Yemen President: Military option to end conflict is ‘firmly on the table’

Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi said that the military solution is “firmly on the table” to end the crisis in his country, adding this is “due to the rejection of the Houthis to peaceful solutions”.

“The US administration wants to strike Iranian interests in Yemen by supporting a military solution, but Europe wants a political solution, not a military one,” Hadi said in an interview published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper today.

The Houthi group sees itself as sacred and this is a problem. The other problem is that it is receiving orders from Iran, which is seeking to control the Bab Al-Mandab Straits, south-west of Yemen.

“We and Saudi King Salman and his crown prince, want a solution that does not maintain the Houthis’ military force and state within the state.”

Since 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled government.

According to UN officials, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the war, while more than 11 per cent of the country’s population has been displaced.

Read: 57 human rights groups call for UN inquiry in to Yemen