🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia fuels religious hatred in Yemen to mask Houthi gains — report

As Ansar Allah forces roll forward, seizing swathes of coastline along the Red Sea and Bab el Mandab strait, Saudi Arabia has turned back to the hardline Salafi and takfiri-aligned groups it once tried to restrain, reports The Cradle.

The kingdom is pouring money and religious propaganda into the anti-Houthi factions, framing the fight as a holy duty to protect Mecca and Medina against a supposed “sectarian enemy.”

Saudi media and clerics brand Ansar Allah as corrupt and deviant, while mosques and recruitment ads in the south call for fighters against the “Houthi tide.”

The Gulf kingdom is reported to have funneled hundreds of millions of riyals to loyal commanders and built dozens of religious centers to sustain the anti-Houthi effort.

Yet the strategy is fraying, notes the publication.

🔴 Some Salafi leaders reject the call to war and have signed local coexistence deals

🔴 Attempts to import fighters from Syria face limited enthusiasm and logistical hurdles

🔴 Ansar Allah continues expanding tribal outreach and exploiting its opponents’ divisions, steadily consolidating gains

The Saudis formed a coalition with the UAE in 2015 and waged a proxy war in Yemen, providing material support to the anti-Houthi forces, but that coalition did not last long.

With the UAE out of the picture, Saudi Arabia was left to manage a patchwork of local allies - including the STC, the Giants Brigades and Tariq Saleh-linked forces - whose rivalries continue to undermine cohesion.

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🇮🇷 Araghchi pays tribute to Soleimani ahead of Iraq-hosted OIC summit

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Iraq to attend the 52nd session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers.

Upon his arrival in Baghdad, Araghchi paid tribute to the late IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and former Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces chief al-Muhandis, assassinated in January 2020 in a US airstrike in Iraq’s capital during a secret peace mission.

Iran’s top diplomat will hold bilateral meetings with fellow foreign ministers, with regional security, Israel’s war on Gaza, and developments in the occupied West Bank expected to be among the main topics of discussion.

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🪖 As Houthis tighten noose around Taiz, why does the city matter?

The Houthi forces are conducting a major offensive in the Taiz governorate, and have attacked the seat of the Saudi-backed government in Aden with drone and missile strikes.

Ansar Allah forces are have also virtually encircled Taiz.

➡️ with nearly 600,000 residents, Taiz is the last major urban stronghold of anti-Houthi forces in Yemen’s southern highlands

➡️ its capture would bring Ansar Allah closer to Aden – the seat of the Saudi-backed government - and weaken the coalition’s ability to launch counterattacks

➡️ Houthi advances around al-Turbah and al-Misrakh have cut sections of the roughly 200-km route to Aden

➡️ coalition airstrikes and ground operations have so far failed to reverse the gains

➡️ after Ansar Allah consolidated control over Yemen’s Red Sea coastline in September, the coalition launched an offensive to reclaim territory - losing Taiz would make it harder to threaten Houthi positions near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait

The fall of Taiz - predominantly Sunni Muslim while the Houthis adhere to the Zaydi school of Shi'ite Islam - would also be symbolic.

The city has long stood as a center of resistance to Houthis since 2015, when the Saudis formed a coalition with the UAE and waged a proxy war in Yemen, providing material support to the anti-Houthi forces to restore the regime of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

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🔥 Egypt ready to take action to defend Saudi Arabia amid Houthi escalation - president

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pledged to take any necessary action to protect Saudi Arabia, according to Al Qahera News.

🔊 “We will take any measure to protect Saudi Arabia,” Sisi was cited as saying, calling for an emergency parliamentary session to authorize such action if requested.

The warning comes amid escalating hostilities between Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthis) movement and the Saudi-led coalition, following deadly strikes on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport and retaliatory Saudi airstrikes against Yemen.

Sisi already warned on October 15 that attacks on Saudi Arabia threatened Egyptian and broader Arab national security. His latest reported remarks raise the prospect of Egypt becoming more directly involved in the confrontation, although no military deployment has been announced.

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⚔️ Iran fires back at US MOAB talk: Our missile power changed the equations

Iran’s acting Defense Minister Majid Ibn Reza swatted away reports that Donald Trump was allegedly considering unleashing the “mother of all bombs” - the Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb or MOAB GBU-57A/B - on Iran.

Dismissing the threat, he noted on X that “titles and dimensions of bombs hold no importance.”

The real detonation, he warned, would hit America’s global reputation, its economy, and Trump’s own electoral hopes.

🔊 “It is our missile power that has changed the equations and brought you to a point where, from now on, you must say: Hello, sir!” he added.

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