Operation to liberate Hodeida under way
COALITION IN FULL-BLOWN ASSAULT ON AL HOUTHIS TO RETAKE CITY
In the largest battle of the three-year-old war in Yemen, dubbed operation ‘Golden Victory’, the Saudi-led coalition launched an attack on the strategic port city of Hodeida yesterday.
Coalition warplanes pounded the Iran-backed Al Houthi militia’s fortifications to support ground operations by Arab and Yemeni troops massed south of the port. Witnesses described “concentrated and intense” bombardment near the port.
UAE forces with Yemeni troops moved in from the south near Hodeida’s airport, while others sought to cut off Al Houthi supply lines to the east.
Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi has called on the National Army and Popular Resistance, supported by the coalition, to resort to a military solution as the situation in the governorate has become a humanitarian catastrophe. “We can no longer remain silent when it comes to Al Houthi practices and their stubbornness not to reach a political solution to the Yemen crisis,” he said.
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash tweeted: “Hodeida is on the verge of liberation. The media voice of Al Houthis, Al Jazeera channel, is adopting an opportunistic stance expressing discontent. That is how [the channel] was and this is how it will remain.”
Reem Ebrahim Al Hashemi, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation, said the coalition has prepared a largescale and comprehensive plan for the rapid delivery of humanitarian aid to the governorate of Hodeida, and surrounding areas.
Four UAE soldiers martyred
The Yemeni and Arab coalition forces liberated new strategic areas in Durahmi Directorate and the surroundings of Hodeida airport after breaking through the frontlines of the Al Houthi militia and breaking their fortifications south of the city. The operation resulted in the collapse of militia defences.
Meanwhile, the General Command of the UAE Armed Forces announced yesterday the martyrdom of four Emirati soldiers while carrying out their duties within the operations of the Arab coalition to back the legitimate government in Yemen.
Yemeni government forces, supported by the Arab Coalition, started yesterday a major offensive to liberate the western city of Hodeida and its strategic port from Iran-allied Al Houthis. It is the largest battle of the war.
The assault marks the first time the Arab states have tried to capture such a heavily-defended major city since they joined the war three years ago against the militants, who control the capital Sana’a and most of the populated areas.
The operation comes after Al Houthis consistently rejected peace proposals, in the past and under the current UN Envoy Martin Griffiths, to head off the onslaught by ceding the port’s control over to a neutral party.
Shortly after the launch of the operation codenamed the “Golden Victory”, Yemeni forces retook the suburb of Nekhailah from Al Houthis amid collapses in their ranks, the Yemeni army said.
Al Houthis had deployed military vehicles and troops in the city centre and near the port, as coalition warplanes flew overhead striking a coastal strip to the south, Reuters reported.
Salah Al Hadi, an Egyptian political analyst, warned Al Houthis could use subversive tactics to retain their grip on Hodeida — the last port under their control. “They might have already planted naval mines around entrances to the city in order to hamper the coalition offensive,” Al Hadi told Gulf News.
“They may also destroy facilities of the vital port before their withdrawal and increase the launch of ballistic missiles across the border into Saudi territory.”
In recent months, Saudi air defence forces have intercepted several such missiles that in some cases killed civilians.
The Saudi-led coalition comprises a 21,000-strong
force which includes Emirati and Sudanese troops as well as Yemenis, drawn from southern separatists, local Red Sea coast fighters and a battalion led by a nephew of late ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen’s internationallyrecognised government said that yesterday’s operation was carried out after all “peaceful and political avenues were exhausted”.
The Arab coalition says it can ease the crisis once they seize it by lifting import restrictions.
The Saudi-led alliance has
accused Al Houthis of using Hodeida port to illegally obtain weapons from Iran.
“The liberation of Al Hodeida port will be a landmark achievement in our struggle to restore Yemen from militias that have hijacked it to promote foreign agendas,” the Yemeni government said.
Chop Iran’s hands
The operation began after the passing of a three-day deadline set by the UAE, one of the coalition’s leaders, for Al Houthis to quit the port.
“The liberation of the port will be the beginning of Al Houthis’ fall and will secure maritime traffic in the Bab Al Mandab Strait and chop the hands of Iran from swamping Yemen with deadly weapons.”
Bab Al Mandab in southwestern Yemen is a major waterway between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal.
“Bab Al Mandab is strategically important because it has access to major international markets,” Saeed Al Lawandi, an expert at the Cairo-based Al Ahram Centre for Political Studies, told Gulf News . Al Houthis have threatened to hit oil tankers passing through it.
“If allowed to fall it will allow Iran to dominate the ship passing through the waterway. Should this happen, the Egyptian economy would also suffer because the traffic in the Suez Canal would be negatively affected,” he added.
The Suez Canal is among Egypt’s main income sources.