Hadi gives pro-Saudi general top military post

Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, has given a top military post to a veteran pro-Saudi general with links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahhabi groups.

General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar was named as deputy supreme commander of the pro-Hadi forces currently fighting against the Yemeni army, Houthi forces and allied Popular Committees.

Ahmar, who served as Hadi’s presidential adviser for military affairs, fled to Saudi Arabia when Houthi fighters took control of the Yemeni capital in September 2014.

Hadi himself resigned in early 2015 before fleeing to Aden. Later, he also fled to Saudi Arabia when the Yemeni army and Houthi fighters overran the Mediterranean port city.

Ahmar is the half-brother of former Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted in the country’s 2011 revolution. At the time, the powerful military figure defected from Saleh’s military and joined a restructured army under Hadi in 2012.

Political observers are pointing to the Saudi role in Ahmar’s appointment, coming at a time of heavy losses suffered by pro-Hadi militants near Sana’a and elsewhere in the war-torn country.

Riyadh has been waging a ferocious war on the Yemeni army and its allied forces  since late March 2015 in a bid to return Hadi to power. 

Reacting to the report, Mohammed al-Maqaleh, a senior member of the Houthi movement, said the appointment would not undermine the Yemeni army’s resistance on the battlefield against pro-Saudi mercenaries.

Meanwhile, a BBC report said Saudi-led forces have joined forces with al-Qaeda terrorists to drive Houthi fighters and allied forces out of the strategic city of Ta’izz.

According to a BBC field reporter, al-Qaeda terrorists and UAE troops fighting on behalf of the Saudi military in Yemen are attacking Houthi positions near Ta’izz in close cooperation.

Al-Qaeda terrorists have taken advantage of the chaos created by the ongoing Saudi war and expanded their presence in the Arabian Peninsula state.

‘Saudi using Canadian arms in Yemen’

Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian National Guard, which is a customer of Canadian-made light armored vehicles (LAVs), has published photos on Twitter, showing the dispatch of military vehicles near the border with Yemen.

According to the Globe and Mail, a significant number of vehicles in the photos have features similar to those in the earlier LAV models built in Canada.

The Canadian Foreign Ministry has not commented on the report, however a retired Canadian general, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the LAVs are Canadian-made.

Ottawa has already come under fire over its arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite the kingdom's dismal human rights record as well as its onslaught against Yemen.

Critics say Ottawa should reconsider a planned $15-billion deal to sell Riyadh more weapons.

“Given a UN report accused the Saudis of war crimes because of their bombing of civilians, then clearly our concern must be that since they are involved in war crimes there, it should give the Canadian government additional pause in shipping these kind of weapons to them,” said Ken Epps with the anti-war group Project Ploughshares, which tracks arms sales.

Under Canada’s laws, it is prohibited to export weapons to the countries that have “a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights.”

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