Coalition digs in for ground war
UAE has contributed the largest and most experienced contingent of ground troops
We have a mission and we believe it’s the right mission, Emirati officer leading the combined land force says
Soldiers from the UAE, part of a Gulf Arab coalition fighting Iran-allied Al Houthi forces in Yemen, are preparing for a tough ground war from their base in the southern port of Aden.
As thousands of coalition soldiers fight daily battles with the Al Houthis on the front lines, their comrades in Aden are training Yemeni troops and trying to rebuild a functioning state loyal to President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Saudi Arabia assembled the coalition in March to carry out air strikes against the Al Houthis. Since then, the coalition has ramped up its deployment of ground forces and the UAE, which has contributed the largest and most experienced contingent of ground troops, has taken an increasingly prominent role. Brigadier Nasser Mushabab Al Otaibi, the Emirati officer leading the combined land force, said around 4,000 troops from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Sudan were now in Yemen, in the first major Gulf Arab-led intervention.
As well as fighting on the front lines, coalition soldiers are training around 7,000 Yemeni troops, and plan to begin building a police force in Aden to replace the ragtag local militias who currently man the checkpoints.
“They have their own army, they are trying to build police, and they have a government in Aden ... it’s a country now,” Al Otaibi said in an interview at the UAE’s military headquarters in Aden.
Al Otaibi said it would take another month or two for the coalition to capture Taiz. After that, with a United Nationsbacked peace process barely out of the starting blocks, more battles will surely lie ahead.
Reconstruction work
The UAE has poured resources into reconstruction and humanitarian aid in Aden, hoping to build a sustainable economy and set an example of good governance that will turn public opinion against the Al Houthis.
A team from the UAE’s Red Crescent Society said it had spent almost $100 million (Dh367 million) on power stations alone, and distributed food to 163,000 families.
“If you walk down the street you will see electricity everywhere, water supply, prices going down,” Otaibi said. He said in Aden the price of flour, the staple food, was less than one sixth what it was in Sana’a.
Hadi returned from exile last month, pledging to oversee the reconquest of Taiz and making Aden a de facto capital city for the first time since 1990, when the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY or South Yemen) unified with the north.
And at some point, the coalition will need to turn its attention to the sparsely populated east, where Daesh and Al Qaida are seizing territory and menacing Aden’s flank.
UAE troops flying home said they would be back in Yemen after a short break. There are no signs of war-weariness among the Emirati troops, who see the Yemen campaign as a war of necessity despite its remoteness.
“We have a mission and we believe it’s the right mission ... we know if we don’t do this fight this time, we’ll do it in five or ten years and it will be harder than now,” Al Otaibi said.
We have a mission and we believe it’s the right mission ... we know if we don’t do this fight this time, we’ll do it in five or ten years and it will be harder than now.”
Brigadier Nasser Mushabab Al Otaibi| Emirati officer leading the combined land force