Saudi Arabia facing stiff opposition in occupied parts of Yemen

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is facing intense opposition in the areas it occupies in Yemen as Saudi-led military coalition of aggressors continue to invade neighbouring Arab Muslim country Yemen.

The Wall Street Journal has reported the development. “We are under Saudi occupation. We don’t need the Saudis,” it quoted former deputy governor of al-Mahra Ali bin Salem al-Huraizy, who has helped organize protests against the Saudi presence in the past. Saudi Arabia has taken control over the province’s seaports and airports, using them to deploy hundreds of troops in the region.
“There are illegitimate troops in these areas. Are there forces that belong to the Houthis to be fought by the coalition here? The answer is a big ‘no’,” al-Mahra and Socotra People’s General Council member Abdullah bin Issa al-Aafra said.
Many view Saudi presence and its alleged development projects as a pretext for the kingdom to entrench its control in the country by controlling Yemen’s highly vulnerable infrastructure, the paper said.
A senior Yemeni official close to the country’s Saudi-backed former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi explained that even Saudi-allied Yemeni officials had no control over the kingdom’s expansion in the region.
“We are allied with the Saudi-led coalition, but we don’t accept any violation of our sovereignty,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in fear of Saudi retribution.
Many demonstrations have been organized against the Saudi “invaders” since April. In November, Saudi-backed soldiers killed at least two people during a demonstration.
Saudi-backed governor of al-Mahra province Rajeh Saidbakrit claimed those killed were terrorists who had attacked a checkpoint. Huraizy, however, rejected the statement, saying they were ordinary protesters.
Saudi Arabia and its allies unleashed the deadly military aggression against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall the country’s former Riyadh-allied regime.