Saudis halt airstrikes against Yemen rebels

WASHINGTON – Saudi Arabia on Tuesday abruptly suspended a 26-day bombing campaign against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen that it had undertaken with U.S. support but that had been criticized by humanitarian aid groups for causing hundreds of civilian deaths.

In a statement, the Saudi Defense Ministry said the air campaign’s goals had been achieved – a victory proclamation that appeared contradicted by the continuing chaos in Yemen.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners today announced that the military objectives of Operation Decisive Storm have been achieved,” the Saudi Embassy in Washington said in a statement, adding that “the focus will now shift from military operations to the political process.”

The Saudi statement said the campaign’s suspension was at the request of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, but Hadi remained a leader without a palace, having fled to Riyadh on March 25 after Houthi Shiite Muslim rebels drove him from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and then briefly to the southern seaport of Aden. The rebels remain in control of Sanaa and significant other regions of the country.

Analysts noted that little has changed militarily in the balance of power between Hadi’s government, which the Saudis and the United States back, and the Houthi rebels, who are supported by Iran.

Fred Wehrey, a defense analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said that contrary to the Saudi statement, the kingdom had failed to achieve its primary objective of neutralizing the Houthis.

“There’s obviously a bit of spin going on here, to put it mildly,” Wehrey told McClatchy. “I don’t think they’ve achieved all of their objectives. The Houthis haven’t stopped their offensive. The disposition of military forces on the ground hasn’t changed to the extent that the Saudis wanted.”

Wehrey said he believed the Saudi were reacting to a growing outcry over the humanitarian cost of the campaign, which has been criticized by U.N. officials as well as by private human rights advocacy groups.

“I think we’ve had over the last two weeks a crescendo of U.S. alarm over collateral damage,” Wehrey said. “There was an extreme humanitarian cost to doing this.”

The Saudi announcement came a day after airstrikes hit a Houthi arsenal on the outskirts of Sanaa, igniting massive explosions that killed at least 25 people, wounded hundreds of others and devastated surrounding civilian neighborhoods in what residents said was the most devastating attack on the capital since the Saudi-led air offensive began.

A day earlier, a Saudi airstrike destroyed an aid warehouse operated by the British charity Oxfam in the Houthi-controlled Saada region, the organization said.

Only hours before the Saudi announcement, U.N. humanitarian agencies had said the situation was deteriorating throughout Yemen. In addition to more than 400 known civilian deaths, the U.N. agencies reported that prices for food, pharmaceuticals, fuel and other essentials had skyrocketed. The Yemeni Health Ministry warned that the country’s health system was on the verge of collapse.

U.N. officials blamed the Saudi air campaign and a naval blockade imposed to block arms shipments to the rebels for a food shortage that the World Food Program said had driven the average price of flour up more than 40 percent.

U.S. officials said they had been told of the Saudi plans in advance, though there had been no public clues that an end to the bombing was imminent.

In fact, the Saudi announcement came on the same day that King Salman ordered his national guard to participate in the operation. And only a day earlier, U.S. defense officials had announced that a U.S. aircraft carrier task force had taken up positions off Yemen, reportedly to monitor Iranian shipping activity in the area.

Only Tuesday morning, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren had described the presence of the USS Roosevelt, with its complement of up to 70 warplanes, as providing “options” for American military action on behalf of the Hadi government.

With the bombing campaign suspended, Warren said the U.S. would maintain the 20 personnel it had assigned to a “joint fusion center” in Riyadh to coordinate U.S. assistance to the Saudis.

Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asri, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters in Riyadh that some parts of the military campaign would continue to prevent the Houthis from getting fresh supplies via sea.