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Saudi-led warplanes pound Yemen rebels after pipeline attack
SANAA, May 16, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck
Yemeni rebel targets, including in the capital Sanaa, on Thursday two days
after the insurgents claimed drone strikes that shut a key oil pipeline in
the neighbouring kingdom.
The new bombardment came after the UN envoy, who has been spearheading
efforts to end more than four years of conflict in the Arab world’s poorest
country, warned it still faced the threat of plunging into all-out war.
The Saudi-led coalition, which has been battling the Huthi rebels since
March 2015, confirmed that its warplanes were carrying out multiple strikes
following twin rebel drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s main east-west pipeline
on Tuesday.
“We have begun to launch air strikes targeting sites operated by the Huthi
militia, including in Sanaa,” a coalition official, who declined to be
identified, told AFP. One witness in the rebel-held capital told AFP he heard
a loud explosion in the city centre.
The rebels’ Al-Masirah television reported six strikes on the Arhab
district of Sanaa province, followed by further strikes, including at least
one in Sanaa itself.
A second witness told AFP that the raids began around 8 am (0500 GMT)
while many Yemenis were asleep awaiting the end at sunset of the daytime fast
observed by Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan.
“There were many strikes,” he added.
The rebels said their Tuesday attack on the Saudi pipeline was a response
to “crimes” committed by Riyadh during its bloody air war in Yemen, that has
been criticised repeatedly by the United Nations and human rights groups.
The pipeline, which can carry five million barrels of crude per day,
provides a strategic alternative route for Saudi exports if the shipping lane
from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz is closed.
Iran, which Arab Gulf states accuse of supporting the Yemeni rebels, has
repeatedly threatened to close the vital conduit for global oil supplies in
case of a military confrontation with the United States.
MORE/FI/ 1508 hrs
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– ‘Retaliate hard’ – The Saudi cabinet called on Wednesday for
“confronting terrorist entities which carry out such sabotage acts, including
the Iran-backed Huthi militias in Yemen.”
Key ally the United Arab Emirates echoed the call.
“We will retaliate and we will retaliate hard when we see Huthis hitting
civilian targets like what happened in Saudi Arabia,” the UAE minister of
state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in Yemen when President Abedrabbo
Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile as the rebels closed in on his last refuge
in Yemen’s second city Aden after sweeping through most of the rest of the
country.
The intervention has retaken much of the south but the capital and most of
the populous central highlands remain in rebel hands.
A grinding war of attrition has since gripped the country with third city
Taez and the vital Red Sea aid port of Hodeida turned into battlegrounds.
In December, UN mediators brokered hard-won truce deals for both cities
during talks in Sweden but the hoped for momentum for talks on a
comprehensive peace has failed to materialise.
On Tuesday, UN observers confirmed that rebel fighters had pulled out of
Hodeida port and two other Red Sea terminals, unilaterally carrying out a key
redeployment that was supposed to follow the December ceasefire.
– ‘Crossroads’ –
UN envoy Martin Griffiths welcomed the pullback, but warned the Security
Council on Wednesday that the risks of a slide into all-out war remained
high.
“Despite the significance of the last few days, Yemen remains at the
crossroads between war and peace,” he said.
“There are signs of hope,” he added, but there are also “alarming signs”
of war.
Griffiths nonetheless hailed “a new beginning in Hodeida,” where rebel
fighters handed control of the port to coastguards, saying that “change is
now a reality.”
Hodeida is the main entry point for the bulk of Yemen’s imports and
humanitarian aid, providing a lifeline to millions of people who are on the
brink of famine.
More than four years of conflict has triggered what the UN describes as
the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 24.1 million — more than two-
thirds of the population — in need of aid.
The head of UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said that while a ceasefire
was largely holding in Hodeida, fighting was raging “across 30 active
conflict zones — home to nearly 1.2 million children.”
“We are at a tipping point. If the war continues any longer, the country
may move past the point of no return,” Henrietta Fore told the Security
Council.
“Hospitals, clinics and water systems are in ruins — with half of the
country’s hospitals and clinics destroyed.”
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1510 hrs