US, UK complicit in Saudi aggression on Yemen: Activist

PressTV has interviewed Shabbir Hassanally, an activist and Islamic scholar in London, about Saudi Arabia saying the US and British army experts have been advising Riyadh in its aggression against Yemen.  

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

PressTV: What do you make of the US and British army experts advising Riyadh on its targets in Yemen? Are you at all surprised?

Hassanally: Unfortunately yet again, no I am not surprised, it is not unexpected. As we have said before, the Saudi campaign cannot continue without backing and support and sanction from the US and the UK. What is very interesting is that if, or given the information now that the Saudi campaign is being guided and assisted by these Americans and Brits, why so many internationally forbidden places are being attacked such as hospitals and schools including international hospitals run by MSF and other organizations like that?

It is very, very strange and quite disturbing that these countries, Britain and America, are actually breaking their own laws with regard to war by assisting the Saudis in doing this. Not only that, they are also breaking their own laws and this has been discussed … in selling the Saudis weaponry, illegal weaponry such as cluster munitions and such which are known to be used against innocent civilians. So it is a very, very sad, very tragic situation and it is almost as if the entire Western world has gone completely insane with a bloodlust. It is very, very disturbing.

PressTV: Well of course this obviously means that the US and British government forces are just as complicit in the civilian deaths that are being caused by the Saudi aggression now, aren’t they?

Hassanally: Absolutely. This is why I say it is extremely disturbing that the British government, the government of Cameron, the government of Obama, are completely complicit. They have the blood of those innocent children of Yemen, innocent men, women and children of Yemen on their hands and this is not going to be something which helps them going forward. It serves no purpose. At the end of the day, British advisers, British government intelligence personnel, American intelligence personnel must understand that this Saudi regime is on its last legs.

Yemen is a country that is based on culture. It is one of the oldest civilizations on earth and it is going to survive this. This is a given. The fact that Saudi wants Yemen to be subjugated and obedient to Saudi whims, this is going to fail, it is already failing. I mean if you look, even with the UK and US assisting the Saudi family in bombing Yemen, what more objectives has the Saudi campaign achieve? Nothing. Unless of course the war objectives were let’s see how many innocent children we can kill, let’s see how many hospitals we can flatten and let’s take Yemen back into the Dark Ages, so to speak.

If that is the objective, then there is even a bigger issue at play and clearly the international courts, the war crimes courts, the International Tribunal in The Hague need to be on this case and they need to arrest those people who are behind these advisers going to Saudi and these will be people like Mr. Cameron and Mr. Obama and their cabinet and close associates. So it is very, very strange why the Western world is doing this. It is completely illogical and insane.  

Having said that, if we look back in history, there was another Yemen war in the past, I believe it was in the 1940s, and it is documented that the Israelis assisted the Saudis in that war. So it is not surprising and I would not be surprised if behind the US and the UK’s activities in Yemen through Saudi you have Israeli hands and the Zionist lobby working away overtime to make things happen. We have also had statements from the Yemeni military that they have evidence that Israel is bombing, is part of the flagged planes that are actually making sorties over Yemen and killing people. So I would not be surprised if the Israeli hand is there as well.

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