Houthi official says orders for action against Saudis not coming from Iran

• Houthi politburo member Nasr al-Din Amer says Saudi actions against the group are sufficient grounds for military escalation.
• He claims recent Houthi strikes were preemptive, alleging Riyadh was preparing a ground operation in Houthi-controlled territory.

A senior Houthi official said the group does not need orders from Tehran to escalate military action against Saudi Arabia, arguing that what he described as Saudi aggression provides sufficient justification for further attacks.

Nasr al-Din Amer, a member of the Houthis’ politburo, told CNN late Friday that the group acts based on its own interests and does not require additional directives from Iran.

“These reasons alone are sufficient to compel us to act more decisively than we have been doing. We do not need any other agendas,” Amer said.

Amer accused Saudi Arabia of imposing an economic and air blockade on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including Sanaa, saying it had contributed to what he described as the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis.

He said the Houthis would stop military operations against Saudi Arabia if the blockade were lifted.

Amer also claimed that Houthi attacks earlier this week were preemptive, alleging that Saudi Arabia had been preparing a ground invasion of Houthi-controlled territory.

On Thursday, the Houthis claimed they had launched a “large-scale” operation targeting Saudi forces with ballistic missiles and drones across several areas of the kingdom.

The group did not provide evidence to substantiate its claim.

Reuters, however, reported that at least 30 Yemeni government troops were killed in Houthi attacks on military camps, citing government sources.

The Houthis are among the region’s most powerful Iran-backed armed groups and control large parts of western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.

The group entered the wider regional war in March, about a month after ‘Israel’ and the US launched attacks on Iran, by firing missiles toward ‘Israel’.

The Houthis have also been engaged in a prolonged war with Saudi Arabia for more than a decade. The conflict intensified after the group seized Sanaa and surrounding territory from Yemen’s Saudi-backed government.

The latest escalation threatens to further widen the regional war and place additional pressure on Yemen, which has already endured years of conflict and a severe humanitarian crisis.