Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud has compared the Iran-backed Houthis to ISIS before it seized Mosul and called for a global campaign to end the group as an armed force.
“The Houthis today are what ISIS was before it seized Mosul in Iraq and proclaimed a caliphate: a terrorist movement the world underestimated,” she wrote in an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Tuesday.
She said the international community should set a clear goal to end the Houthis as an armed terrorist force.
Riyadh Airport Attack
Princess Reema opened her article with the Oct. 10 Houthi missile strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, which killed 13 people. She called it “an act of terrorism, pure, simple and evil.”
She praised Ebtehal bint Abdullah, a Riyadh Air passenger services agent who helped travellers escape and guided paramedics through the terminal despite being injured herself.
Threat Beyond Yemen
According to the ambassador, the Houthis have fired more than 1,000 ballistic missiles and drones into Saudi Arabia since March 2016.
She also mentioned UN investigators who say Houthi engineers have taught Al Shabaab in East Africa how to make bombs and modify drones.
She said the group has threatened to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which carries about 10 percent of world trade. Its strikes on Saudi energy facilities this month also helped push oil prices back above $100 a barrel.
She further accused the Houthis of making students as young as 10 chant “Death to America” and sending thousands of children into combat.
How to Defeat the Houthis
Princess Reema said every country should designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization, as the US already has. She also called for cutting off the group’s money, stopping its weapons at sea, and giving Yemen’s government the support it needs.
She said Saudi Arabia has closed its financial system to the Houthis, while Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi air support, have seized more than 750 tons of weapons bound for the group.
Ending the Houthis’ armed campaign, she wrote, is the only path to a Yemeni-led political settlement.
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