The Saudi defense ministry announced in a July 30 statement the formation of a new coalition to guarantee security around the Bab el Mandeb strait. The coalition is aimed at protecting international shipping and energy supply routes in Red Sea region, it said, reported Reuters.
The ministry said representatives from 43 countries and the European Union attended an international meeting that discussed the proposed coalition, including Saudi Arabia serving as its founding and leading state and hosting its headquarters. Fourteen countries, including Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan and Djibouti, issued a joint statement supporting the proposed coalition. Out of the six Gulf Arab states, only Oman and the UAE were not listed as having signed it. According to Al Arabiya, the U.S. was represented at the meeting by Lt. Gen. Joseph Clearfield, the commander of US Marine Forces–U.S. Central Command, as well as the U.S. defense attache in Riyadh, but the US is also not listed as a signer of the document.
In Sana’a, Houthi leader Abdulmalik Badr al-Din al-Houthi—his official title is “Leader of the Revolution”—said in a speech delivered the same day, among a great many other things, that Yemen will work to establish the equation of “siege with siege” against “the Saudi enemy” and will confront comprehensive escalation with comprehensive escalation. “We will work to establish the equation of siege with siege, especially since indicators reveal that the Saudis are heading toward comprehensive escalation, and we will seek God’s help against him and confront his comprehensive escalation with comprehensive escalation,” he said, reported Saba News. “Our Yemeni people are among the most suffering and targeted peoples by the Saudi regime within the framework of the American scheme, and in service of the Israeli enemy,” he added.
