Emirates troop reduction could affect conflict
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates, one of the most powerful parties in Yemen’s war, has begun to draw down its forces, pulling out several thousand troops in a move that leaves the Saudiled coalition there with a weakened ground presence and fewer tactical options.
The UAE isn’t quitting Yemen or the coalition, which it and Saudi Arabia formed in 2015 to stem the advance of Iranianallied Shiite rebels known as Houthis who took over the north.
But the cutback represents a major step away by the Emiratis from their partner Saudi Arabia’s main policy in the war — to batter the rebels into submission — a strategy that has largely been unsuccessful.
The UAE says the reduction aims to boost negotiations with the Houthis to end the war.
“Now is the time to double down on the political process,” Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote in The Washington Post this week.
The Houthis and the internationally recognized government of Yemen, which is backed by the coalition, held talks last week for the first time in months on implementing a U.N.brokered ceasefire in Hodeida, a rebelheld Red Sea port city that is the entry point for most humanitarian aid. The talks are crucial for opening the way to broader peace negotiations to end the fiveyearold war.
The war, sparked by the Houthis’ takeover of the capital in 2014, has claimed more than 94,000 lives, according to The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
The fighting and the coalition air campaign have wreaked massive destruction to Yemen’s infrastructure, causing widespread hunger and disease. The nonprofit group Save the Children estimates that 85,000 children under the age of 5 have died from starvation or disease since the start of the war. Cholera outbreaks are believed to have killed more than 3,000 people and caused some 1.4 million suspected cases.
Some 10,000 Emirati troops were involved before the withdrawal, Yemeni officials say. A person briefed on the moves said there’s been a 50%75% drawdown across all Emirati military task forces in Yemen.
It’s not likely to tip the military balance immediately, since UAEallied militias remain on the front lines, including the most important one at the moment, Hodeida.
But much now depends on the Hodeida talks. U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths described it as “the gateway to the political process.”