YEMEN REBELS said yesterday that Saudi fighter aircraft had fired 145 missiles at 15 villages in the country’s northern province of Saada.
The Saudis, who began attacking the rebels last week after they killed a Saudi soldier, say military action will continue until the insurgents pull back from the kingdom’s border.
A rebel spokesman charged Saudi forces with shelling the Yemen side of the frontier to drive back rebel fighters and establish a buffer zone.
Saudi naval vessels have also imposed a blockade on ports along northern Yemen’s Red Sea coast to prevent arms smuggling to the Shia clansmen fighting the secular Sanaa government.
The Yemenis and Saudis accuse Iran of arming the rebels, known as Houthis, since their revolt began under the leadership of Hussein al-Houthi, a slain former opposition member of parliament.
Saudi and Iranian involvement has projected Yemen’s five-year-old civil conflict on to the regional level while the conclusion of an agreement by the US to provide the government with military training and intelligence has lifted tribal warfare on to higher level. This is not the first time. During the civil war of 1962-70, the Arab nationalist government, backed by Russia’s ally Egypt, fought northern Shia monarchists supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the US camp.
The involvement of outside powers followed the launch in August of an offensive by the Yemeni army, reinforced by tribesmen. The Saudis say they only took action when Houthis crossed the border into the kingdom to escape Yemeni troops.
The Houthis, who belong to the local Zaidi Shia sect, took up arms against the government for allegedly marginalising and discriminating against the community.
The government accused the Houthis of trying to re-establish Zaidi rule in Saada. Houthis now say President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Zaidi, has allowed the Saudi Sunni brand of Islam to infiltrate Yemen and has used “al-Qaeda mercenaries” in the offensive. This is unlikely since the Sanaa regime is battling Sunni rebels elsewhere in the country.
On Tuesday Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned, “those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows”. But on Wednesday he attempted to calm tensions by offering to “co-operate with the government of Yemen and other nations in order to restore security” to the country. He called for “collective efforts” and said that regional rivalry “will serve the enemies of Islamic and Arab states”.
The Sanaa government welcomed Iran’s call for Yemen’s unity and stability but rejected “interference in its internal affairs by any party”. Made uneasy by Shia-ruled Iraq next door, the Saudis are particularly sensitive to troubles in the Shia region of northern Yemen.
Although Riyadh is concerned with warfare spilling over the border, the Saudis’ chief worry is that Yemeni Shia irredentism could encourage disaffected Saudi Shias in the eastern oil-producing region to rebel against the kingdom’s Sunni rulers.
