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Aren't you guys welcoming Nasser Arabi back to the show?
He's a reporter from Sanaa, Yemen.
How are you doing, Nasser?
Good to talk to you again.
Thank you very much.
Scott, I really appreciate you doing this as always.
So first of all, I guess, can you tell us about the status of the current battle for the town and the port of Hodeidah on the Red Sea?
Well, about the battle on the seaport of Hodeidah, it is in a stalemate.
It is deadlocked, in fact, and the Emiratis are in a deep quagmire to the extent that they no longer want to continue.
But let me tell you the most important thing that we can start with to make your audience know what's happening.
So the battle in Hodeidah is almost stopped.
I mean, in terms of Emiratis and UK, US, France, the big thing.
There is no big thing at all.
And the Emiratis, one month ago, they said they would suspend it to make a chance for the peace.
This is what they said.
But in fact, they didn't make a pause, but they stumbled, they failed.
So let me tell you the most important thing, as I think.
The most important thing is now, is Houthi yesterday declared an initiative.
This initiative says that Houthi forces and Sunni government declared a halt of the sea operations in the Red Sea, the operations, the military operations in the Red Sea for two weeks.
That can be extended to include all fronts, all battlefields.
But if, they say if, if this step is reciprocated by Saudis.
So this is the most important thing.
And let me tell you why Houthi said this yesterday.
He said this yesterday, because it's only one day before the UN Security Council meeting tomorrow.
UN Security Council is meeting tomorrow with the UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths.
Martin Griffiths now, or tomorrow, is to make or to break, because you know, Martin resumed or has been trying for months now to resume something that stopped about two years.
I mean, we have been two years without any talks, without anything, you know.
So now he is doing something different, at least as he thinks, as Martin Griffiths thinks.
So tomorrow, Martin Griffiths, or the UN envoy to Yemen, is briefing the UN Security Council about steps, about a plan to, not only to avert the war in Hodeidah, no, because he knows it is not the end, but to avert the battle in Hodeidah, which will be the first step to stop or to end the war with Saudi Arabia, the whole war, the entire war with Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis.
And he has a lot of steps he is going to tell the UN Security Council tomorrow.
Now let me tell you what is before these developments, why it is important now, why this initiative is important, why the meeting of tomorrow is important, it is to make or to break, why?
It is important because, I mean the meeting of tomorrow and the initiative of Houthi of yesterday, important because they came after three important developments.
The first one is Yemen made, drawn, carried out a series of attacks on Abu Dhabi airport last week.
This is the last thing.
And before that, Yemeni missiles, CCE missiles, hit Saudi warships in the Red Sea.
And Saudis said only, the missiles only hit two oil tankers.
But it is the two oil tankers were safeguarded by the warship, the Damam.
The Damam warship was guarding the two oil tankers.
Two million barrels on each, on board of each.
Two million barrels, which means four million barrels, these two oil tankers were carrying two million barrels of crude oil or raw oil.
So this is the second development.
The third development is a little bit earlier also.
What is it?
Yemeni-made drone, that is Samad-2, that is shorter in distance, Yemeni-made drone carried out a series of attacks on the refinery of Aramco, Saudi oil company Aramco, inside Riyadh, the Saudi capital Riyadh.
So this is the three developments that would make things different at this point.
You're saying that, Nasser, you're saying that these three successful attacks by the Houthis against Saudi and UAE targets have put them in a position of strength now to go ahead and call a ceasefire and hope to bring the Saudis to the table to negotiate?
Not only this, not only this, the one, this is just something to show strength and deterrence, but the most important thing also for the Emiratis is Hodeidah.
Hodeidah, two months ago, when I was speaking with you in this show, I told you that they are just drowning in a deep quagmire.
And now they are being chopped away, I mean the Emirati forces, in a big, in a huge desert of Hodeidah, and they don't know what they do.
Now they need a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of forces if they want to continue.
They need U.S. forces, they need U.K. forces, they need France, they need everyone.
They need, they say, minesweeping, they need minesweeping for the sea and for the land.
They need a lot, a lot of forces, because they have very, very little forces for these huge things.
Because Hodeidah now, the city, you know, I mean, the first day they attacked Hodeidah, they told the world that they are controlling the airport, and in a few hours they will control the seaport.
This is what they said.
But from that time, they couldn't even show one video recording showing that they are there.
And anyone now would discredit them and would not, because they know what it means to fight there.
Because all the forces of Hodeidah were in the making for two years, because the Yemenis know what Hodeidah means.
So now the city now, which is very big, the city now is turned to trenches everywhere, which means if Emiratis want to take the battle there, they need not only more and more and more forces, but they need special forces for the city's wars.
Because Houthi now said very clearly to Emiratis and to everyone that we are going to fight inside the city if you want.
It's not easy.
And they are there.
Not only we want, they are there in the city.
And the city now is only trenches, trenches everywhere.
They are dug in and they are ready to fight.
And they know what this means.
And they tried over these last two months, they tried, Emiratis tried with all their possible advanced weapons and everything, and they know what happened.
So these three developments and Hodeidah is very difficult because it is very fortified by the people, by the fighters and by the land and by the sea.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, it's certainly the case that the last time we spoke, it was right when the UAE assault on Hodeidah was beginning and it was supposed to be quick and easy.
That was the way they advertised it, just like they said about the war when they started it three and a half years ago, Operation Decisive Storm, they called it.
And you said, nope, it's not going to work that way.
You just sit and watch.
The Houthis are going to be able to hold them off.
And that's certainly the case.
And now you're saying, well, and I have a report here from Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com about the hit on the Saudi oil tanker.
And you're saying they also hit the Abu Dhabi airport there in UAE and an Aramco field in Saudi as they're bogging down the UAE forces in Hodeidah.
So I don't know if the Saudi American, and because of course the USA is underwriting this entire campaign and supporting this entire campaign financially, logistically, with weapons and everything else.
But I don't know if they necessarily see the Houthis as being in a position of strength, but they must be perceiving their own weakness at this point.
Do you have any word of whether political winds have changed in UAE or Saudi that they may be more willing now to accept a negotiated settlement rather than continuing on with their pointless war?
Yes.
What the Emirati ambassador there in Washington is saying over the last few weeks is completely different from what he was saying in the past.
Now he is saying that they are let down, they are disappointed by U.S., U.S. doesn't like to do it, U.S. doesn't want to do with us the war and this and this and that.
And he's talking that he wants to end the war because it's – but they just – the only thing they want now is only to guarantee that the ballistic missiles or the Houthi missiles are not attacking Mecca.
Now this secular – this secularist is now very afraid of – I mean, he's very worried about Mecca and attacking Mecca.
He's talking about these things in Washington nowadays.
And he was not talking about these things at all.
And the Yemenis is responding to him that Emirati or UAE is weaker, weaker than waging a war, not on the entire Yemen, but on a small village.
Now after attacking Abu Dhabi and, you know, he did everything in Hodeidah and he said, I am in the airport, I'm going just to give you a chance for the peace.
And he did everything.
Now he's – he's backing down.
Emiratis are backing down.
Now let me give you two points before I forget them about the whole situation as a development things.
The drones that attacked Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are called Samad-1 – I mean, Samad-2 and Samad-3.
Samad-2 is to Riyadh and Samad-3 to Abu Dhabi, 1,000 – about 1,500 – 1,400 kilometers.
And about 1,100 to Riyadh, flying.
So these two drones are named Samad.
That is after the president, the president Saleh Samad, who was assassinated by U.S.-Saudi airstrikes in Hodeidah.
And before that, before he was assassinated, Samad declared the 2018 year as a ballistic missile – as a ballistic year against Saudis and Emiratis.
And this – now, these attacks, I told you, on Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and on the sea, on the Red Sea, because the Red Sea is very, very important for everyone, for Yemenis, for U.S., for UK, for everyone in the world.
So it's a very strong message that 2018 will be a ballistic year, as Saleh Samad said.
And of course, after the attacks on Abu Dhabi, people here celebrated, and they were carrying – here in Sana'a, they were carrying black banners saying – or reading, if you killed Saleh Samad once, we would kill you 1,000 times.
So it's only the beginning of the battle for Yemenis, the beginning of the battle.
The second point I want to tell you also – the second point I want to tell you is about Martin Griffiths.
Why it's important tomorrow in New York.
His meeting is important tomorrow in New York because of the things I mentioned and because he met the top Houthi top leader, Abdul Malik.
Where he met him?
He met him three times in Sana'a.
This means a lot, Scott.
He met him in Sana'a.
This is a big defiance, a big defiance and a very big and strong indication that the intelligence of Saudis and its allies is failing, is failed.
Because he's the most wanted, Houthi top leader is the most wanted.
He's the wanted number one for the intelligence.
And he met Martin Griffiths three times in Sana'a and these meetings were completely different to the extent that Saudis were very angry because of these meetings, angry to the extent that they kept the man, the Martin Griffiths, they kept him inside his plane in the airport of Sana'a five hours.
Not in the airport, but in his plane.
In his plane, five hours.
And he said this, Martin Griffiths said this, but he said it in a different way.
He said, we delayed about five hours for technical things.
And it was not technical things because he had his own plane, I mean, the own plane.
And if technical things, he would have been somewhere else, not inside the plane.
But he said this.
So Saudis wanted to tell him, no, we are your boss and you must do what we want only.
If you like Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the top leader, like Jamal bin Omar, we will fire you, we will get rid of you, or something like this.
So these are the two points also that I wanted to add, and I will leave you to ask whatever you want.
All right.
Yeah, no, I mean, I guess that's an important point, although if he was going to meet with the Houthi leadership, I see what you're saying, that that would reveal, you know, a lack of intelligence collection ability on the part of the Saudis that they couldn't get to the Houthi leadership first, although, you know, possibly they left the guy, they left him alive.
I mean, because you've got the Americans helping, too.
Maybe they left him alive so they have somebody to negotiate with.
Maybe they realize now their position of weakness here and the futility of this war, and they need to have somebody on the Houthi side who can arrange a ceasefire and can arrange a peace with Mr. Griffiths there.
But anyway, I mean, it's still an important point either way, that whether it's a lack of intelligence or whether they just realize that this thing has to be wound down, it basically amounts to the same thing.
Let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something to clarify.
Houthi leadership, when you say Houthi leadership, it's the government, the president, the prime minister, the minister of defense, and all these people.
They are meeting.
They are meeting with the UN envoy.
But Abdel Malik is something else.
He's like the supreme leader.
He's someone different, and nobody knows where he is, and it's very difficult.
Nobody knows in Yemen and outside Yemen.
Everyone in U.S. and U.K. and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, they say just he's in south of Lebanon or in Tehran.
They never say he's in Yemen because they are embarrassed.
They are in a big embarrassment to say he's in Yemen.
You see?
It's not easy.
I mean, there's other leadership.
Yes.
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All right, now, so talk to me about the recent airstrikes in Sanaa.
I saw some horrible footage yesterday of some innocent civilians killed, including children.
How bad is the air war over Sanaa now?
Well, now, it's after these attacks, the attacks on Abu Dhabi and attacks on Riyadh and the attacks on the Red Sea.
They came to hit Sanaa in a hysterical way, like the very beginning.
And I think this is what you heard.
Yes, they came.
But you know, I was laughing.
You know, I was laughing very much.
Every time they came to bomb us, I was laughing because they came, for example, to the airport because they carried a series of attacks on the airport of Sanaa because they think that the drones came from there.
They're very stupid to think this way.
And they came to a place which is very close to my office, where I'm talking to you now.
Very close.
It is very, very, you know, they came to it three years, I mean, three years ago.
They came to it as a VIP place, very important place.
It was a military place.
It was a place for exercising and maneuvers and all these things.
And after the attacks, they came to the same place to hit it many times, many times.
You know, they just show how stupid they are if they think that the drones would come from these places or that places.
They just make also people here happy because they know after they came to Sanaa to hit it or to strike many different places that were already hit many times, thousands of times, the people were laughing here because they realized that the attacks on Abu Dhabi were very effective.
It was not a bombing.
It was not an explosion of a vehicle, as the Emiratis said.
It was an attack from a Yemeni drone, not any other things.
So the Saudis, we are used to them.
We are familiar with what they are doing, Saudis and Emiratis.
They just got angry and they came to hit women and children as usual, of course.
But they couldn't do anything in the battles or they couldn't do, for example, they couldn't destroy the launch pad of the missiles.
They couldn't destroy the place where the drones are made.
No, they don't do it.
They couldn't and they don't know where it is.
Yeah.
Now, there's an important article in Foreign Affairs, which is the extremely important journal of the Council on Foreign Relations here in the US.
And they had an article saying that, listen, the excuse for this war, one of the major excuses for this war is that the Houthis are backed by Iran and that somehow the Houthi seizure of power in Sana'a in 2015 amounts to an expansion of the new Persian Empire.
And in this Foreign Affairs article, they say that's just not true, which I think, obviously, we already knew that that wasn't really the reason for it.
But they were saying in there that on the contrary, though, this war has pushed the Yemeni government, the Houthi government closer to Iran and that Iran has been supporting them since then and including claims of transfers of missiles.
And yet, I mean, I already know that that was debunked.
The missile claims by Nikki Haley, for example, were debunked by Jane's Defense Weekly that said that, no, the Yemenis and the Iranians both got these missiles from North Korea years ago.
They didn't get them from Iran at all.
But I wonder whether there's any truth to that, that and of course, the whole country's under blockade.
So I don't know how in the hell the Iranians are supposed to be shipping missiles to the Houthis.
But can you tell us the best of your understanding of what is the level of Iranian support, cooperation, financial, military or otherwise, for the Houthi government there?
So let me let me tell you, let me be very clear with you, because I know how sincere you are with your profession.
And I want I don't want to to be also more.
I don't want to love my country and to and to cover up the facts.
Let me be very clear because of you, because I know you now very well.
It's three years now.
So Iran is not in Yemen.
I mean, there is no prisons.
There is no Iranian prisons in Yemen.
There is no military prisons in Yemen.
There is no weapons in Yemen at all.
But for the for the expertise, as I told you, for the expertise, for the experience, how to make something, how to know, it's very easy.
You don't need to get Iranians to come to Sana'a at all.
Iranians or anyone can help you by email or by anything.
So if Iran is supporting or helping us by anything, they could do it by anything, by email or by by.
We don't need, I mean, fighters from Iran.
We don't need anything.
We just need some knowledge.
But for money, Iran is very poor.
Iran can't pay one dollar for Yemen to help at all.
So Iran is not there.
But let me tell you also why Saudis is saying this.
Now, last week after the attacks on the two Saudi oil tankers, Saudi suspended, I think you heard about it, Saudi suspended its oil shipment through Bab al-Mandab.
This is just kind of inciting against Yemen, against Iran.
Saudi wanted to say, U.S., where are you, U.K., where are you, France, where are you?
I'm going to stop the oil shipment if you are not going to kill Iran and Yemen.
So they said this.
But Yemenis, no, Houthis, Yemenis, responded yesterday by saying, we are going to stop the military operations in the sea or the naval operations in the Red Sea for two weeks.
It's just a response to Saudis that we could also play politics and everyone can play politics if they want.
But the Saudis, unfortunately, every time they play, unfortunately, it bounces against them.
It rebounds against them, unfortunately.
This is why Saudis is always failing.
Yes.
All right.
Now, I know you saw this debate on Twitter the other day.
A guy brought up a report by a journalist from, I think, Norway or Sweden, who went to Sana'a and she said that, yeah, nobody's starving, everybody's sitting in the cafe having a bite to eat.
Things look pretty normal around here.
They haven't been bombed recently, even in months, she said, and things are going OK.
All these reports of Yemenis laying down dying must just be narrative building, overblown.
What do you think of that?
Yeah, this is something not right, because as I told you in the tweet, it's if she thought, if she expected to see dead bodies or still things or no movements or, you know, this is something, it's up to it, to this journalist, to her.
But people are normal, of course.
People try to be normal, but normal under bombings.
You know, if this journalist wanted to see the truth, she must have asked for the statistics and she must have, if she wants to see the people dying of hunger, she mustn't, or she mustn't have gone only to Sana'a, she must have gone to Hodeidah or other places.
But people, what they could do?
People should go and should hang out and should hang around and they should chill and they should make fun and they should live their lives.
What we, I mean, what we should do.
But this doesn't mean that there is starvation, there is a war, there is bombings, there is, you know, it doesn't mean at all.
I mean, this is a problem that is up to the journalist, not to anyone.
I mean, it couldn't deny by saying this at all.
Yeah.
Now, unfortunately, I'm not able to understand the language that she did that report in.
And I don't know any good Norwegian translators.
I think it was from Norway.
But you know, I don't know.
You know, she went and toured the hospitals or what, I guess, as you're saying, if you walk down Main Street in Sana'a, there's, you know, there are businesses that are open.
Excuse me, Scott.
If you want to see, if you want to see just a drop in the ocean of what's happening in Sana'a and in Yemen, you just see what the, the, the, the BBS, the BBS and their, their, their, their, their, their journalist, Jane Ferguson.
The BBC News, you mean, in England?
No, not the BBC, the BBS, the public, the public, the radio, the TV, the American TV, PBS.
Oh, PBS.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PBS.
Right.
They did a special recently about this.
That's right.
This is very good.
I want you to see.
I call her a hero.
She struggled herself to Yemen and she made it to Yemen and she told the truth.
We don't want anyone to, to tell other than the truth.
She told the truth what's happening.
And you can see she did a lot, a lot of good things.
And she saw many horribles and many atrocities and, and she talked freely.
But for this journalist who is from Norway or anyone, it's, I mean, it's something different.
It's very far from journalism.
And now, are you able to travel up to the north of the country, closer to the Saudi border from Sana'a and see what's going on up there as well?
Is it worse up there?
Yes.
I lost, you know, two months, three months from now, I made it there to Saada and to me to the borders with Saudi Arabia.
And we saw the, the battles and we saw everything.
Of course, because they, they call us from time to time as journalists, they want to come when we, and maybe this, this, I mean, about, about 15 days from now, I'll go one more to, to Hodeidah.
Yes.
Now the United Nations says their estimate is that 50,000 children have died of deprivation in the last three years here.
And you know, I don't know if anybody really knows, but there's a separate count of people actually killed in the hostilities, people killed in, in battles or in airstrikes.
And I saw a thing the other day where the number of 10,000 is still being cited, even though that number is a year and a half old.
And as you showed, and there's video of this, of you confronting the UN spokesman, who I interviewed on the show, actually about this, Goldsmith, I believe was his name and saying, listen, 10,000 is a pretty low ball estimate there.
And he admits that that's true.
He said, this is the best I can do, but I'm not contradicting you, Nasser.
If you say it's higher, man, maybe you're right.
But that's been a long time.
So do you have a recent body count of people killed in the hostilities?
Yes, this is, this is something very good.
And he's, he's my friend.
Jamie McEldrick was the best, the best man from UN officials who has been working in Yemen ever.
And he was, you know, but when I told him this, he was very frank with me.
He said, I'm not going to make documents from my head.
You know, he's right, he's right.
But it's now enough.
It's enough for the journalists who say, who claim they are professional journalists, or who say they, where are you, where are you getting your information from all these things?
They're right.
But the question that they could not, they can't answer is, why UN did not update the figure of 10,000 from, for more than two years now?
They did not, they did not update it.
So, and there is war.
There is war.
You've kept your own count though, haven't you?
If you ask me, if you ask me why, I know.
But people would tell me how you can prove it.
How you can prove it.
And I will tell them, well, I can't prove it.
But this is what I think.
This is what I feel.
I feel that UN cannot or would not update the number because Saudi Arabia does, Saudi Arabia and its lobbies, billions and billions and billions of Saudi money in these lobbies.
So they are under this pressure of these lobbies, not to update the number.
Although, of course, all the people, if they want, if the people want to know the atrocities and the crimes, they can know without this number.
But also Saudi Arabia can do it, and Saudi Arabia does everything they can.
So they were able to convince UN officials not to update the number because UN has some justifications.
Why?
Because they say there are no, I mean, the health systems in Yemen are not functioning anymore and we can't document and this and this and these things.
But this is not right.
And if you count, the 10,000 were counted in one year.
Now we are in four years.
If you just add up, you can get about more than 70,000 people, civilians killed by airstrikes, not by anything else.
If you just count, because the 10,000 counted by UN were done only for six months, not during one year, six months of the war.
Now we are in the middle or close to the end of the fourth year war.
So how can you, I mean, how come you can say it is only 10,000?
No, it's more than 70,000 who were killed in their homes, hospitals, weddings and funerals and farms by the US-Saudi airstrikes.
This is my estimate.
And if anyone has other estimates, they can tell us how they can get these estimates.
And now, so how do you get your estimates?
You've gone around and you're not just basing this off of their number of the 10,000 and extrapolating out from there.
You told me in the past that you've gone to the hospitals and you've traveled around trying to keep your own count and take down as many names as you can, et cetera, right?
Yes, yes, yes, this is what I can.
I would also admit that it's, I mean, I need a lot of people to help me if I want to be very accurate.
But I mean, what I see with my eyes and hair is enough for me and for anyone.
And all people, all people need to document to say something.
Yes, they need to document, and this is the right thing, I agree with them.
But I know, I see that there are a lot of cases that cannot be documented for many, many concrete reasons.
Very far away, in a very remote village, because of the road is blocked, because of a lot of things, and people don't care about these things.
They don't care about documents.
They care about more important things.
Documents are the UN, and UN is saying now there is no health systems functioning and we can't do anything.
So it's not a solution.
We can't say there is no crimes because there is no documents.
No.
