US, Riyadh propose 5-day Yemen truce
Time for written security guarantee from Washington, UAE ambassador says
Saudi Arabia and the United States said yesterday a renewable, five-day ceasefire in Yemen’s war would start ‘in the coming days’ to facilitate aid to millions of civilians, if Iranbacked militiamen and their allies agree to stop fighting.
At a joint news conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said the kingdom would halt air strikes in Yemen because it is determined to expand relief assistance to the Yemeni people. Saudi Arabia will provide $274 million in new assistance, he said.
Meanwhile, the UAE ambassador in Washington Yousuf Al Otaiba yesterday stressed the importance of receiving a written security guarantee from Washington, during President Barack Obama’s Camp David meeting with GCC leaders, Sky News Arabia reported.
“We look forward to a security guarantee in view of Iran’s behaviour in the region. In the past we were able to work under a gentlemen’s agreement with the US on security. I think today we need something in writing,” the TV channel quoted him as saying at the Washington Research Institute.—Agencies
The question of whether or not ground troops will be sent to Yemen has been tossed around many times since the March 26 commencement of Saudi-led air strikes against Al Houthi militiamen in Yemen.
While Saudi Arabia has consistently said ground troops would not be ruled out, US Secretary of State John Kerry played down the prospects of either Riyadh or Washington sending ground troops during a joint press-conference with Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir in Riyadh yesterday.
On Wednesday, Yemen’s ambassador to the UN asked the international community to quickly intervene with ground forces to save the country.
A letter sent on Wednesday to the president of the UN Security Council and obtained by AP also calls on human rights organisations to document what Ambassador Khalid Al Yemeni calls Al Houthis’ “barbaric violations against a defenseless population”.
The call for the use of ground forces comes as the international community instead calls for an immediate ceasefire, or at least humanitarian pauses, to deliver aid to civilians trapped in the fighting.
The letter comes as the Al Houthi militiamen and their allies on Wednesday consolidated their hold in another part of the southern port city of Aden, where the UN said violence was getting increasingly intense.
Several districts in Aden governorate were completely cut off, the deputy spokesman for the secretary-general, Farhan Haq, said earlier on Wednesday.
The UN’s humanitarian office cited reports of heavy shelling in seven districts of Aden, Haq said. In Al Tawahi district, which Al Houthis took Wednesday, parties to the conflict were “reportedly shooting at residents attempting to leave and shelling the boat in which they trying to escape,” Haq said.
“Several hundred families managed to flee to other parts of Aden governorate by boat.”
Al Yemeni’s letter lists a few examples of “latest barbaric events in Aden.” The letter says more than 50 civilians, including women and children, were killed by Al Houthi strikes on their boats as they tried to flee Al Tawahi district.
The letter claims that Al Houthis are “targeting anything that moves” in Aden, killing humanitarian workers, using tanks and heavy artillery on families and preventing medical teams from reaching injured people.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said all options were open including ground operations to stop mortar attacks on its border towns by Yemen’s Al Houthi militia.
Options open
“It is possible to repeat the same number of sorties, a land operation is possible, all options are open to prevent these practices of the militias,” military spokesman Brigadier General Ahmad Assiri told TV channel Al Arabiya late on Wednesday.
In the interview, Assiri did not say whether Saudi Arabia would consider the Yemeni government’s request for international troops to relieve the southern city of Aden, where Al Houthis took the vital Al Tawahi district in heavy fighting on Wednesday.
Al Houthis said early yesterday they had shelled a Saudi air defence facility north of Najran after sending mortars and rockets into the city on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing eight people. Another two Saudis were killed by Al Houthi shells hitting a village in Jizan province. The Arab coalition has been wary of putting boots onto the ground in Yemen, keenly aware of the difficulties of tackling a well entrenched guerrilla army in its own mountainous terrain.
More than 100 Saudi soldiers were killed during a 2009-10 border war between the kingdom and Al Houthis, which included ground fighting in frontier villages. In this conflict 10 Saudi army and border guards troops have died in mortar strikes.