Fed-up Yemenis mark year of war

SANAA, Yemen — Tens of thousands of people protested in the Yemeni capital Saturday on the anniversary of a U.S.backed, Saudi-led coalition’s entrance into the country’s civil war that has killed thousands and strengthened the Islamic State and al-Qaida.

As coalition jets roared overhead, the demonstrators carried the Yemeni flag and chanted “end the siege” while others vowed “to fight the Saudi aggression and its agents until their last man.”

The conflict in Yemen, which straddles the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula and borders key oil shipping routes in the Red Sea, pits the government, supported largely by Saudi-led airstrikes, against the rebel Houthis and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Houthis seized control of Sanaa, Yemen’s largest city and its capital, in the fall of 2014, prompting government leaders to flee. Today, the U.S.backed government, led by Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has been largely relegated to the southern port city of Aden.

The Saudi-led coalition airstrikes started in March of last year, turning the rebellion into a full-blown civil war.

On Saturday morning, many protesters carried pictures of Saleh, who gave a speech to his supporters condemning the Saudi intervention. But the former president also said he would be open to discussions with the Saudis to bring the conflict to an end.

“I have come today to support my country,” said Ali al-Hamdani, 30, a farmer from Hamdan, a nearby district. “It has been exactly a year since this barbaric war started, and we have been suffering from all kinds of oppression by the Saudis whether economically or politically.”

A second demonstration, organized by the Houthis, was scheduled for the afternoon.

Saturday’s protests occurred at one of the more hopeful moments in the war. Last week, the warring sides agreed to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that is to take hold April 10. A fresh round of peace talks is expected on April 18 in Kuwait.

Many Yemenis on Saturday expressed skepticism about the peace talks. Previous attempts to implement a ceasefire quickly failed, as each side accused the other of violating the pact.

“I have no faith in any dialogue by the Security Council,” said Adel Ahmed Mohammed, 22, a construction worker, referring to the United Nations. “It is not serious, and any announcement by them for peace talks is nothing more than just a media announcement.”

Even if there is success next month, it may do little to stop the violent forces unleashed by conflict. On Friday, three suicide bombers from the Islamic State attacked security checkpoints in Aden, killing at least 26 people. And a U.S. airstrike Tuesday on an al-Qaida training camp in the southeastern province of Hadramaut killed more than 70 fighters, according to the Pentagon.

In the war’s chaos, al-Qaida’s Yemen branch — al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula — has bolstered its grip on the country’s south and east, overrunning large areas of territory. U.S. officials describe the group as the terror network’s most dangerous branch, and it has been a target of U.S. counterterrorism efforts for more than a decade.

A nascent affiliate of the Syria and Iraq-based Islamic State has also targeted both government and rebel forces in a series of assaults, signaling their intentions to transform Yemen into one of its satellite strongholds.