One week after Yemeni Supreme Political Council Chairman Mahdi al-Mashat’s proposal to halt “voluntarily and unilaterally” the drone and missile attacks by the Yemeni National Salvation Government (YNSG) against Saudi territory, provided Riyadh and its Saudi led “aggressive coalition” will also stop their attacks on Yemen and end its siege, the Wall Street Journal on Friday (Sept. 27) quoted Saudi sources as saying that Saudi Arabia had offered a partial ceasefire to the YNSG.

In response to the YNSG move, Riyadh has agreed to a partial ceasefire in four areas, including Sanaa, the Yemeni capital the YNSG forces have controlled since 2014, the US newspaper said.

If the mutual ceasefire in these areas takes hold, the Saudis would look to broaden the truce to other parts of Yemen, the WSJ quoted people familiar with the discussions as saying.

Accordingly, as expected, Saudi officials eventually responded to Ansarullah’s ceasefire proposal, while acknowledging in practical terms the military supremacy of Ansarullah and their own military weakness gave an incomplete and deceptive response. In fact, the response reflects the kind of confusion the Saudi officials are currently suffering from. On the one hand, they find it impossible to continue the war because of Ansarullah’s enormous military capabilities, and on the other hand, accepting a cease-fire would mean the complete cessation of military offensives in Yemen and the confession to their outright defeat. It is therefore in this highly desperate and difficult situation that partial ceasefire was discussed in four distinct areas, including Sanaa, and postponed the complete cessation of war to subsequent stages.

Undoubtedly, the Riyadh officials by providing this sort of response to Ansarullah’s ceasefire proposal intend to dispel allegations of war and rejection of the peace deal, and in contrast undermine Ansarullah’s peaceful and highly positive image that the media have been covering in recent weeks. Yemeni Supreme Political Council officials, as well as Ansarullah movement officials, have explicitly opposed a limited and regional ceasefire and have conditioned the end of any drone and missile operations against Saudi Arabia on pledging to end the war.

Whatever the case, concerns over the damage inflicted on the Aramco oil installations and Ansarullah’s military superiority has spread beyond Riyadh and what emerged on Friday as part of Saudi authorities’ acceptance of the Ansarullah peace plan is the translation of some decisions London and Washington have contributed. Going back to about five years ago, at the beginning of this brutal war, the United States and Britain also played a key role in the military invasion of Yemen. What is clear is Ansarullah’s response to Riyadh’s proposal, and serious opposition to the ceasefire in limited areas, is a clever response that blocks any new conspiracies and thwarts new calculations of the Western-Arab coalition.

Because a regional and limited ceasefire on the one hand means to provide the grounds for the fifth column activities in Yemen and on the other to limit Ansarullah’s defense activities.

Ansarullah should never lose the ability to use its missile and drone capabilities as its most effective strong point.

As a result, although the Saudi plan may seem like a step towards peace and tranquility in the four-and-a-half-year war against the Yemeni people, however, it will be considered safe and acceptable for the suffering Yemeni people when all the ways are blocked to any abuse by the aggressors.