The civil war in Yemen

When Iran-backed Houthis descended on Aden, the Saudi-led coalition intervened

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under the command of his Defense Minister Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Soubaihi. The continuing influence of Saleh’s grip on the army, however, was all too visible as military units in Dhale, Lahj, Abyan and Shabwa that had long been under the former president’s command threw their weight behind marching Houthi forces, smoothing their way to reach the outskirts of Aden within days. The implications of the Houthi military expansion were huge. The civil war had allowed Al-Qaeda and Daesh to expand in southern provinces when thousands of army troops and other security forces had abandoned their positions to fight along with the Houthis.

Experts here told me at the time even that Saleh and the Houthis were behind the resurrection of Al-Qaeda and Daesh to discredit Hadi and create a rationale for invading Aden and neighboring provinces.

The civil war has disrupted the implementation of outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference. Starting on March 18, 2013, the conference brought together all Yemeni factions, including the Houthis, who agreed on solutions to the country’s many thorny issues.

The conference, which concluded on Jan. 22, 2014, approved a plan to divide the country into six semi-autonomous regions. But with the Houthis on the verge of seizing control of the whole country on March 22, 2015, it was impossible to put this plan into action.

The other consequence of the Houthis’ military activities has been the introduction of an unprecedented religious divide in Yemen’s political dialogue. Wars in the country had long been seen as competitions between different political or tribal forces. But when the Houthis, a Shiite group seeking to invade the Sunni-dominated south, it was to the sound of a new sectarian discourse.

For days, as the

Houthis crushed tribal and military resistance on their way to Aden, seizing control of the city’s airport on March 25, citizens and army commanders alike despaired that anything could blunt their advance. Hadi fled the country, and military officers who confided in me spoke of reverting to insurgency tactics rather than facing the superior Houthi forces in conventional battles.

Then, at the peak of national frustration, relief came from the sky. On March 26, 2015, an overjoyed military officer who had been a source of mine for more than a year called me at about 3 a.m., unable to wait until daylight to tell me the news. “Saeed, wake up! The Saudis have begun bombing the Houthis in Aden,” he said. “Now we can regroup and fight them off.”

AFP A Yemeni man chants as he holds up a assault rifle in the Houthi rebel-held capital Sanaa on Sept. 21, 2019.

On March 22, 2015 Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, inspired by rapid military gains in northern Yemen, gave a televised speech calling for the mobilization of forces to defeat Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who had decamped to Aden from the captured capital Sanaa. Hadi, backed by inadequate numbers of remaining troops and tribesmen, nevertheless vowed to resist the Houthi advance and requested military support from the neighboring Gulf states. It came quickly, in the shape of a heavy aerial bombardment by a Saudi-led coalition that helped to tilt the balance of the conflict in favor of the government, which was able to recover control of almost 80 percent of the country. But the civil war, which has claimed the lives of thousands of Yemenis and driven many more toward starvation, continues with no end in sight.

The main aim of the military operations in Yemen currently is to cut off the major supply routes of the Houthis, a senior defense official said on Friday. From a story by Mohammed Al-Sulami on Arab News’ front page, March 28, 2015