Saudi Arabia evacuates diplomats as attacks intensify in Yemen
Saudi-led airstrikes intensify in Yemen as possible coalition land attack looms
(about 3 hours later)
SANAA, Yemen — Saudi Arabia has evacuated diplomats from the southern Yemeni city of Aden, state television reported Saturday, amid intensifying attacks against Shiite insurgents from a coalition led by Riyadh that is pushing this volatile nation over the edge.
SANAA, Yemen — Arab leaders vowed Saturday to back the embattled Yemeni president as a Saudi Arabia-steered coalition intensified airstrikes across Yemen, developments that could mark preparations for a possible land invasion targeting the country’s Houthi insurgents.
The insurgents, known as Houthis, have in recent days fought their way from the capital of Sanaa in the north to the outskirts of Aden, despite the airstrikes by the coalition of largely Arab countries. The Saudi-steered coalition wants to secure the hold on Aden by forces loyal to Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, threatening to send in ground troops to push back the Houthis.
In the southern city of Aden, a hotbed of anti-Houthi sentiment and a possible starting point for a coalition ground assault, one politician described a situation of “great chaos” as the insurgents pressed their advance on the city. Meanwhile, the Saudi Press Agency reported that the desert kingdom’s navy had evacuated 86 diplomats from Aden by ship on Wednesday.
Al-Ekhbariya TV announced on its news ticker that the diplomats had been safely transported to the Saudi city of Jeddah, the Reuters news agency reported.
Support for Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled Aden for Saudi Arabia this past week, was firmly voiced by leaders of regional powers attending the Arab League summit Saturday in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh — a rare sign of unity in a region rife with war and divisions.
“The Saudi Royal Navy implemented an operation called Hurricane to evacuate dozens of diplomats, including Saudis, from Aden,” the television station reported without offering further details.
The leaders of Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among others, billed Yemen’s chaotic spiral as a grave threat to the entire Middle East, and on Saturday officials submitted a draft resolution creating a joint Arab military force to respond to the region’s growing crises.
Gulf Arab States, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, relocated their embassies to Aden in February after Hadi fled to the city after escaping Houthi house arrest in Sanaa.
The details of any potential security regime remained unclear. But with battles raging across Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the show of Arab support for the anti-Houthi offensive underscored a readiness by regional states to interfere in neighboring countries beset by violence.
Basem al-Hakimi, a politician in Aden who opposes the Houthis, said the diplomats have been leaving with Saudi help for the past two days. He described the situation in Aden as “great chaos,” adding that Houthi rebels were attempting to push deeper into the city.
“Everyone is trying to get weapons to fight the Houthis. It’s madness,” he said.
Unconfirmed video footage shows people looting Hadi’s residence in Aden, which he abandoned after fleeing Yemen earlier this week. A voice on the film can heard saying that “this is the house of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi,” as looters are seen carrying off items such as living room chairs.
The Houthis have pressed on with their offensive, even as the Saudi-led force of at least 10 countries has stepped up attacks, including what residents in the capital described as the most intense air barrages since the campaign began on Thursday. Military targets that were struck in attacks on Friday were hit again overnight, sustaining even heavier damage, they said.
The fighting signals that this destitute Arabian Peninsula country — which struggles with a powerful al-Qaeda affiliate — is turning into a proxy battlefield for Saudi Arabia, the region’s Sunni powerhouse, and its primary foe: Shiite Iran. Riyadh accuses Tehran of providing weapons and funding for the Houthis, who follow the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Press Agency reported that two F-15 fighter pilots who ejected from their aircraft over the Read Sea were rescued with American assistance. The aircraft went down because of a “technical failure,” the agency reported, without providing further details.
The Associated Press reported that a U.S. helicopter flew from neighboring Djibouti on Thursday to the Gulf of Aden, rescuing the Saudi pilots.
For the first time in the two-day operation, Saudi officials sketched out the scope of their military operation, indicating they might not try to completely defeat the Houthi rebels but instead would seek to safeguard enough territory for Hadi to return from exile. He had established a government in Aden in February after the rebels toppled his administration in Sanaa, the capital. He fled Aden for Saudi Arabia this week as the insurgents moved in.
“I want to confirm that the operation itself has as its main objective to protect the government in Aden,” Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asseri, a Saudi military spokesman, said at a news conference in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, according to the Reuters news agency.
Anis Mansour, editor in chief of the city’s Huna Aden newspaper, said the rebels seized a government compound Friday in Dar Saad, about five miles from the center of Aden. They also took control of the city’s airport, he said. Rebels and pro-government forces have battled over the airport for days.
The Houthi attacks occurred even as the Saudi-led forces conducted a new wave of bombings. Local news media and residents in Sanaa said the airstrikes Friday targeted military installations controlled by the rebels as well as by forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the longtime Yemeni autocrat who was forced from power by a popular uprising that started in 2011. He is widely considered to have thrown his support behind the Houthis.
Also targeted were a port in the west and a military base in the oil-rich province of Marib, which the Houthis have attempted to capture in recent weeks.
[What the bombing of Yemen means for the Middle East]
[What the bombing of Yemen means for the Middle East]
The Saudi-led forces also launched an early-morning air attack on the former presidential residence in Sanaa, which is under rebel control. They killed at least two Houthi leaders and wounded Mohammed al-Houthi, the rebel group’s top official in the city, according to local news reports.
“The Arab nation has passed through many phases, none of which has posed as much of a threat as the one we’re experiencing now,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi told the summit.
But Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a top Houthi official, called the reports “entirely false.”
King Salman of Saudi Arabia, in another speech to the delegates, vowed to continue military operations in Yemen “until stability is returned,” a reference to restoring Hadi’s authority. After fleeing the capital, Sanaa, last month, Hadi set up a rival authority in Aden that has since fallen apart because of the fighting.
Speaking by telephone, he accused Saudi Arabia of seeking “to destroy Yemen’s army” by attacking military bases. The military has fractured, with some officers supporting Saleh and others backing Hadi.
Hadi also addressed the summit, expressing his approval of the coalition attacks that began Thursday and declaring that the military operation “must continue.” He characterized the rebels who effectively toppled his government in Sanaa in February as “stooges” of Iran.
Ahmed Abdulwahid, 22, said he watched the Attan military base in Sanaa explode into a fireball early Friday.
“The Houthis and their allies have turned against national unity and are dragging Yemen into a civil war,” he said.
“There were three airstrikes. The third one, at about 5:30 a.m., created this extremely bright flash over the base. At first, we thought it was dawn, but then we realized it was just the intensity of explosion in the distance,” the university student said, adding that he also saw antiaircraft fire. “It was terrifying.”
The remarks highlighted the escalating tensions that the airstrikes by the roughly 10-member coalition have stirred between the region’s major rivals: Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran. Tehran has increased its support for the Houthis, who follow the Zaydi sect of Shiite Islam.
Early this year, the Houthi rebels effectively toppled the government of Hadi, a key U.S. partner in combating al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered the most dangerous branch of the extremist group. Hadi and other government ministers were placed under house arrest. Last month, Hadi escaped to Aden.
Many Yemenis fear that the fighting could turn their country into an arena for proxy battles between Riyadh and Tehran, which are backing warring parties in other destructive regional conflicts such as the Syrian civil war. Yemen, the poorest Arab country, has struggled to quell attacks by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as a possible Yemeni wing of the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for suicide bombings this month that killed nearly 140 people in the capital.
[Chart: Yemen’s chaos, explained]
[Chart: Yemen’s chaos, explained]
Tehran has condemned the Saudi-led attacks and called for an immediate halt to the campaign, which includes threats of a land invasion. Egypt has dispatched several warships to Aden.
Residents of Sanaa, Aden and the western province of Hodeida said that the frequency of airstrikes increased overnight Friday, the targets including military installations controlled by the Houthis as well as military units loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, a longtime Yemeni strongman who was forced from power in 2012. Saleh has allied with the Houthis during their takeover of Sanaa in September and the assaults that have brought the insurgents to the northern outskirts of Aden, many Yemenis say.
Speaking by telephone, Deif Allah al-Shami, a member of the Houthi political bureau, warned that “history will repeat itself” if the Egyptians deploy ground forces. That was a reference to the 1960s, when Egypt suffered tens of thousands of casualties while fighting a war in Yemen.
Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said that the coalition attacks have targeted Houthi-linked air defenses, arms depots and communications lines. The intention, he said, is to “prepare the way” for a an “imminent ground offensive.”
“This time, however, their losses will be much greater,” Shami said.
“It’s a classic move of taking out air defenses, ensuring air superiority and taking out command-and-control and communication posts,” he said. Houthi forces would likely crumble in the face of a ground assault by militaries such as Egypt’s, which are more organized, heavily armed and “trained by the U.S.,” Kahwaji added.
In February, as the Houthis advanced across Yemen, Egyptian officials warned that their forces would move to block the rebels from accessing a strategic strait that links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Egypt’s Suez Canal, which allows ships to pass from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, is a key source of revenue for the country.
Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, said that the Houthis would struggle to repel a ground offensive in significant areas that they control, including Aden and other important cities, such as Taiz, in part because of a lack of support from local populations. The Houthis are from the north, which has long been dominated by fellow Zaydis, as opposed to the predominantly Sunni south.
Egypt has increasingly portrayed itself as a regional power capable of intervening in Arab countries that struggle with unrest. Last month, Egyptian warplanes hit jihadist targets in Libya in retaliation for the beheading of 20 Egyptian Christians by local militants.
“I think they’re losing this battle,” Khatib said of the Houthis, adding that Iran would likely hesitate to come to the rebels’ defense in the event of a Saudi-led ground assault.
With U.S. influence in the region waning, “Egypt’s role as anchor in a regional security regime will continue to grow,” said Hisham Kassem, a Cairo-based political analyst.
“They are useful allies of Iran, but they are not seen as indispensable by Iran,” she said.
But Egyptian forces would probably face stiff resistance on the ground from battle-hardened Houthi rebels as well as elite military units loyal to Saleh.
Airstrikes early Saturday smashed into the Attan air base in the capital for a second straight day, residents said, producing massive fireballs that lit up the early evening sky.
Military experts warn that Egyptian ground troops, last deployed during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, are ill-prepared to wage a successful counterinsurgency campaign overseas.
In Hodeida province, residents said that at least two air-defense systems had been attacked, including one located near a port facility. Yemeni officials and Houthi opponents claim that Iranian weapons have been shipped to the rebels throughout the area. Houthi officials, for their part, deny receiving Iranian weapons.
Houthi rebels and forces linked to Saleh appeared to be encircling Aden on Friday.
Ridhwan al-Absi, a lawyer in the city of Hodeida, said that before the Saudi-led assaults, airstrikes “targeted air defenses.”
Mansour, the newspaper editor in the city, said that residents have been looting two local military bases, arming themselves in preparation for incursions.
In Aden, one apparent attack by the coalition on an ammunition depot next to the city killed and wounded scores of people, according to residents and physicians.
But for the most part, Mansour said: “The streets here are empty, and shops are closed. There’s no more gasoline because all the stations are closed.”
Al-Khadher Laswar, general manager of the Health Ministry office in Aden, said nine people sustained third-degree burns in the attack and five others were injured by falling debris. He did not have accurate figures on the number of people killed because of the danger of secondary explosions at the site, he said.
Hadi’s internationally recognized government had appealed recently for military intervention from the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is anchored by the Saudis and includes Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar.
He added that 61 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded in clashes in Aden and surrounding areas in recent days. Aden residents say that Houthi rebels and pro-Saleh military units control the city’s airport, and they also cite rising lawlessness that has resulted in looting.
In an apparent indication of concern over escalating events, a senior Yemeni official allied with Hadi said Friday that the assaults could end soon. Speaking to Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television, Riyadh Yaseen said he expects that “this operation will not go on for long. I think it will be days.”
Basem al-Hakimi, a politician in Aden who opposes the Houthis, described the situation as chaotic. “Everyone is trying to get weapons to fight the Houthis. It’s madness,” he said.
But the Houthi offensive suggested that the fight might be more complicated than Saudi officials and their Yemeni allies predict.
Unconfirmed video footage shows people looting Hadi’s abandoned residence in Aden. A voice-over says,“This is the house of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi,” as looters are seen carrying off items such as living room chairs.
An Arab League summit beginning Saturday is expected to consider the creation of a unified Arab military force to respond to crises. The size, budget and mandate of the force have not yet been agreed upon.
Qasem Dawood Ali, an NGO worker in Aden, said that bodies are were lying in the city’s streets as hospitals filled with the wounded.
According to al-Arabiya, Hadi plans to attend the summit.
“Right now there is heavy bombing from Houthi tanks near the airport and you can also hear the explosions coming from the weapons-storage facility,” he said by telephone. “Aden is falling apart.”
Naylor reported from Beirut. Erin Cunningham in Cairo and Heba Habib in Sharm el-Sheikh contributed to this report.
