Saudi Arabia launches attacks against Houthi insurgents in Yemen

Saudi Arabia launches attacks against Houthi insurgents in Yemen

Published 26 March 2015

 

Dozens of Saudi Air Force jets, accompanied by fighter jets of several Gulf States, yesterday (Wednesday) launched a series of attacks against Shia’ Houthi insurgents in Yemen in an effort to beat back to progress of the Houthi forces across Yemen. The Saudis’ ultimate goal is to defeat the pro-Iranian Houthis, but the immediate Saudi worry is the growing presence of the Houthis – who hail from north Yemen – in and around the port city of Aden in south Yemen. The Saudi air strikes, carried out after consultations with the United States, are the first step in a broad military campaign which will include ground forces and will see the participation of other Arab states. Iran, through its regional agents – the Shi’a government in Baghdad; the Alawite Assad regime in Damascus; and the Shi’a Hezbollah militia in Lebanon – already calls the shots in three Arab countries. It appears that the Arab Sunni states have decided the draw the line in Yemen in order to deny Iran yet another regional gain and check the growth of Iran’s regional sway.

Dozens of Saudi Air Force jets, accompanied by fighter jets of several Gulf States, yesterday (Wednesday) launched a series of attacks against Shia’ Houthi insurgents in Yemen in an effort to beat back to progress of the Houthi forces across Yemen. The Saudis’ ultimate goal is to defeat the pro-Iranian Houthis, but the immediate Saudi worry is the growing presence of the Houthis – who hail from north Yemen – in and around the port city of Aden in south Yemen.
The Saudi air strikes, carried out after consultations with the United States, are the first step in a broad military campaign which will include ground forces and will see the participation of other Arab states.
On Tuesday, Houthi rebels seized al-Anad airbase, located between Taiz — Yemen’s third largest city, which was seized by the Houthis last week — and President Abd-Rabbuh Mansour Hadi’s stronghold of Aden. The Houthis thus appear determined to expand beyond their stronghold in the northt in an effort to take over the entire country.
The aggressive move by the Houthis convinced the Sunni Arab states that Iran and its regional agents must be confronted more directly. Iran now calls the shots in three Arab countries where its loyalists are in power:

• Iraq, where the Shi’a majority is in power in Baghdad
• Syria, where the minority Alawites, led by the Assad family, control Damascus and Syria’s north west
• Lebanon, where the powerful Shi’a Hezbollah militia is in full control over half of Lebanon, and is the dominant force in the coalition government which controls the other half.

The takeover of Yemen by the Houthis would not only bring a fourth Arab country into Iran’s camp, but would more directly threaten Saudi Arabia.
In an unusual press conference yesterday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, told reporters that a 10-country coalition had joined the military campaign in a bid “to protect and defend the legitimate government” of Yemen’s president, Abd-Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
Hadi’s whereabouts are not known, and the Saudi ambassador declined to give any information about him.
Jubeir said the Houthis, backed by Iran, “have always chosen the path of violence.”
The New York Times reports that the White House announced late Wednesday that President Obama had authorized U.S. forces to provide logistical and intelligence support to the operation. The American military was establishing a “Joint Planning Cell” with Saudi Arabia to coordinate military and intelligence assistance, the White House statement said.
Jubeir said the Saudis “will do anything necessary” to protect the people of Yemen and “the legitimate government of Yemen.”
Jubeir said Saudi Arabia launched the attack “in response to [a] request from the legitimate Yemen government” and insisted it would be a limited operation “designed to protect the people of Yemen and its legitimate government from a takeover by the Houthis.”
“The [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries tried to facilitate a peaceful transition of government in Yemen, but the Houthis have continuously undercut the process,” he said.
“Based on the appeal from President Hadi, and based on the kingdom’s responsibility to Yemen and its people, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with its allies within the GCC and outside the GCC, launched military operations in support of the people of Yemen and their legitimate government,” he added.
Jubeir said the airstrikes began at 7 p.m. Washington, D.C. time and were conducted by Saudi Arabia along with “partner nations in the Persian Gulf” and others, although he declined to specify any other participants. He said that some countries had already transferred military assets to Saudi Arabia and that others were on their way.
Jubeir said that Saudi Arabia and its partners had made every effort to prevent violence but that those attempts had been thwarted by the Houthis. They are now “in control of ballistic missiles and heavy weapons,” in addition to Yemeni aircraft, he said.
In a statement published by the Saudi press agency, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain said they would respond to a request from Hadi “to protect Yemen and his dear people from the aggression of the Houthi militias which were and are still a tool in the hands of foreign powers that don’t stop meddling with the security and stability of brotherly Yemen.”
Oman, the sixth member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and a neighbor of Yemen, was not a signatory to the statement.
Egypt also announced it was providing political and military assistance for the anti-Houthi operation.
The Houthi insurgents are members of the Zaydi offshoot of Shia Islam – but note that while all the Houthis are Zayidis, not all Zayidis are Houthi, as is the case with Ali Abdulah Saleh, who was the president of North Yeen from 1978 to 1990 and, after the unification Yemen in 1990, the president of Yemen from 1990 until 2012.
The Houthis captured the capital, Sana’a, last year and placed Hadi under house arrest. He escaped to Aden earlier this month.
“This is all about Sunni v Shia, Saudi v Iran,” said Michael Lewis, professor at Ohio Northern University College of Law and a former navy fighter pilot who watches Yemen closely. The United States, he told the Guardian, “can’t be a disinterested observer. Nobody’s going to buy that. What we needed to do was pick a side.”