The Houthis of Yemen claimed they completed a successful assault near the southern region of Najran, Saudi Arabia on Saturday. The Houthi’s military spokesman said “three enemy military brigades have fallen” and that they captured thousands of troops and hundreds of armored vehicles.
The Houthis also claimed some senior Saudi officers were among those captured. No Saudi officials have yet confirmed the raid, but the Houthi spokesman said they will be presenting evidence of the captured troops and vehicles in a press conference on Sunday. The Houthis also say the captured troops will be taken to an undisclosed location to protect them from Saudi airstrikes.
The assault comes after Saudi Arabia announced they will be joining a “limited cease-fire” in Yemen. Last week, the Houthis offered a truce with the kingdom. The Saudis did not respond to the truce offer right away and continued airstrikes on the country that were responsible for some civilian deaths.
The Houthis took credit for the September 14th drone attack on Saudi oil facilities that crippled the kingdom’s oil output. Both the U.S. and Saudis blamed Iran for the attack, and the U.S. responded by sending a few hundred troops and some military equipment to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis are truly the Keystone Cops of the military world. This is what happens when you hire foreigners to be front line cannon fodder, treat them like crap, and then to top it off the actual Saudi officers are incompetent cowards. Bravo, SA, bravo.
lordbaldric, So much for the Israeli strategy of using Saudi Arabia as its catspaw in the Mid East. The Israelis shrewdly enlisted the Saudis telling them “Hey, who better manage the sale of Aramco for you .., but here’s what you need to do in return.”
Remember the Israelis are pleased either way. The Saudis were always their enemies, and were next on the target list if they somehow disposed of Iran.
One wonders why the Saudis let themselves be used by the Israelis – they know it, but they also know that they must not depend upon oil – they must kiss Israel’s butt to get Wall Street to peddle Aramco.
great news. its nice when terrorists are captured, not killed and so many…
When a state is getting militarily wrecked like this in a war of its choosing, it is a strong indicator of the serious decline of that state’s power. The thing is, they aren’t alone. The KSA isn’t an independent entity. If they go, so does the petro dollar. If that goes…well…
If that goes population control won’t be necessary.
The thought of resource wars, race wars, and general apocalypse gets too many people excited these days. I hope it’s just a way of expressing dissatisfaction with modern society as a whole.
….DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK! THE HOUTHIS HAVE BEEN HERE FOR YEARS!!….
Allah said, knock you out.
Kashoggi said knock you out…
Whole lotta motherfuckas said knock you out, come to think of it…
If this is even remotely true and not just the usual military claims most forces trot out frequently, this demonstrates massive incompetence on the part of the Saudis. That indeed is the assessment of virtually every military expert who has ever worked with them that I’ve read.
But losing “three brigades and hundreds of armored vehicles” in one battle has got to hurt the Saudis military effort badly. This is the sort of thing the Ukrainians suffered when they went up against the Eastern Ukraine insurgents. You get surrounded and then pounded by artillery and rockets until you forced to surrender.
This is precisely what happened. The scale remains to be seen.
The interesting factoid is, Yemen considered Nadjran its territory.
Saudis do not have military worth anything. I kept saying this for ever. The dollar value of their armament is of little significance when you
a/ do not have soldiers and rely on paid foreign nationals
b/ have impossible geography vs. Yemen
c/ no fighting motivation
The longer this lasts, the more difficult it will be for KSA. While Yemen took it in the chin early in the war (March 2015 – June 2017) as they were unprepared to deal with food and medicine blockade, maintain agriculture by repairing irrigation system, bombed out step land cultivation) and fielding army — eventually compensating for it,
Yemeni population is typical mountain clansmen, who have always been armed.
Each man wears openly a rifle, several rows of ammunition and a dagger. Outside towns they are agricultural folks producing everything’s from corn, wheat, potato, vegetables, fruit including grapes on certain altitudes. Keep kettle, sheep, goats and poultry. Feeding cities is problematic as there are no imports.
What it amounts to is that they are physically more fit then average soldiers, and have geography on their side. They inherited weapons from the state, and have engineering and university resources to pitch in.
Over time, they cab cause damage, but it will make it harder for Saudis to back off.
Hard to see the outcome, when you consider US interests jn Yemen.
It is more than incompetence. It sounds like the people they were using quit on them. Remember there is very little of real Saudi forces, it is all hirelings.
That does not describe a “raid.”
It describes the collapse of an army, as it falls apart in defeat, allies running away and mercenaries quitting on them.
Yes, mercenaries have no reason to fight to death. Just give it a college try.
Mercenaries come in many types. The specific Saudi type is foreign officers leading Sudan’s Janjaweed militia recruits, many just children because they are cheaper and easy to recruit. Their “training” is on the job; those who live are considered trained. That sort of mercenary unit can just dissolve and disappear.
Janjaweed is one more of those fancy branding we create to use in media simplification of foreign policy. to be used by media for public consumption. Brand name is Assad, just as before him Ghadafi or Saddam or Milosevic. It was handy when we leaned on Sudan to separate Darfur. But after amputating South Sudan, it kind off fizzled. The idea then was to secure westward region for eventual energy pipeline from Sudan through friendly West Coast countries to Atlantic.
But now, by far more expeditious approach is the threat of choking off Straits connecting Red Sea to Indian Ocean. Blockade of Yemen is just a sample.
But it is very TRUE that soldiers are recruited in Sudan, as they come cheap. For many, it would be their first pair of shoes.
Very recently a deal was made with Pakistan on recruiting soldiers. But those were to be internal security to free up others for front.
Even bigger problem are Yemeni immigrants and their descendants. Saudi Arabia was for Yemenis a place to earn money. That was a way to supplement their no-cash family economy. Over time, population of Yemeni origin grew. Many are in armed forces.
Saudis were by origin trading clans and transitioned into economy of oil. With it came finance and trade. And until rather recently, immigrants had no path to citizenship. As a wealthy and prosperous immigrant you could do business ONLY by having Saudi partner who just receives share of profits.
The concept of a nation still rather alien.
It is therefore a most curious phenomena that Saudis would actually go to war .
And also most bizarre manner in which the war was conducted.
After April 2015 and until June 2017 — Saudi Arabia was turbo-charged. Muscular weapons purchases, muscular build up of Sunni Islamic militancy in Iraq and Syria, and most barbaric approach to Yemen war.
They targeted infrastructure, agriculture, airports, cranes at port facilities, all civilian infrastructure.
After the coup, Yemen became stalemated. But US continued naval blockade, and UAE with US help kicked out Hadi (Saudi) supporters from the South. Saudi continues campaign against Sana’a and in the face of UAE betrayal lost focus. But after UAE declared withdrawal — South is in chaos again.
Which tells me that Saudi military advisors are failing — what it portends, too early to tell. Saudi set backs part of the same failure.
There will be a shake up of sorts.
It might occur to Saudis that talking big and bad and kicking down weaker, is not a recommendation to push for war with Iran.
What are their options in Yemen? Just.go for more destruction for destruction sake.
Now — looking weak vs Iran, and in utterly weakened position vs US goals in Yemen. What is Riyadh going to do? Strut out Hadi , the imaginary president whose shred of legitimacy was gone years ago. Unless a deal is offered to Houthis they cannot refuse — Saudi guarantee of their independence. Or even in addition, claiming legitimacy over entire territory, until a deal is reached with the South?
It is hard to imagine either North or South accepting to be a beached for US military, no matter what the promises.
Big puzzle remains. Only with each and every demonstration of Saudi weakness — the worse its bargaining position. And its allies, like Egypt that was relying on Saudis to secure Red Sea and the Straits — will doubt its abilities.
It is also from geopolitical perspective not too rosy for US. Being unable to project power using its Gulf allies, how to demonstrate power over Teheran’s backers, Russia and China?
What are the options? Stir mire trouble for Iraq or Syria? They are used to that. They can just bend a little without breaking, and it will blow over.
Other candidates are Lebanon and Venezuela. Israel wants Lebanon, nice real estate as compared to Israel’s uninspiring new construction. US would prefer settling old scores in its own Monroe doctrine backyard.
But there are definite problems starting a conflict in one’s back yard. Russia and China are tired of fending off conflicts, interventions or tensions in their neighborhoods. Sample. Maduro just visited Moscow. Next day two Russian military planes arrived. Presumably servicing old contracts, or just bringing in new capability. Doubts here will remain.
How and where will the hegemony be asserted?
SA soldiers are not very motivated. The destruction of Yemen is mainly caused from the air by SA, US airforces.
The Reuters article was less one-sided than usual, but this line was a strange guess at how the Saudis are likely to respond to the Houthis capturing so many: “The violence could hamper United Nations’ efforts to ease tensions and pave the way for talks to end the war…”
What’s so distinctly violent about capturing instead of killing? And why are Saudi airstrikes never called violence? And why was Reuters so sure the UN was effectively persuading the diplomacy-averse Saudis to talk peace, and that yet another Houthi success won’t convince the Saudis that this whole adventure in nation-building is a fool’s errand?
The Saudis thought it was all going to be “shooting ducks in a barrel”. There’s your “unintended consequences”.
Right off the bat, they blame Iran so they and Israel can keep attempting to get us to kill american boys/girls fighting a country that is no threat to us.
“Riyadh dismissed the claim, saying the assault did not come from Yemen and has blamed Iran. Tehran denied this.”
I guess the Saudi’s would rather the embarrassment came at the hands of the Iranians rather than the Houthi’s. They even beat the Christian with his bible open Pompeo in accusing Iran and that’s a fete in itself.
Almost all of the captured were mercenaries not Saudi’s troops! Most of the captured were under 18 years old! The Saudis and UAE hire these mercenaries with little money and when they fail, as they did in this Houthis attack, they eliminate them to save face!!!
Oh please! We all know Houthis are only good for getting killed by the Saudis. Iran’s guard must have swam across the gulf in the dead of night, switched uniforms, and attacked the Saudi fighters.