Yemen’s senior military commander killed in Riyadh
RIYADH, Feb. 02 (YPA) – A military commander “Saleh al-Marfadi”, was killed on Monday in a mysterious traffic accident in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The incident has sparked accusations of a systematic “soft liquidation” campaign targeting southern leadership figures.
Al-Marfadi, who served as director of the former chief of staff’s office, was the third southern military official to die under unclear circumstances in Riyadh within just two weeks—all officially attributed to traffic accidents.
According to informed political sources, the repeated nature of these incidents made it difficult to accept coincidence, particularly as these commanders had been summoned to Riyadh under the pretext of the “South–South dialogue.”
The pattern began in late January with the death of Abdullah Saleh Al-Jaid, commander of the 31 Giants Brigade, in a Riyadh traffic accident. This was followed by the reported death of Major General Abdul-Sergeant Thabet al-Subaihi from sudden cardiac arrest, and the narrow survival of another southern leader, Ali Ahmed al-Jabwani, from an unexplained health emergency.
Social media platforms have been rife with allegations accusing Saudi authorities of orchestrating a covert campaign to eliminate southern military leaders. Many users link these events to heightened tensions following Saudi airstrikes in Hadramaut last December, which killed approximately 600 soldiers affiliated with southern transitional forces.
Critics argue that what appear to be traffic accidents or sudden health failures are, in fact, deliberate acts—silent and politically convenient methods to remove obstacles to Saudi ambitions in southern Yemen. Activists have drawn parallels between these incidents and the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, questioning why southern military figures are consistently meeting fatal ends in Riyadh, and why now.
They ask why these so-called accidents occur specifically in the heart of the Saudi capital, and why they are concentrated during this period—implying a deliberate strategy rather than mere misfortune.
AA