A lawmaker said the recent reshuffle of military top brass by Saudi King Salman indicates that Riyadh is trying to cover up its mistakes in the ongoing war against Yemen by laying the blame on the ousted generals.
Kamal Dehqani, a member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said, “The Saudi war against defenseless Yemeni people, in which it has flouted all international laws, has led to a chorus of protests—even from the kingdom’s European allies.”
“The Saudi king ousted his generals so that he could blame them for the failures of the war,” Dehqani said in a recent interview with ISNA.
Saudi Arabia replaced the leadership of the kingdom’s military and internal security services.
The unceremonious dumping of incumbent officials was not limited to the military; also on Monday, various security and provincial officials were sent packing and younger officials promoted to replace them.
State media said, however, the decisions were taken “upon the recommendation” of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also defense minister and widely seen as the power behind the throne.
The monarch on Monday replaced his chief of staff as well as the heads of the ground forces and air defenses as well as several deputy ministers.
Analysts believe the focus on excusing the ground and air defense chiefs but retaining the navy and air force chiefs reflects the oil-kingdom’s particularly poor records in Yemen war. The air defense chief’s position was obviously vulnerable in light of continuing Yemeni Houthi fighters’ ballistic missile attacks on Riyadh, and the army remains grossly inefficient.
Monday’s reshuffle also came hours after another fiasco for the Saudi military in which six Yemeni soldiers, allied with Riyadh, were killed in friendly fire by the Saudi-led military coalition, AFP reported.
War Crimes
Dehqani said Saudi military generals and troops have become dissatisfied with “sheer volume of slaughter” of Yemeni people and their lack of motivation led to a war of attrition in the impoverished Arab state.
Saudi Arabia and its military allies last year landed on a United Nations blacklist over the killing and maiming of children in Yemen, which the world body has called the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.
“It is possible that sooner or later Saudi officials would be indicted for war crimes,” Dehqani said, adding that the Saudi rulers are trying to get away from such accountability by shaking up military officials.
