine-sweeping operation to provide access to Hudaydah once Saudi Arabia and the UAE had wrapped up their military operations.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam, however, said British and French warships are on standby on Yemen's western coast to launch missile and aerial attacks.
Abdulsalam told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the Hudaydah assault is an American-British operation as the aggressor states - Saudi Arabia and the UAE - are not capable of launching such a campaign.
Meanwhile, another member of Houthi Ansarullah movement said Israeli fighter jets have carried out airstrikes on the western coast of Yemen.
Dismissing reports that the airport of Hudaydah has fallen into the hands of the Saudi-led coalition, Zaifullah al-Shami told Al-Alam News on Saturday that the invaders have suffered heavy casualties and have been forced to withdraw from the airport as far as four kilometers.
The invaders are incapable of continuing the war in the battlefield, he noted, saying the Yemeni Army troops and the popular committee forces have managed to cut the invaders’ access route to several regions in the western areas.
The assault to Hudaydah was launched on Wednesday despite UN warnings that it would compound the impoverished nation's humanitarian crisis. More than 70 percent of Yemeni imports pass through Hudaydah's docks and the fighting has raised UN fears of humanitarian catastrophe in a country already teetering on the brink of famine.
The UN envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths arrived in the capital Sana'a on Saturday for talks on Hudaydah. He was reportedly expected to propose to Houthi leaders that they cede control of the Red Sea port to a UN-supervised committee to avoid further fighting.
However, the Houthi spokesman said Griffiths had so far done nothing to resolve the Yemen crisis despite his numerous visits to Sana'a and talks with Yemeni officials.
