YEMEN’S beleaguered government said Saudi-led air strikes against its Houthis would achieve its military objective soon before ending the mission. But political observers remain divided as to how the Arab leaders would be able to defeat the Iranian-backed rebels from the Arab heartland. We fear Gulf-led campaign is likely to turn into a long fight to stop an Iranian proxy war in Saudi southern flank. Meanwhile, warplanes started bombing Houthi positions controlling Yemen’s capital and some other cities in the south from early this week while more Arab countries have joined the coalition.
The Yemen conflict appears to be a silent extension of Iran backed war in Iraq and Syria where Shiite forces are trying to reduce political presence of the Sunnis. We fear that Muslim countries in the region are in fact fighting useless fratricidal wars to establish domination of one sectarian group over the other in the state. These wars were nowhere only few decades back and third party hands are at work to destabilize them. We urge leaders in those countries to find political solutions to end wars by restoring sectarian coexistence and removing misgivings. It is giving a bad name to Islam as religion.
In recent months Yemen descended on the verge of the civil war where forces loyal to beleaguered Yemeni President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, and Zaidi Shia rebels known as Houthis are fighting in the ground. Yemen’s security forces have remained split in these fights as loyalists to President Mr Hadi with strong Sunni backing and Houthi rebels. Mr Hadi’s opponent and former ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has fallen from the Saudi grace is running a third force. And again both President Hadi and the Houthis are opposed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) adding a new dimension to the battles. The situation has been further complicated by the debut of a Yemen affiliate of Islamic State seeking to establish their control on the land.
The war in Yemen can greatly exacerbate regional tensions. It also worries the west because of the threats to stability and its economic interest in the region. Western intelligence agencies consider AQAP as the most dangerous group and the US is therefore bombing AQAP targets in Yemen while supporting President Hadi in his fight against Iran backed Houthi forces in Yemen.
Gulf regional leaders have started military operations to remove the Shiites threat; so also the west has taken the challenge and giving all technical support to the coalition. Yemen is strategically located as it sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden running much of the world’s oil shipments. Egypt and Saudi Arabia fear a Houthi takeover would threaten the free passage through the strait.
Yemen fought a long time civil war in the past and we fear any new war will only add to the sufferings of its common people. We believe that there must be recognition of peripheral interest by regional powers to avert conflict and keep peace at work.
