While the world focuses on the Russian invasionUkrainethe war in Yemen he is in his eighth year. L’Saudi Arabia he failed utterly in his campaign to defeat them Houthi Shia rebels who control the capital Sana’a, most of northern Yemen and 80% of the population. The Yemeni people are paying a terrible price the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the century according to the UN while the war has no end in sight.
The Saudi intervention in Yemen bears many similarities to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Like the Russians, the Saudis have a lot underestimated their opponents. The mission of riad It was originally codenamed Operation Decisive Storm, but was far from decisive. 2015, its architect, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Mbs), he told the then director of the CIA John Brennan that the Houthis within would be overthrown some weeks. As Brennan notes in his Unmovable memoir. Back then, fighting America’s enemies at home and abroad made me wonder what MBS “smokes”. The Saudi Ground Forces supported by Pakistani, Indian, Central American mercenaries and a detachment of recruits Sudanese they didn’t even come close to Sana’a. They seemed to assume that this would defeat the rebels air forcea strategy that turned out to be a serious mistake.
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Indeed, it is now the Houthi rebels who are hitting targets in the Wahhabi kingdom, as viewers around the world have meanwhile witnessed F1 qualification to Jeddah. The Houthis Litter Kamikaze drones and rockets on the cities. Before Jeddah they had already struck riad and other cities in southern Saudi Arabia. So far the damage has been relative, but one of these could injure and kill hundreds of people if it hits a crowded place like an airport lobby or hotel. However, the Houthi attacks are far fewer than the Saudi airstrikes in Yemen. The forces of the Kingdom of alSaud are almost ready to take off 25,000 airstrikes in seven yearswhile the Houthis fired fewer than 1,300 missiles and drones over the same period.
The partial Saudi blockade of Yemen then led to a serious one humanitarian catastrophe. The former reign of the Queen of Sheba imports most of the food and medicines. Accordingly World Food Program (Pam) at least half of Yemeni children under the age of five 2.3 million are at serious risk malnutrition. the United Nations they appreciate 377,000 dead in seven years, the vast majority of malnutrition and related causes, 12,000 are children. As the war in Ukraine blocks grain exports from the two warring countries, which together account for a third of world grain exports, food prices are rising and the poorest country in the Arab world is being hit even harder.
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Unlike Ukrainians, more than 4 million of whom fled the country in the past month, few Yemenis are able to flee the war to seek refuge outside the borders. However, there are many internally displaced persons who lost their homes: they were more than 3.6 million until December 2020. The Saudi blockade also prevents this fuel to enter the country. According to one estimate, Yemen receives only a tenth of what was imported before the war. This affects the already weak health and education infrastructure.
However, the rebels continued their attacks on the United Arab Emirates after they withdraw it Brigade of Giants, a Yemeni militia they fund, from the front line of fighting to effectively give in to Houthi demands. Last week, a Dubai The Syrian President was received Bashar al Assad in an apparent move to redeem the dictator. It is the first time Assad has been welcomed to an Arab country since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Syria and Iran they are the only allied states of the Houthis.
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However, there is a crucial difference between the war in Ukraine and the war in Yemen. The Houthis do not have a democratically elected government. They have rallied support and sentiment due to the invasion and blockade by Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s historic enemy. They have incorporated other parties and leaders into their government, but they are not democratic. In the war in Ukraine, the Houthis turned to Russia, but they have nothing to offer to fly. with Damascusrecognized the independence of the selfproclaimed separatist republics Donetsk and Luhansk. they accused Kyiv and especially the President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the outbreak of war. The intense antiAmerican ideology the Houthis, reinforced by seven years of bombing by USmade planes with American ammunition, probably explains the decision to move to Moscow. Also because at the United Nations, only Russia sharply criticized the unilateral resolution of the United Nations Security Council, which was postponed to Saudi positions and promoted and supported by them Washington 2015 at the UN Headquarters.
The world is rightly focused on the crisis in Ukraine: as the President says Joe Biden, could pave the way for World War III. But every effort should be made to end the war in Yemen, as Biden himself promised last year. The first step is to end the blockade that is causing so much harm to the most vulnerable that even Yemen’s children would need the West’s help and protection.