Yemen’s battlefield turned in favor of Iran-backed Houthis

Without coordination with UN peacekeepers in the region, Yemeni forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates abruptly withdrew from key positions near the western port city of Hodeidah last week. At the same time, Saudi Arabia vowed to send more forces to defend Marib, the center of an energy hub near the Saudi border where the Houthis have been gaining new ground for months.

The surprise turnaround on the front lines of the Seven Years’ War has allowed the Houthis to reopen the road from Hodeida to the capital Sanaa, where the group recently stormed a largely abandoned US embassy compound and fired Yemeni staff. Captured.

The restructuring of the battlefield is another strategic turning point for the Saudis, who initially believed in 2015 that, with US backing, they would only need a few weeks to defeat the Houthi movement, a Shia branch group in Yemen called Iran. who had captured the capital of Yemen. , Instead the country’s civil war has dragged on, which has killed thousands of civilians, including misguided airstrikes, triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, and decimating Saudi coffers.

Some Biden administration officials are urging the president to ease sanctions on military support to Riyadh so that the US can help them repel Houthi advances. But it would mean backtracking on one of Biden’s first foreign policy moves, ending aggressive support for the Saudi-led campaign.

“The war in Yemen must end,” Mr Biden said in February. Since then, his special envoy has traveled to the region more than a dozen times without making any significant progress on mediating a ceasefire or mediating peace talks. A new UN envoy has similarly failed to gain traction.

People familiar with the matter said Saudi Arabia has begun an internal re-evaluation of its strategy in Yemen that should be countered later this month.

Saudi officials have asked the Biden administration to provide intelligence and military support to target sites that Saudis use to launch drones and missiles in cities. The Biden administration has approved military sales of more than $1 billion to Saudi Arabia for servicing air-to-air missiles and Saudi attack helicopters, but there are some indications that Mr. Biden may be targeting Saudi Arabia. We are ready to change course to help deliver. Houthi inside Yemen.

The State Department said on Friday it would impose sanctions against the commander of the Houthi-controlled Military Logistics Organization, which the US says has led an effort to seize assets from Houthi adversaries in Yemen. Foreign Minister Antony Blinken tweeted: “We stand with the people of Yemen and will continue to target those fueling conflict and using the humanitarian crisis for prosperity.”

Meanwhile, US officials said they are trying to quietly negotiate the release of five Yemeni guards employed by the US embassy in Sanaa after being detained by the Houthis, a provocative move that was seen as a deliberate insult. .

The personnel were among nearly three dozen local workers taken hostage last week after Houthi gunmen took over the diplomatic compound, where operations were suspended in 2015. talks. Houthi leaders said the last would be released soon, but this did not happen.

Mr Blinken condemned the Houthi attack, called for the workers to be released without harm and to evacuate the premises immediately.

A Houthi spokesman declined to comment on detentions or recent military activities around Hodeidah. The group’s deputy information minister, Nasr al-Din Amir, said the Houthis would continue to attack foreign troops operating in Yemen.

Saudi officials said they had no plans to withdraw from fighting in Yemen and said the military moves were meant to put more pressure on Houthi fighters in key areas.

With the Houthis just a few kilometers from the city of Marib, a battle could turn bloody. More than a million civilians displaced from other parts of Yemen are believed to be living there.

A Houthis spokesman said they aimed to prevent the Saudis from using Marib as a launch point to attack other parts of the country.

“Our strategy in Marib is clear,” said Mr. Amir. “We will free all our territories.”

The Saudi-led military coalition characterized the withdrawal of forces from Hodeidah as “re-deployment and repositioning” aimed at giving more flexibility to its allies, and followed by airstrikes in support of new defensive positions in the south. But the United Nations mission trying to enforce a three-year-old ceasefire in the region portrayed the moves as “a major change on the front lines” and said the team had never been able to before the Saudis pulled out the forces. did not tell.

Mohamed Albasha, senior Yemen analyst at Virginia-based research firm Navanti Group, said the move was a sign that the Saudi-led “coalition is becoming more realistic and signals that they are going to pull back to where they have better defense.” Line.”

Mr Albasha pointed to open-source satellite images that suggest Saudi Arabia was reducing its military footprint. A Western security official said the Saudis are strengthening the border, potentially leaving only a small number of forces at a handful of bases internally, in anticipation of a Houthis capture of Marib.

Even if the Saudis continue to retreat, Mr Albasha said, it will not bring an end to the war between the Houthis and Yemenis who oppose his rule.

“If this is the end of Saudi intervention in the conflict, the war itself is likely to continue for a long time,” he said. “The Houthis are unlikely to stop, because they want it all.”

This story has been published without modification to the text from a wire agency feed