I think that not expecting Yemen to become something as bad or worse than Syria and Northern Iraq is to be unrealistic. However, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen just like in Syria and Northern Iraq staggers on.
Yemen's Temporary Cease-Fire Falters
| Wall Street Journal | - |
The latest humanitarian cease-fire in Yemen is in tatters, with violence escalating once again and little prospect of an imminent political solution.
Yemen’s Temporary Cease-Fire Falters
Airstrikes and ground clashes have continued, dimming prospects for political solution
ENLARGE
A fighter loyal to Yemen's exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi stands on a tank in Yemen's second city of Aden on Thursday.
Photo:
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Saudi Arabia, which has been leading airstrikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels since March, declared the truce on Sunday and it was supposed to last until Friday. But it has already been violated repeatedly.
On Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition bombed Houthi targets in northern Yemen near the Saudi border, according to a local security official.
Other strikes were reported on the Houthi-held Al Anad air base in the southern Lahj province. Fighting on the ground has also intensified.
“There was no cease-fire at all,” said Ahmad al-Babily, a resident of the capital San’a. “If the humanitarian cease-fire was aimed at bringing aid to Yemen, we have not seen any aid in San’a.”
When Saudi Arabia declared the truce on Sunday, it warned that it would respond to any provocations by the Houthis. The rebels, for their part, said they never agreed to abide by the cease-fire.
Clashes have been fiercest in the south, where forces known as the Popular Resistance allied with the Saudi coalition have retaken the port city of Aden from the Houthis. Those forces have been trying to capitalize on their momentum and push further north to extend the recent gains.
Ali al-Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance, said the Houthis had withdrawn from the suburbs of Aden and parts of neighboring Lahj province on Thursday.
A Houthi spokesman, however, said the rebels had successfully repelled an advance on the Al Anad base, a strategic complex formerly used by U.S. Special Forces to launch drone strikes against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, Yemen’s offshoot of the terrorist group.
Yemen’s conflict ballooned early this year, when Houthi militants took over the government in San’a and sent President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fleeing to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi-led coalition then began its strikes in late March, aiming to drive the Houthis from power and restore Mr. Hadi.
The latest truce was the third attempt at a pause in fighting since the airstrikes started. A five-day pause in May was interrupted by clashes, and a cease-fire brokered by the United Nations earlier this month never took hold.
Amid the violence elsewhere, San’a has also been the site of numerous car bombings claimed by a Yemeni affiliate of Sunni extremist group Islamic State in recent weeks. Most of these attacks have targeted the mosques of Houthis, who adhere to an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
One such bombing on Wednesday killed four people outside a mosque, local officials said. A second car bomb planted nearby was dismantled by security personnel, the officials said.
Also on Thursday, an apparent U.S. drone strike killed at least five al Qaeda operatives in southern Yemen as they traveled through Abyan province in southern Yemen, according to interior ministry official Mohammed al-Mawri. Among the dead was a provincial leader named Ahmad al-Kazimi, he said.
Write to Asa Fitch at asa.fitch@wsj.com
