Yemen: The escalation of the war worsens the world’s largest civilian crisis Houthis News

When US President Joe Biden joined the Oval Office last year, there was hope that the crisis in Yemen would escalate with the expected changes in foreign policy.

However, the war has only intensified this year. Violence in Yemen has intensified domestically, regionally and internationally, especially since January 17. Attacks on Abu Dhabi.

Continuing this trend is likely to only exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen – described by the United Nations as the worst in the world – analysts say.

Beginning in late 2021, the Saudi-led military coalition became more cohesive. As a result, the Houthis are finding themselves in a weaker position, losing ground to Ansarullah – the main Houthi militia – taken in 2020-21.

Observers say this point is important to understand Houthi’s motivation to attack Abu Dhabi with drones and missiles this year. The rebels are trying to put pressure on the United Arab Emirates (BAC) End aid to some Yemeni forces such as al-Weyat al-Amaliqa (Giant Brigades).

However, many experts say that Houthi’s strategy could easily fail and backfire on the fighters who have ruled the capital Sanaa since 2014. Closer ties with Saudi Arabia.

“Heal coalition fractures”

Ansarullah’s drone and missile launch into the Basque Country is likely to “help the UAE end Houthi’s expansionist ambitions, heal some of the coalition’s internal fractures and promote more coordinated military action and political cooperation on the ground,” said Elisabeth Kendall. A leading Yemeni expert and senior research fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

“The UAE is unlikely to deviate from Yemen’s long-term strategic goals. The publicly stated goal of Houthi’s latest attacks was to push the UAE to withdraw support for Yemeni coalition counterattacks. However, it may have the opposite effect,” Kendall told Al Jazeera.

Another consequence of Ansarullah’s attacks on Abu Dhabi may be a response to a request by the Biden administration to appoint Houthi as its main militia in the Emirate. “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO). This would re-establish the policy of the administration of former US President Donald Trump, which Biden rejected a year ago.

There is serious concern about how this move in Washington would exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen in the wake of escalating violence on the ground.

“If ground fighting and airstrikes continue and the parties to the conflict continue to fight each other, and the U.S. moves forward with the FTO designation while the UN is struggling to fund its aid, it is very difficult to see. humanitarian situation doing nothing but getting worse, ”said Peter Salisbury, an International Crisis Group Yemeni specialist.

‘Easy off’

Without the end of the war itself, there is no reason to expect improvement for humanitarian reasons.

“Unfortunately, consistent measures to address the grave humanitarian crisis in Yemen are inevitably linked to the conflict itself,” said Al Jazeera Gerald Feierstein, the former US Yemeni ambassador and vice president of the Middle East Institute.

“While the international community will continue to provide assistance to alleviate humanitarian conditions, efforts to end this will restart economic activity and ensure that international aid agencies and donor communities have reliable access to the country. This cannot happen without ending the conflict.”

In addition to fighting militarily, the parties to the conflict in Yemen are waging an economic war, analysts say.

“The lack of food or humanitarian goods is not a problem, not even since 2018. On the contrary, the rapid rise in prices has made food and basic goods unavailable to many Yemenis,” said Alex Stark, a senior researcher in New America.

“Rising prices are due to a number of factors related to the war, including the fact that each side is producing its own currency, corruption, lack of jobs that provide a decent income, and so on.”

This year, the lives of the innocent have been ignored, as civilians have paid for the continuation of the crisis.

At least 80 people were killed there a coalition air strike in a prison North Yemen, January 21. Saudi Arabia-led alliance he denied being behind the attack.

The Médecins Sans Frontières, known as the French MSF, has sounded the alarm about the recent influx of internally displaced people in Yemen, along with a rise in the death toll.

Increase the targeting of civilians

As a result of military attacks on airports, detention centers, telecommunications infrastructure, hospitals, schools and water facilities, the UN special envoy and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen announced that January 2022 would be the deadliest month in Yemen. almost seven years after the war began.

“It simply came to our notice then [January 17 attack against Abu Dhabi] It is about increasing the focus of Yemeni civilians and civilian infrastructure, ”said Yemeni researcher Afrah Nasser of Human Rights Watch.

“The coalition has an indiscriminate log of illegal attacks and thousands of civilians killed and injured, if not hundreds of thousands of civilians. It is worrying where the conflict is heading in terms of the staggering level of civilian damage. I am deeply concerned that this year could be the deadliest year since the conflict began, “Nasser told Al Jazeera.

One of the silverware of the January 17 attack on the Basque Country and the retaliatory attacks by the Saudi-led military coalition is that Yemen has gained some international attention.

If the current diplomatic activities aimed at making concessions to the fighters and pressuring them to participate constructively are effectively exploited, there may be hope that the various actors in the Yemeni conflict will begin to sit down for serious talks in good faith.

However, as always, it will be difficult for the great powers to influence the powerful Ansarullah Houthi militia.

“The international community has little leverage in front of the Houthis,” Kendall said. “Every time any concession is agreed upon, the Houthis interpret it as a sign of weakness and intensify the attack.”

However, to end the war in Yemen, the Houthis must believe that it will serve their interests to negotiate a political solution to continue the struggle.

Feierstein said: “Until the Houthis understand that they will not be able to achieve their goals on the battlefield, efforts to promote a comprehensive ceasefire and start negotiations will not be successful.”