Zafar Bangash
The Bani Saud-occupied kingdom is in turmoil. It is not only because of the Yemeni Islamic revolutionary group Ansar-Allah’s successful missile strikes on Saudi airports and energy infrastructure, the regime also faces internal challenges.
It has caused great panic among the Bani Saud, especially the de facto ruler, Muhammad bin Salman (MbS). He bears primary responsibility for the mess the medieval kingdom finds itself in today. Will he survive the crisis?
Already beset by numerous problems, MbS exacerbated the crisis by relaunching attacks on the Ansar-Allah, especially the unprovoked bombing of Sana‘a International Airport on July 13, 2026. The attack was launched as a Mahan Air flight was bringing the Yemeni delegation back from Tehran. The Yemenis had gone to Tehran to attend the funeral services of the martyred Supreme Leader, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
The Sana‘a airport bombing was a flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement that the UN had brokered between the Saudis and the Ansar-Allah in April 2022. The airport was used entirely by civilians since the Ansar-Allah do not have an airforce. The airport bombing constituted a war crime.
The Ansar-Allah vowed to retaliate for this Saudi crime. And they made good on their threat. They first struck Abha international airport in southern Saudi Arabia. This was followed a few weeks later by lightning operations along the Red Sea coast liberating the entire coast to its southern tip at Bab al-Mandab including the important Mayun Island (aka Perim). The Ansar-Allah also liberated Hanish Islands further north tightening their grip on the Bab al-Mandab.
It took the Ansar-Allah only three days (September 9-12) to liberate 5400 sq km of territory from the clutches of the Saudi-backed mercenaries (see also here). In desperation, MbS phoned US President Donald Trump twice, on September 10, for help but was rebuffed. Trump told him to seek help from his fellow Arabian despots. The Bani Saud’s trillion dollar deposits in the US as protection money did not help!
MbS then turned to Pakistan and Turkiye with whom he had signed a mutual defence pact on August 7. It was modelled on NATO’s article 5: attack on one will be considered an attack on all.
So far, Pakistan has deployed two squadrons of air force planes and stationed ground troops in the medieval kingdom but they have not engaged the Ansar-Allah directly in combat so far. Turkiye is providing intelligence as are the Americans and the Israelis.
The Saudis have no formal diplomatic relations with the zionist entity. That, however, has not prevented the two from cooperating against revolutionary Muslims struggling for their freedom whether in Yemen or in Palestine.
The Bani Saud have also turned to Egypt for help. The Egyptian dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has suddenly discovered “Arab solidarity” and vowed to defend brotherly Saudi Arabia. Such solidarity has been conspicuously absent during the ongoing zionist genocide in Gaza and the Saudi genocide in Yemen.
Arabian dictators feel no compunction killing their own hapless people or other poor Muslims when ordered to do so by their US-zionist masters. Their weapons are not used to fight the war criminals in Tel Aviv or Washington. El-Sisi has assured the indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu that Egypt’s armed forces pose no threat to Israel.
Despite an annual military budget of $80 billion, the Saudi army is incapable of fighting. It has been deliberately kept weak because MbS fears it might stage a coup. Instead, he—and the extended ruling family—relies on the National Guard for protection.
MbS’s failure to prevent Ansar-Allah missile strikes on Riyadh, Dammam and other airports in the medieval kingdom last month has exposed the incompetence of the Najdi Bedouins. Riyadh International Airport in particular has been severely damaged and is closed to all airlines, domestic and foreign.
While western regimes and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres have maintained a deafening silence about Saudi crimes against Yemeni civilians, they have condemned Ansar-Allah’s retaliatory strikes on Saudi targets.
This is a replay of their hypocrtical stance about zionist genocidal attacks on Palestinian civlians in Gaza and the West Bank. Zionist war crimes are justified on the pretext that “Israel has the right to defend itself.” It does not.
Israel is an occupying power and it is committing war crimes against the indigenous Palestinian population. It is the Palestinians that have the right to resist their occupier “by any means necessary”. There is a UN resolution that affirms this but legality is discarded when the zionists commit crimes.
It would be inaccurate to say that the latest escalation in Yemen started with the Saudi terrorist attack on Sana‘a civilian aiport on July 13. Saudi crimes date back to even before March 2015 when they and the Emiratis, backed by the US, Britain and France, launched their attack on Yemen’s Ansar-Allah.
The Saudis thought they will defeat Yemen’s Islamic revolutionaries in a matter of weeks if not sooner. This is what MbS, the new brash Saudi defence minister, believed. Territory held by Ansar-Allah was repeatedly bombed, a tight siege was imposed and even medicines were not allowed in.
From March 2015 to the end of 2021, UN estimates put the death toll in Yemen at 377,000, many due to disease and starvation. More than one million Yemeni children were afflicted by cholera. These war crimes, however, failed to break the spirit of the Ansar-Allah resistance.
Millions of people have rallied to their side in Yemen. The Ansar-Allah not only control all of northern Yemen but also 80 % of the population that resides in these areas. Thus, they represent the majority of Yemen’s population.
Most western regimes recognize the Saudi-installed puppet regime in Aden. Its rulers, appointed by the Saudis, live in five-star hotels in Riyadh.
Despite the fiction of the Saudi-installed and “internationally-recognized” regime in Aden, MbS’s failures in Yemen have exacerbated his problems at home. When his father, Salman bin Abdul Aziz became the king in January 2015, he immediately appointed his brash 29-year-old son as defence minister.
Hoping to establish his macho credentials, MbS launched the war on Yemen. He assumed that because the medieval kingdom possesses huge stockpile of weapons and the Yemenis are dirt poor, his military will be able to quickly defeat them.
He made the fundamental error of assuming that prepondrance of weapons automatically ensures victory on the battlefield. He failed to realize that the US—a superpower—had suffered a humiliating defeat in Vietnam. It was on the verge of defeat in Afghanistan, a country living in the Stone Age. The French lost in Algeria. The list of such failures is long.
When his father appointed him crown prince in July 2017, MbS gathered all the levers of power into his own grubby hands. This was to prevent any challenge to his authority. Instead, it has come to haunt him because every failure falls directly on his shoulders. He cannot blame anyone else.
Reports from the decrepit kingdom say that MbS is hiding in underground bunkers beneath his palaces. He has specially-approved bodyguards.
What scares him is not only an Ansar-Allah missile or drone that will hit his hiding place. There is also an internal threat.
MbS disrupted the historic Wahhabi-Bani Saud alliance. He subjected fellow “princes” to a violent shake down in November 2017, extorting billions of dollars from them at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh. This has created deep divisions within the ruling family that had hitherto kept their differences under wraps.
With MbS’ failures coming to the fore, his fear of getting bumped off by someone from within the family is real. That explains his extreme security precautions by remaining underground.
He has even brought the Wahhabi dinosaurs out of the basement where he had locked them up in 2017. They have issued fatwas forbidding fighting against the genocidal zionists but urged Saudi troops to fight against the Ansar-Allah. They have falsely accused the Ansar-Allah of firing missiles and drones at Makkah and al-Madinah.
In a televised address, Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan Al-Fawzan urged soldiers at the border with Yemen to fight against the “Houthis” (as he called them). He decribed their sacrifices as a struggle in “defence of God”. Has the Saudi mufti elevated MbS to the status of God (astaghfirullah)? Nor do the court preachers find anything un-Islamic with the vulgar concerts held in Jeddah and other places.
The Saudi army is in no shape to fight. That is why MbS is begging others to bail him out. He is finding little support.
His shelf-life may be expiring.
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