Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain amid Islamic Awakening or Arab Spring protests in 2010 and 2011 to suppress peaceful and legal protests that were going on there. It has attacked Yemen who has been seeking to have self-determination in terms of who is governing them, rather than a puppet who is appointed by Riyadh.
The blistering assaults against Yemen has been repeatedly condemned in the strongest possible terms by regional and Western countries, top United Nations officials, UN Human Rights Council (HRC), Human Rights Watch and other international NGOs across the world, however, their opposition and condemnations were only on paper and have never been a strategy to prevent the country from raising atrocities in impoverished Yemen, putting the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council at stake.
Saudi Arabia has even blocked attempts to create an international inquiry, which is a betrayal of the people of Yemen who have suffered so much during this conflict. A fully independent international inquiry is the least the people of Yemen deserve.
Instead, Saudi Arabia and its allies, created a national commission of inquiry in Yemen, which is being carried out by the Saudi-backed government of former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia when the war began.
The commission was deemed toothless, due to its failure after nine months to credibly investigate allegations of war crimes and other serious violations.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon blacklisted Saudi-led coalition for killing children in Yemen in May. After the report was released, Ban’s office was bombarded with calls from the Persian Gulf Arab foreign ministers, as well as ministers from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to remove the regime’s name from the list of states and armed groups that have violated the rights of children.
In June, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemned the US-backed Saudi regime's breaching of rights, calling on the United Nations General Assembly to immediately suspend Saudi Arabia from the Human Rights Council membership over its “gross and systematic violations of human rights abroad and at home. HRW has documented Saudi Arabia of repeatedly using internationally banned cluster munitions in civilian areas; in 19 different attacks, they have used at least six different types of cluster bombs, which were made in the US, UK and Brazil.
Riyadh threatened in early June to cut Palestinian aid and funds to other UN programs if the agency keeps the country’s name as children right abuser, a threat which made Ban to drop Saudi Arabia from its annual blacklist, only one week after it announced the blacklisting of the regime. Ban called his decision the most painful and difficult due to the fact that millions of other children likely would suffer if funding for UN programs was cut off.
Accusing Ban of giving in to political manipulation by the kingdom, dozens of prominent human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Oxfam, wrote a letter and urged United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon to put Saudi Arabia back on a blacklist for overwhelmingly violating children's rights in Yemen.
“The evidence of grave violations against children in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition is overwhelming,” reads the letter.
They said the UN chief’s decision undermined an invaluable tool in efforts to curb violations against children in armed conflict.
Increasing attacks against civilians in Yemen after a total of 180 civilians were killed in one month, raising the death toll to nearly 4,000 since the conflict began in March 2015, and the rise in the number of attacks against civilian facilities including hospitals, markets, and places of worship, has raised concerns among human rights activists across the world and among regional countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran which has played a key role in resolution of regional issues.
Meanwhile, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation led by Saudi regime has repeatedly condemned Iran for what it called supporting terrorism and meddling in the affairs of other countries, the message which fuels division in the Islamic community.
The history proves that Iran has played a constructive role for good of the region. It has military advisory presence in Syria and Iraq at the request of the Damascus and Baghdad government in fighting terrorism.
When ISIL emerged many countries were slow to offer any assistance, however, Iran made a number of requests to countries asking for assistance and was the first which sent military advisers to train the depleted Iraqi army and the Kurdish forces.
While Iran is portrayed in Western and Israeli circles as a supporter of terrorism worldwide, there is a less politically convenient reality: that of Iran as a victim of terror.
Thousands of innocent people in Iran have been killed as a result of terrorist operations led by the West and Saudi agents in the country since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Many countries have acknowledged Islamic Republic is trying to help restore peace, stability and security to the region to the best of its ability.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has always reiterated that there could be no military solution to the war in the region and has urged an end to hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the conflict through negotiations and the utilization of peaceful mechanisms.
Iran’s key role in the region and resolution of regional issues is not a pleasant fact for Saudi Arabian regime. Truth hurts. They say when someone goes down the well he tries to take with him another person: misery loves company.
The saying best suits to the situation of Saudi allegations against the Islamic Republic.
The desperate Saudi regime facing backlash for its crimes in the region tries to shift blame to Iran in an attempt to redeem its battered image globally.
Saudi hostile actions against Iran pursues one important objective: preventing Iran’s positive role in the region and hitting back to Iran which has been protesting the reckless conduct of Saudi officials regarding the 2015 Hajj tragedy.
Saudi regime has decided not to accept responsibility and not to pay damages and compensation to countries including Iran whose citizens were killed or injured during the Mina incident.
It also adopted an offensive approach towards those calling on it to account.
The regime is not alone; so-called human rights advocate, the UK, supports crimes of Saudi Arabia in Yemen. British support for Saudi Arabia’s warmongering policies in Yemen is not a random issue; behind the support, definitely lies economic and power interests.
Saudi money is a key incentive for the UK and other allies to back Saudi friends. When it comes to politics, making money is what comes at the top of the agenda, it doesn't matter whether civilians are being killed with the weapons the West or the US helped provide to another country.
Britain’s foreign policy is devoted towards suppressing any form of democracy in the Middle East. And now, in the case of Yemen and despite all the evidence for crimes and suppression that has been gathered in terms of what has been going on, the UK government continues its policies towards Saudi regime.
Historically, the UK government pry into other countries affairs like Iraq, Yemen and Libya under the guise of "humanitarian crisis", overthrowing their governments, killing their rulers, leaving a power vacuum, enabling Al Qaeda and ISIL to take a stronghold.
Does the UK Government really care? Only when it suits them or there is economic interests involved. They are notorious for hypocrisy!
It is clear that Saudi war in Yemen has helped British economy through privileged access to cheap oil, sale of weapons in billions of dollars and other economic and trade agreements.
The UK government’s claims over support for human rights and democracy is a funny excuse for providing support for the regimes that are repressing and slaughtering the people of Yemen and Bahrain.
Recently, Britain, accused of blocking EU efforts to set up an inquiry into Saudi Arabia’s actions in the country, dismissed facts that the reported bombing of international hospitals, schools and wedding parties by the autocracy amount to war crimes.
They have repeatedly claimed that Saudi Arabia is best placed to investigate its own crimes; Saudi Arabian investigations into its own actions have thus far absolved itself of any wrongdoings.
UK government is trying to cover up the Saudi Arabian military’s flagrant violations of international humanitarian law.
It even continued military support for the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen after human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), wrote a letter to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), saying British-made munitions were responsible for the rising civilian death toll in Yemen’s brutal war. They also called on UK Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to end the arms sales and put a stop to the uncritical support that the UK provides for the Saudi regime.
Saudi regime has repeatedly bribed Western countries, including the UK, claiming that their support was in their own interest to prevent Yemen falling into the hands of terrorists.
In early September, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi Foreign Minister, speaking to the Telegraph, warned if the UK suspends arms sales, there might be even higher risks of terrorism spreading, statement which seems more to be a threat from a country who has a dark history of nurturing terrorism and extremist ideology. Al-Jubeir on one hand threatens the United Kingdom that if London retreats from supporting Riyadh’s invasion of Yemen, it would see Wahhabi affiliate terrorists committing terrorist acts in the European country. Meanwhile, on the other hand, he tries to bribe London by promising billions of dollars of investments after Brexit.
In fact, the West is willing to be bribed and fooled by a rich country. They pretend to be helping fight against terrorism, however, they promote the ever-growing terrorist groups like ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front and reversing advances other peace-making countries, including Iran, make to suppress the terrorists and extremists doing atrocities in the region or Western countries.
Saudi Arabia is currently the UK’s largest arms export market. The British addiction to money is encouraging it to give billions pounds worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia. Actually, arms sales to the country breach British and European weapons export laws.
Britain's Committee on Arms Exports Control, comprising 16 MPs from four parties, urged British government to avoid its sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia since they had been used to violate international law, which is suppressed by the government saying it has not seen evidence of Saudi war crimes.
Anger over the Saudi-led campaign and the United States role in the war is also growing in US Congress. In April, a bipartisan group of American lawmakers, representatives Ted Lieu of California, Ted Yoho of Florida, John Conyers of Michigan and Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, wrote a letter asking President Obama to withdraw his request for Congressional approval for a $1.15 billion sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia amid the Riyadh regime’s crimes against civilians in Yemen.
They raised concerns that the actions of the Saudi-led Coalition in Yemen are as reprehensible as they are illegal. The multiple, repeated airstrikes on civilians look like war crimes, they warned.
The $1.15 billion deal for weaponry to Saudi Arabia, including over 150 Abrams tanks, reveals more than ever, the blood of thousands of innocent Yemenis dripping from American hands.
The Obama administration has already approved more than $100 billion in arms sales to the kingdom; however, after a year and a half, the new sale will definitely prove Washington’s involvement in a deadly war that the White House has kept largely quiet about.
Obama’s pretended distaste for regional proxy wars is not working now. The US gives with one hand and takes back with the other. With words, it touts opposition to terrorism and war crimes, but in practice, sends weapons to the terrorists like Al Saud to kill women and children in Yemen.
Saudi allies, including the US and the UK, are panting for Saudi oil and money. The incentive is enough for them to dastardly and in the name of human rights and suppression of terrorism make turmoil in the region.
Saudi regime well knows its money-addicted allies. It throws prey in battleground and directs dogs looking for the prey.
Under the pressure of Saudi regime, US government even obstructed the release of remaining 28 pages of the factual information of the 9/11 report to the public in 2015. The report pointed a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier of the attack to the North and South towers, and the World Trade Center complex in New York City.
Under public pressure, US government published a censored version of the report with many redactions; however, even after more than fifteen years, a cloud of secrecy hangs over the events of September 11, 2001 which proves the footprints of Saudi regime in the terrorist attacks.
Needless to say, it has been revealed to the world public opinion that the Saudi regime is the axis of support for the terrorist streams in the region and beyond.
Today, all the world has figured out that, MKO, the ISIL, Taliban, al-Qaeda and tens of other terrorist grouplets spread in the geography of Islam and humanity commit the biggest crimes against humanity under the leadership and strategies of the US, the Zionist regime and the regional reactionary regimes with the extensive financial supports of the al-Saud.
The world has learned that Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism, the radical ideology freely preached in the Arab country, are to blame for the violent acts of extremism in the Middle East region and elsewhere.