A Change of Strategy Is Needed in Yemen
Daniel R. DePetris
Security, Middle East
Perpetuating the status quo is a recipe for further killing.
On April 22, 2015, nearly a month into Saudi Arabia’s air war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, Saudi Defense Ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Asiri sounded a triumphant tone. Operation Decisive Storm, the phase of airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition designed to assist the Yemeni government in weakening Houthi resistance and rolling back their battlefield gains, was declared officially over by the Kingdom.
"The coalition has completed the 'Decisive Storm' campaign at the request of the Yemeni government and the president of Yemen,” al-Asiri stated. “The primary goals of the campaign have been achieved and sovereignty has been protected. We are able to confirm that the Houthis are no longer a threat to Yemenis or neighbouring countries.”
As we all know now, Saudi Arabia’s optimism was premature. Operation Decisive Storm has not only continued over the last nine months, but has intensified. Emirati and Saudi advisors have been deployed into southern Yemen in an attempt to train, advise, assist and fight with progovernment troops seeking to push towards the capital Sana. It is not uncommon for people to wake up to news of dozens of civilian casualties in a bombing raid or an indiscriminate rocket or artillery attack from the Houthis and its allies in the Saleh family. Indeed, in the same period that UN interlocutors have been trying to resuscitate peace talks to end the conflict, another hospital in Yemen was struck by an unidentified projectile—a strike that killed four patients and destroyed a badly needed health facility in a remote location of Saada province.
To argue that Yemen is in the midst of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises would be a colossal underestimate. Syria is receiving the bulk of the international community’s attention, while the civil war in Yemen barely registers in Western newspapers. According to the latest numbers from the UN, approximately 82 percent of Yemen’s population—21.2 million people—require some degree of humanitarian assistance to get by on a daily basis. Health facilities across the country have reported thirty-two thousand casualties since Yemen’s civil war expanded in March 2015.
Read full article