Yemeni warplane fleet destroyed in raids, Saudis say
Arab leaders announce joint force to intervene in region’s wars
(about 11 hours later)
SANAA, Yemen — The first three days of airstrikes by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia have destroyed Yemen’s fleet of fighter aircraft and crippled military command centers, dealing a blow to Houthi insurgents, a senior defense official in Riyadh said.
CAIRO — Arab leaders announced Sunday that they would form a joint military force to intervene in neighboring states grappling with armed insurgencies. It is a dramatic step to quell the unrest that has broken out in the wake of the region’s uprisings, but some analysts warned it could exacerbate the conflicts that have polarized countries and left hundreds of thousands dead.
In a statement published Saturday evening by the Saudi Press Agency, Brig. Gen. Ahmed bin Hasan Asiri said rebels “are no longer possessing” jet fighters. The coalition air raids also destroyed most of the groups’ arsenal of ground-to-ground ballistic missiles and command-and-control centers, he said.
The announcement at a summit of Arab leaders in Egypt came as warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition carried out scores of airstrikes across Yemen overnight Saturday and again Sunday, the fourth day of a campaign against Shiite rebels known as Houthis. That coordinated operation, involving mostly Arab countries, could represent a prototype for future joint Arab military interventions in the region.
Analysts say the attacks are part of strategy to eliminate the air defenses, weapons arsenals and communication lines of the Shiite insurgents in a bid to ease the way for a potential land invasion. Many residents in the destitute Arabian Peninsula nation fear a ground assault, and Asiri hinted that the Saudi-led campaign would continue, telling the news agency that the first phase of attacks had been “achieved.”
Arab officials said they still need to hammer out the details of the proposed joint force, but broader questions remain over the ability of Arab countries — many of which have killed scores of their own citizens — to stem the region’s wars through military action. Arab armies, while well-equipped, are largely untested and ill-trained in fighting guerrilla-style conflicts with rebel forces such as the Houthis. From Yemen to Libya to the battlefields of Syria, armed groups have exploited fresh violence to seize power or rout rivals. The result has been deepening polarization and rising death tolls across the region.
Arab leaders vowed Saturday to back the embattled Yemeni president as the coalition intensified airstrikes on Shiite rebel targets across Yemen.
“Without a component for political dialogue, this force will be ineffective and even detrimental” to the region, said Abdel Salam Nasia, an independent member of Libya’s parliament who attended the summit in Egypt.
Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, addressing the summit, said leaders agreed to create a joint Arab military force. The proposed force, according to the Associated Press, will have 40,000 elite troops and will be based in Cairo or the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
Last month, Egyptian fighter jets carried out airstrikes against militant targets in eastern Libya after jihadists beheaded 20 Egyptian Christians there. Egypt then called for a broader intervention to battle Libya’s militant Islamist groups but was rebuffed by U.S. and U.N. officials seeking a negotiated end to Libya’s violence.
The rebels, known as Houthis, pressed on despite the airstrikes and pounded the southern city of Aden with tank fire, witnesses reported. One politician described a situation of “great chaos” in the city, a key prize in the battle. Hospitals filled with the wounded. Dozens of diplomats fled the city.
Speaking at the summit Sunday, in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen scoffed at the idea of government talks with the Houthis and said that the Saudi-led offensive has been “extremely successful.”
The Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television network reported airstrikes overnight Saturday that targeted roads connecting the capital, Sanaa, with the Saada province in the north, which is a Houthi stronghold. The port and airport of the western Hodeida province also were hit by airstrikes, residents said. The Houthis control that province as well as Sanaa, where streets have been emptied of people because of the air raids. Residents of the capital increasingly fear fuel shortages, with lines growing at gas stations.
“The operation will end when Yemen is safe and secure. But we will only negotiate with those who are willing to disarm,” he said. “We won’t negotiate with [the Houthis] because they carried out a coup. They used the state’s weakness to take over.”
[What the bombing of Yemen means for the Middle East]
Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen after the Houthis toppled the government and captured vast tracts of territory in recent weeks.
A key player in the Yemen fighting, Ali Abdullah Saleh, called for a truce Saturday to end the airstrikes. Despite stepping down as the country’s leader in 2012, Saleh is widely thought to be using military units that are still loyal to him to aid the Houthi assaults against the forces of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
The Arab League chief, Nabil al-Araby, said Sunday that the joint force would be deployed at the request of any Arab nation facing a security threat, including from terrorist groups. A panel of regional security officials will meet in the coming months to draw up the size, structure and budget of the force, he said. Member states have proposed a 40,000-strong force backed by fighter jets, warships and light armor, the Associated Press reported, citing Egyptian security officials.
In a televised address, he pleaded for an end to the fighting, criticized Hadi and said neither he nor anyone in his family, including his son Ahmed, sought to take power in Yemen.
Arab officials said the region’s unprecedented threats have made a joint security force necessary. Indeed, a wave of uprisings beginning in 2010 deposed at least four Arab leaders after decades of authoritarian rule. But the pro-democracy revolts were soon overtaken by political chaos and the proliferation of armed factions seeking to capitalize on the instability.
“Let’s have dialogue and pursue elections, and I promise you that neither I nor any one of my relatives will run for the presidency,” he said.
“The challenges facing Arab national security are immense,” Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi said at the closing session of the Arab League summit. Sissi said the decision to establish a combined military force “defends our [Arab] nation . . . and gives it an active role in the future of human civilization.”
Hadi slipped out of Aden and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia this past week after struggling for months to maintain power as Houthi rebels seized increasing areas of the country. The Saudis and their allies think that the Shiite rebels are backed by Iran and that Tehran is trying to exert control over a country that had been an ally of Riyadh and Washington.
In Yemen, the streets of the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, were empty Sunday because of fears of renewed airstrikes, residents said. In the northern Houthi stronghold of Saada, there were unconfirmed reports that airstrikes had destroyed power plants, depriving the province of electricity. Warplanes also struck Sanaa’s airport and the port at Hodeida, crippling Yemen’s already weak infrastructure.
Support for Hadi was firmly voiced by leaders 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 divisions.
Yet even as Saudi officials said they had not ruled out invading Yemen with ground troops, analysts warned of the perils of sending inexperienced armed forces into a country with rugged mountain peaks and severe water shortages. Such a ground force would also struggle against battle-hardened Houthis who are now the most competent fighters in Yemen. The country’s military has fallen apart because of splits over loyalties and the Saudi attacks.
The rulers of Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among others, billed Yemen’s spiral into chaos as a grave threat to the Middle East, and on Saturday, officials submitted a draft resolution to create a joint Arab military force to respond to the region’s growing crises.
Yezid Sayigh, senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said Saudi forces lack experience in mounting large ground offensives.
[Chart: Yemen’s chaos, explained]
“There are all sorts of potential pitfalls” that would accompany a ground incursion in Yemen, he said. “The whole point is that the Houthis have demonstrated that other fighting forces are disorganized, leaderless, and thus these forces collapsed in the face of Houthi assaults.”
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 intercede in neighboring countries beset by violence.
Egypt, too, commands a sizeable army, but it has struggled to battle a years-long insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula. Its forces have also been attacked on the border with Libya, causing some of the highest casualties among Egyptian troops since the war with Israel in 1973.
“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,” Sissi said at the summit.
“We are wary of military intervention, and we hope the Arab League can provide checks” on the forces leading the push for joint Arab assaults, said Dhia al-Dabbass, Iraq’s permanent delegate to the Arab League.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia, in a speech to the delegates, vowed to continue military operations in Yemen “until stability is returned,” a reference to restoring Hadi’s authority.
“The politics of the region are too complex,” he said. “There is no reason why negotiation should not take precedent.”
The Saudis are leading a coalition of about 10 countries that have pledged warplanes and ships for the Yemen fight. Several countries, including Egypt, have said they are prepared to commit ground forces to the operation if necessary.
Habib reported from Sharm el-Sheikh. Mujahed reported from Sana’a. Hugh Naylor contributed from Beirut.
Yemen’s foreign minister, Riyadh Yaseen, told reporters at the summit that it was “very possible” that ground troops would be required to push back the rebels, Reuters news agency reported.
Hadi also addressed the summit, expressing his approval of the coalition attacks, which began Thursday, and declaring that the operation “must continue.” He characterized the rebels who effectively toppled his government in Sanaa in February as “stooges” of Iran.
The remarks highlighted the escalating tensions 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. The Saudis and the Iranians are already backing warring parties in other destructive regional conflicts such as the Syrian civil war.
Yemen, the poorest Arab country, has struggled not only with the conflict between the Shiite rebels and pro-government forces, but also with attacks by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In addition, a Yemeni wing of the Islamic State militant group asserted responsibility for suicide bombings this month that killed nearly 140 people in the capital.
Residents of Sanaa, Aden and Hodeida said the frequency of airstrikes increased late Friday and early Saturday, with the targets including military installations controlled by the Houthis as well as military units loyal to Saleh. Many Yemenis accuse Saleh of helping the Houthis take over Sanaa in September and during an offensive that has brought the insurgents to the northern outskirts of Aden.
Riad Kahwaji, head of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said the coalition attacks have targeted air defenses, arms depots and communications lines that support the Houthis. The intention, he said, is to “prepare the way” for an “imminent ground offensive.”
“It’s a classic move of taking out air defenses, ensuring air superiority and taking out command-and-control and communication posts,” he said. The Houthi forces would probably crumble in the face of a ground assault by militaries such as Egypt’s, which are more organized and heavily armed and have received significant U.S. assistance, Kahwaji added.
Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the Houthis would struggle to repel a ground offensive in places such as Aden and the southern city of Taiz, in part because of a lack of support from local populations. The Houthis are from the north, which has long been dominated by their fellow Zaydi Shiites, unlike the predominantly Sunni south.
“I think they’re losing this battle,” Khatib said of the Houthis, adding that Iran would probably hesitate to come to the rebels’ defense in the event of a Saudi-led ground assault.
“They are useful allies of Iran, but they are not seen as indispensable by Iran,” she said.
Airstrikes early Saturday hit the Attan air base in the capital for a second straight day, residents said.
In Hodeida, residents said that at least two air-defense systems had been attacked, including one near a port facility. Yemeni officials and Houthi opponents claim that Iranian weapons have been shipped to the rebels throughout the area. Houthi officials deny receiving Iranian weapons.
In Aden, one attack apparently carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on an ammunition depot next to the city killed and wounded scores of people, according to residents and physicians.
Al-Khadher Laswar, general manager of the Health Ministry office in Aden, said nine people suffered third-degree burns in the attack and five were injured by falling debris. He said he had no accurate figures on the number of people killed because the risk of secondary explosions made it too dangerous to approach the site.
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 cite rising lawlessness that has resulted in looting.
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.
The Saudi Press Agency reported that the desert kingdom’s navy had evacuated 86 diplomats from Aden.
Video footage showed people looting what appeared to be Hadi’s abandoned residence in Aden. A voice-over said, “This is the house of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi,” as looters were seen carrying off items such as living room chairs.
Qasem Dawood Ali, a worker at a nongovernmental organization in Aden, said bodies were lying in the streets as hospitals filled with the wounded.
“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.
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