Reasons, implications of Pakistani forces’ presence in Saudi Arabia
SANAA, Feb. 21 (YPA) – In April 2015, Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen with the aim of defeating revolutionists, especially Ansarallah movement (Houthis), seeking a victory within a few weeks.
However, despite that nearly three years have passed since the start of the war on Yemen, Saudi Arabia seems to have lost the hope of victory fully in this war.
Recently, some sources said Kingdom somewhat seeks to withdraw its military troops from Yemen to be replaced by troops from Latin America.
This news was of great importance when Saudi Arabia sought to recruit Sudanese and Senegalese forces and Blackwater’s mercenaries to defeat the Yemeni revolutionists.
Pakistan is likely to deploy more than a thousand of its troops to join forces located in Saudi Arabi under a security pact between the two sides in 1982, Turkish news agency Anatolia quoted a senior military official as saying.
The move came after a recent meeting between General Qamar Javed Bajwa, head of the Pakistani army, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
There are currently between 750 and 800 Pakistani camps in Saudi Arabia, part of them to protect the holy places, but they are not military forces, according to a Reuters report.
Pakistan’s recent decision to send more troops to Saudi Arabia for advisory and training purposes has led to internal disputes over the possibility of using these forces in the Yemeni war.
Since the beginning of the Yemeni war, Saudi Arabia has been doing its best to bring Egyptian and Pakistani troops for supporting the Saudi-led coalition forces.
Egypt’s government strongly opposed a military intervention in the Yemeni war because the Egyptian army’s experience in northern Yemen in the 1960s.
On the other hand, Pakistani government has failed to obtain the approval of its parliament for military intervention in the Yemeni war.
The Pakistani parliamentarians issued a resolution supporting efforts to end the Yemeni crisis through negotiations and urged the government to refrain from deploying military units in Yemen.
After the announcement of an agreement to send Pakistani troops to Saudi Arabia to train the Saudi army, the senat Chairman Raza Rabbani summoned Defense Minister Khuram Dastgir on 17 February to clarify the background of the previous decision.
The internal reactions in Pakistan came because of fears of heavy human losses predicated in Yemen, where its Yemeni fighter proved that he is the strongest, add to that sure popular protests against the Pakistani government that will be organizes.
Saudi Money
Depending on oil dollars, Saudi Arabia tries to be looking to attract more troops and import weapons from different countries .
In 2015, Saudi Arabia was the top importer of arms in the world and most of these weapons are imported from America. In June, Riyadh signed a $ 110 billion arms deal to buy weapons from Washington.
All this suggests that the weapons procurement policy failed to defeat Yemen and that the kingdom had to resort to other methods.
AM/bam