Shafaq News- Sanaa

A senior official in Yemen's Houthi movement said on Wednesday that the group, and not Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), carried out earlier attacks on Saudi Arabia, accusing Riyadh of blaming Iraqi factions for operations they did not conduct.

Abdullah Al-Numi, a member of the political bureau of the Houthi movement (Ansarallah) told Shafaq News that the PMF had repeatedly denied attacking Saudi Arabia, while his movement had openly claimed responsibility for earlier operations against Saudi ports and facilities, including sites in Yanbu and Jizan.

“Saudi Arabia was unwilling to acknowledge the Ansarallah’s responsibility for those attacks,” he said, accusing the kingdom of searching for “imaginary enemies out of confusion and weakness.”

He warned that blaming the PMF risked creating a new adversary for the kingdom, adding, "We are ready to cooperate together to bring it down."

The Houthi-run Foreign Ministry in Sanaa said on Wednesday that Iraq has a legitimate right to respond to Saudi and US strikes on its territory, declaring its solidarity with Baghdad.

“The right to respond extended to Iraq, its people, and the Iraqi resistance,” the ministry stated, condemning the strikes as “a flagrant violation of international law.”

The PMF reported at least 20 of its members were killed and 32 wounded in a preliminary toll, in a joint US-Saudi strike against its sites in Baghdad, Wasit, Nineveh, Basra, Kirkuk, Karbala, and Diyala.