SAUDI ARABIAYemen pledges to escalate campaign to break Saudi blockadeChairman of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council Mahdi al-Mashat has pledged to escalate the campaign to break the Saudi blockade.

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Chairman of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council Mahdi al-Mashat has hailed the glorious September 21 Revolution as a turning point that ended foreign tutelage over Yemen, pledged to escalate the campaign to break the Saudi blockade, and reaffirmed Sana’a’s solidarity with Iran, Palestine and the Axis of Resistance.

In a statement issued on Sunday marking the 12th anniversary, al-Mashat congratulated Leader of the Revolution Sayyed Abdul-Malik Badreddine al-Houthi and praised the Yemeni people, the armed forces and security services, as well as the families of martyrs, the wounded and captives.

He thanked Almighty Allah for a new victory, the expulsion of Saudi-backed forces from all districts of the western coast. He also congratulated recently freed captives and pledged that the release of all remaining prisoners remains a national, faith-based, humanitarian and revolutionary duty.

Yemeni Armed Forces have recently pushed back Saudi-backed Yemeni militants from parts of the country’s western coast, including the strategic port city of al-Mokha and several coastal islands, and say they have consolidated their control over areas overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Al-Mashat said the annual commemoration is an act of reverence for a people who chose to break free from “the claws of foreign guardianship and hegemony.”

The revolution, he said, exists so that “an informant working for a foreign state” cannot be imposed on Yemen under a so-called legitimacy manufactured by aggressor states “in a hotel in Riyadh.”

He stated that pre-revolution elites squandered national wealth, manufactured crises and surrendered Yemeni decision-making to foreign powers. Those forces of influence and corruption, he said, failed to build a real state after the republic was established and left behind a fragile country.

He recalled the security collapse that preceded September 21, including the slaughter of Yemeni soldiers by al-Qaeda and a wave of assassinations and bombings that he blamed on official complicity, foreign dictates and elite power struggles.

The September 21 Revolution, al-Mashat said, was Yemeni in identity, popular in mobilization and funding, and national in leadership. It rejected revenge, erected no gallows and set up no field courts, choosing amnesty instead. Its central slogan, he added, was freedom and independence and the end of guardianship and dependency.

Colonial powers, he stated, plotted against that project and launched a “criminal aggression” led by Saudi Arabia and supervised by the United States, announced from Washington, because they rejected a free and independent Yemen. Despite vast resources, more than 250,000 airstrikes and an “unjust Saudi blockade,” the campaign collided with the will of the Yemeni people.

Sana’a, he said, never closed the door to peace. It offered sincere initiatives and concessions, insisting only on an end to the aggression and blockade. During the de-escalation period, Yemen called on Riyadh to implement the roadmap and complete the peace process. The Saudi regime, he said, chose obstinacy, tightened the siege and exploited Yemen’s preoccupation with supporting Palestine.

Al-Mashat said the suffering of the Yemeni people has reached a point that can no longer be tolerated. After million-strong rallies on the “Friday of Warning and Mobilization,” the leadership moved from demands to action and announced the equation of “blockade for blockade and escalation for escalation.”

He said the armed forces’ operations on parts of the coast are a sovereign national campaign to expel Saudi-backed forces. At the same time, government institutions have begun restoring services in liberated districts. At the same time, he added, the revolution is advancing development by strengthening agriculture, local production and Yemeni goods.

Al-Mashat condemns false Saudi claims of Mecca strike

Al-Mashat condemned false Saudi claims that the Yemeni army targeted the holy city of Mecca, saying the world knows “the nobility of our army” and that Riyadh is engaged in empty posturing.

He renewed an offer of presidential amnesty to those “deceived by the Saudi enemy” and urged them to return to Yemen’s embrace.

Looking ahead, he said Yemen, under the Leader of the Revolution, will press on until the aggression and blockade end, airports and ports reopen, national resources are restored and compensation is paid. Options will escalate and take “more painful forms,” he warned. Yemen, he insisted, has no hostility toward any neighboring Arab or Islamic state and has not attacked any country; it is the one that has been attacked.

Al-Mashat said Yemen’s seat at the United Nations is vacant and that whoever claims it in New York represents “the voice of the Saudi enemy,” not the Republic of Yemen. Maritime traffic in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, he added, remains safe except for vessels of the Saudi enemy.

Genuine and just peace, he said, remains Yemen’s strategic choice, and the least costly path for others.

He renewed Sana’a’s “principled, faith-based commitment” to the oppressed Palestinian people. He affirmed that Yemen stands with the Muslim Iranian people and their Islamic system, and with the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and across the other fronts of the Axis of Jihad and Resistance, under the principle of the unity of fronts.

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