A spokesman for the Houthi group addresses the Sheikh of Al-Azhar after an initiative for reconciliation and bloodshed

The spokesman for the Iranian-backed Houthi group in Yemen, Muhammad Abdul Salam, addressed the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, after the initiative proposed by the latter for reconciliation and bloodshed in the Arab region in general. This came in a message sent by Muhammad Abdel Salam in a blog post he published on his page on the Islamic pride and Arab dignity..

Your Eminence, the distinguished Sheikh of Al-Azhar, and you have kindly called for an end to the conflicts in the region, and since what is happening between Yemen and Saudi Arabia is the most tumultuous at the present time, we would like to place in your hands indispensable facts regarding what the Yemeni people have been exposed to from Saudi aggression since 2015 AD until now. The Yemeni people have never threatened the neighboring Kingdom in any form of threat, and have never started a war with it.

The spokesman continued: “Before the 2015 storm occurred, we - the Yemenis - were in political disagreement and military conflict, and regardless of the details at that stage, the conflict was internal, and in order not to escalate it any further, I was sent by Mr. Abdulmalik Badr al-Din al-Houthi to the Kingdom at the beginning of 2015 to convey a message of reassurance to the Kingdom, and to explain to them the nature of what is happening inside our country, Yemen, and for the Kingdom not to take into account that our Yemeni revolution It is a challenge to it and we are ready to resolve any political dispute through dialogue and understanding. This was the summary of the message that Mr. Abdulmalik Badr al-Din al-Houthi conveyed to me to the Kingdom during the reign of its late king Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, and when he died I was asked to return to my country, Yemen, in the hope of communicating later.” He added: “What happened later was that the new regime led by King Salman came to the Saudi throne carrying a war plan, not a peace plan, and so, without any justification, the incident occurred, with the new Saudi regime taking the initiative on March 26, 2015, by surprising the Yemeni people and the region with air strikes that first targeted - on that dark night while the people were sleeping - Sana’a International Airport and a nearby residential neighborhood, and the world then woke up to what they called Decisive Storm, and what was striking was that The matter is that it announced from Washington a blatant, treacherous aggression that was completely unjustified. Perhaps Saudi Arabia thought at the time that it had the ability to achieve a quick decision with its American military aircraft and open American support, but it did not realize that it had only made matters worse, and that it had only added more fuel to the fire that is currently burning on a larger scale because of this uncalculated and irresponsible adventure.

Then, according to the logic of Islam, Arabism, and neighbourliness, the situation in Yemen did not need an external war, and the Arab brothers, especially the largest neighbor among them, which is Saudi Arabia, had to take the initiative to resolve the dispute between us Yemenis in a friendly manner and without siding with one party against the other, and to interact positively with the message of reassurance that I personally carried to them in the name of Mr. Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi. Responsibility - that any intervention to resolve a dispute between brothers should not be done first through war, but rather through dialogue. If reconciliation is achieved, that is what is intended, and may God protect the believers from the evil of fighting. If reconciliation is not achieved, then let us see which of the two factions seeks to seek, and be deterred until they come to the truth. If you are satisfied with it, then a return to the path of reconciliation and justice will take place, not with the logic of conquest, so that no one feels wronged and the conflict ignites again. This is what the Noble Qur’an has stated, as the Almighty said: (And if Two groups of believers have fought, then reconcile between them. If one of them transgresses against the other, then fight the one that transgresses until it submits to the command of God. If it complies, then reconcile between them with justice and be fair. Indeed, God loves those who are just.)

His Eminence Sheikh Al-Jalil, what was mentioned above is a very important matter as a necessary starting point to know the current situation, which is an extension of what was mentioned above. Abdul Salam went on to say: “As we mentioned earlier, the Kingdom, with its military intervention, only added fuel to the fire. It continued in that manner with documented massacres and crimes in addition to imposing a stifling siege. All of this resulted in the bloodshed of tens of thousands of innocent citizens, and whoever was not killed by airstrikes died because of the siege, which also killed hundreds of thousands, and so it was. The Saudi military intervention in its early years was not the one that achieved its goals, which were illegal and for which God has not revealed any authority, nor was it the one that exempted the Kingdom from the repercussions of its aggression, which it still insists on.” He concluded: “Then there was the 2022 truce, which our Yemeni people were hopeful about, hoping that it would be an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to seize to get out of its predicament and fulfill its obligations, and the first year of the truce ended without any progress, even in the urgent humanitarian files.”

On Sunday, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar called for the formation of an “urgent mediation and calm committee” aimed at ending conflicts and wars in the Arab region. The Sheikh of Al-Azhar said, in a statement, that his call comes “based on his historical and legitimate responsibility towards the issues of the Arab and Islamic nations, and in light of the bloody conflicts and conflicts the region is witnessing that have ravaged the security of the nations and led to the destabilization of the entire region.”

He warned that “dispersal and rivalry are the main reason for the weakness of the nation, the violation of its sanctities, the nations’ supplications over it, and the dissipation of its achievements and wealth, and this at a time when the nation is most in need of unity of ranks, gathering of words, preserving infallible blood, and investing in its resources and in the wealth and capabilities that God has bestowed upon it instead of wasting it in wars and conflicts.” Sheikh Al-Azhar Kalak called for the proposed mediation committee to include “representatives from various Arab and Islamic countries, wise and sincere people who love goodness, peace and stability.”