The leader of the Ansar Allah movement (also known as the Houthis) in Yemen claims he will not reject the UN’s supervisory role in Hudaydah, but only if the Saudi-led coalition ends its weeks-long aggression against the Red Sea port city.
On July 5th, Thursday, the UN security council said that “all parties” should work towards a political solution for Yemen, repeating a call for the key port Hudaydah to remain open. The port is the entry point of about 70% of imports to Yemen. Close to eight million face famine there and it is used to provide humanitarian aid to 22 million Yemenis depending on it, NTH News reports.
Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi, in an interview with Le Figaro has informed the special UN special envoy Martin Griffiths that he is willing to place Hudaydah under supervision from the world organization. However, the National reports that the Ansar Allah chief refuses to completely withdraw from the port.
Yemen’s humanitarian crisis was worsened when on June 13th, the Saudi-UAE coalition, which backs Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen’s former president begun an offensive on Hudaydah. The advance is supported by militants loyal to Hadi, Emirati forces and Saudi-led airstrikes. So far, the Saudi-led coalition has failed to achieve any significant success against the Houthi forces and their allies.
Amid a lack of the military progress, the offensive was suspended to allow for mediation, led by the UN representative Griffiths.
The Saudi-led alliance intervened in Yemen in March 2015, at the request of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to help restore the government’s power and push back the Houth-led alliance, after it took control of the capital Sanaa. Since then it has assisted in the recapturing of large parts of Southern Yemen. The current capital of the Saudi-backed government, the port city of Aden was one of those capture targets.
The coalition demands that the Houthis must completely withdraw from Hudaydah, while the movement only agrees to shared control of the city.
Griffiths, on the diplomatic front, has, according to reports by PressTV, been pushing for a deal in which the Houthis place Hudaydah under the supervision of an UN-monitored committee. The UAE completely rejects this option, demanding the unconditional withdrawal of the Houthis from the city.
Quoted by Press TV the Houthi Chief commented “It is strange to demand that the Yemenis pull out of their city of Hudaydah for handing it over to the United Arab Emirates, which is committing an act of aggression against us. Such a demand violates international conventions. It is as if the United Kingdom called on the French to abandon Paris or another city and give it up to the British. It is not logical.”
He also further censured France for “contributing to Arab-led aggression” in Yemen for the selling of weapons to the aggressors. Furthermore, he added that France should contribute to peace and that many Western countries consider war as an economic interest and to the detriment of human rights, PressTV reports.
So far the war has led to the killing and injury of over 600,000 civilians, according to the last figures released by the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights.
PressTV also reports that apart from France, the UK and US have also been providing the Saudi-led coalition with military equipment during the campaign, which has drawn stark criticisms from various human rights groups and the international community.
too bad your missiles dont reach paris……and it would be totally legal too….france selling the weapons to bomb yemen and murder thousands…..act of selfdefense to bomb paris….and afterjust 10 missiles hitting paris, the french would burn macron on the main square in paris
“…Yemen’s humanitarian crisis was worsened when on June 13th, the Saudi-UAE coalition, which backs Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen’s former president begun an offensive on Hudaydah…”
One of the reasons I keep harping about these forces being UAE vs. Saudi is that they are waging two separate (but overlapping) wars in Yemen. There’s the ‘internationally recognized’ Saudi puppet Hadi government trying to regain control of Yemen. Then there’s Ansar Allah/Houthis in the north. There’s also a UAE-backed southern separatist movement in southwest Yemen – led by the Al Hizam Security Forces – that announced yesterday that it intends to get rid of Hadi and his government And also get rid of northwestern Yemen and the Houthis, splitting the country once again. The Saudis don’t like Al Hizam, nor do they support the separatist party: Southern Transition Council. Ansar Allah/Houthis don’t want to split Yemen and don’t want a UAE-backed South Yemen that has all the oil resources and ports.
The UAE is obsessed with taking the Port of Hudaydah for two reasons: 1) take the last remaining ‘big’ port from the future North Yemen (before splitting it off from South Yemen), and 2) control all of Yemeni’s Red Sea coastline (closing it to any Iranian shipping and oil). The US and Israel are not driving the Yemeni war, but they are ‘encouraging’ whatever outcome puts a friendly military regime in control.
The UAE is hijacking the Yemen war (again, with plenty of US/Israeli encouragement) for the rights to occupy it and insert their own puppet as leader. They will remove the Saudi-backed Hadi government soon (days – weeks). They have ZERO interests in the Yemeni government(s) or people – they just want control of the land. Same with US/Israel.
Question is: what will the ‘Saudi-led coalition’ do when Hadi’s government is tossed out? They could just use the opportunity to extricate themselves from the war and let the UAE take over. Or they could just sit back and grumble about the UAE takeover, but keep tossing money and bombs at Yemen until it’s over – then declare victory (even though UAE gets to keep the South Yemen war booty). In any case, UAE naval bases will go up quickly in the rebuilt ports, Followed by permanent ‘visits’ from the U.S. Navy.
That s an interesting assessment of UAE and Saudi diverging interests. Will want to look into that angle as it explains some of the growing problems for Hadi.
This is one of the better articles posted on Yemen. There is a lot of disinformation and this article for the most part is accurate. For example, the MSM often give the figure of 10,000 have died as a result of the conflict. Even if one challenges the 600,000 figure given in the article, it is a much more realistic figure than 10,000. I am also glad that the Houthis have a voice in the article as they rarely have their voices heard in the MSM and basically silenced in coalition press.
The article also discusses the UAE and Houthi negotiation positions regarding the Port correctly which exposes the unreasonableness of UAE demands – it is ludicrous that the losing side demands the Houthis give up the Port after their success in repulsing the Coalition offensive.
I do want to clarify one thing.
While the Coalition state the offensive on the Port was paused to allow time for negotiation, this is a cover to save face for the failure of the offensive. It has been nearly three weeks since the coalition declared a ‘pause’ in the offensive and the coalition has been silent on the status of the front line south of the airport.
On June 26, the Houthis announced the coalition forces attacking the airport had been successfully cut off and either they were to surrender or be destroyed – this was ignored by the MSM. Soon after, the coalition announced the ‘pause’. A sea operation was initiated by the coalition in the vicinity of the cut off forces but was repelled – I believe this was an attempt to extract by sea after failure of ground forces to relieve the coalition forces south of the airport. There were sporadic reports of some wounded getting evacuated by boat. It is noteworthy that no reporting on any breakout attempt which means attempts must have failed.
It is my belief that the coalition forces cut off south of the airport no longer represent an effective fighting force due to lack of supply and an untenable defensive position – this situation resulted in degradation of forces cohesion as well as increasing troop losses due to taking Houthi fire. Saudi military leaders have recently conceded that desertion is a growing problem which tells me what happened in the final days in the pocket – the remaining coalition troops/mercenaries began to surrender or desert en masse.
The offensive was not paused as if the coaltion had a choice. The coalition could not continue the offensive because the main coalition assault force has been destroyed.