Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, the son of Yemen’s late president, launched his first public diatribe against the Houthi militias on Friday, ending years of silence since his father was killed in 2017.
Speaking on the 63rd anniversary of Yemen’s Sept. 26 revolution, which toppled the imamate in the north in 1962, Saleh branded the Houthis as heirs of the “backward clerical rule” and vowed their defeat, saying Yemenis who overthrew the imamate could do so again to “regain freedom and dignity.”
His fiery remarks, broadcast by his Yemen Today TV channel, came weeks after a Houthi court sentenced him to death, confiscated his assets and forced the group’s loyalists inside the General People’s Congress party (GPC) in Sanaa to strip him of his post as deputy party leader.
Analysts said the moves underscored the Houthis’ unease over his symbolic weight inside the party his father founded, and may have prompted his public challenge.
In his speech, Saleh evoked both the Sept. 26 revolution and the December 2017 uprising led by his father against the Houthis, portraying them as one continuous struggle. He called for a “national rescue project” to unite anti-Houthi forces, transcending political divisions that he said had allowed the group to consolidate power.
The address also carried regional messages. Saleh thanked Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Oman for supporting Yemen in its “darkest times,” stressing that the country could not rise in isolation from its Arab neighbors and allies.
Since the Houthis killed former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in December 2017, the group has kept GPC under the nominal leadership of Sadeq Abu Rass, whom party members and critics say lacks real authority and has been sidelined, even as Houthis accuse him and others of plotting against them.
