With the end of a truce on October 2, the Yemeni population is facing more hardship as the two warring factions, backed by Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively, pick up where they left off.
The city of Taiz remained blocked and was shelled by the Houthis group throughout the past six months of a truce
After a six-month cease-fire, Yemen's warring factions, the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi group and the Saudi-backed internationally recognized Sunni government, are nominally back at war.
This takes the conflict, which has has been named the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe by the UN, into its eighth year.
Hans Grundberg, the head of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen, put it diplomatically when asked whom he held responsible for the failure of the talks between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government. "I appreciate the position of the Government of Yemen on engaging positively with my proposal," the Swede said in a statement.
The talks had aimed at extending the truce for another six months, however, according to the UN, the Houthis were not willing to make far-reaching concessions, in contrast to the internationally recognized government.
In fact, the Houthis had started firing rockets within minutes of the end of the recent truce — which had been in place since April 2 and ended at midnight on October 2.
For the Washington-based Yemeni-American analyst Fatima Abo Alasrar, a non-resident scholar at the think tank Middle East Institute (MEI), it is obvious that "the Iran-backed Houthi militia favored disengagement from the process and a return to violence […] since they have no incentive to share power," she wrote in a piece for the think tank's website.
Moreover, a new openness by the Houthi group about its Iranian backing underlines its political and military strategy.
"Tehran has long denied its role in supporting the Houthis despite evidence of the contrary," Alasrar told DW, adding that "the Houthis have been increasingly vocal about their relationship with Iran."
The Houthis' strengthened position in Yemen has been further underlined by a statement, which was published on Twitter by one of the group's spokespeople a few hours after the end of the truce. The message stated in Arabic that the Houthis gave oil companies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates the opportunity to "arrange their status and leave […]"
For Jens Heibach, a research fellow at the Hamburg-based GIGA Institute of Middle East Studies, this explicit warning resembles the highest possible alert for Saudi Arabia's defense system. "In light of Saudi Arabia's increased international relevance as an oil supplier, the Houthis have issued the biggest threat they have at the moment," he told DW.
The warning won't go unnoticed in Saudi Arabia as Houthi-led attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia demonstrated the kingdom's military vulnerability in March this year.
The war in Yemen began in 2014 with the Houthis' seizure of Yemen's north, including the then-capital Sanaa with its international airport and the important port in Hodeidah in the country's west. It escalated a year later in 2015, when a Saudi-led Sunni coalition joined the war in support of the internationally recognized government in the newly appointed capital Aden.
It is no secret that the war is widely seen as a proxy war between the arch enemies Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
Preferred option: Exit strategy
However, given that the war in Yemen is now in its eighth year with no sign of a military resolution, it doesn't really come as a surprise that the Saudi Kingdom has become less willing to continue fighting against the Iran-backed Houthis, Adnan Tabatabai, CEO of the Bonn-based think tank CARPO, told DW.
"Saudi Arabia has an increased desire to end the war in Yemen as soon as possible for security and economic reasons," he said.
YEMEN: AID ORGANIZATIONS RUNNING OUT OF MONEY
Shortage of aid
The humanitarian crisis in war-torn Yemen is getting worse again. According to the United Nations' World Food Program (WFP), 13 million people there are in danger of starvation. This is due to the ongoing civil war in Yemen and a shortage of humanitarian aid.
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In terms of security policy, it has been impossible to neutralize the security threat from northern Yemen through military operations against the Houthis since 2015, Tabatabai added.
Moreover, the ongoing war in Yemen also has a negative economic effect for the ambitious Sunni powerhouse.
"The war generates high costs and, moreover, undermines the international appeal of ambitious megaprojects such as Neom [a Saudi city being built in northwestern Saudi Arabia — the ed.] which leads to reluctant international investments," Tabatabai said, and added that "this results in a willingness in Riyadh to consult with Iran."
However, the current unrest in Iran, which followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, and has led to global pressure on the regime, "increases the unpredictability of the peace process in Yemen because Houthis' and Iran have mutual interests in the pursuit of this war," MEI analyst Alasrar said.
Yemen: High human cost
While the cease-fire had brought relief in the form of significantly reduced military action, and an increase of international aid deliveries by planes and ships, this situation is now expected to change for the worse for the population of the war-torn country.
According to this year's Human Rights Watch report, the war has caused the deaths of nearly 250,000 people, while another four million are internally displaced, and about half of the population faces acute levels of food insecurity.
However, for the decisive regional actors, Yemen's humanitarian disaster doesn't seem to be a note-worthy factor.
"Security considerations in Saudi Arabia and Iran will be the sole determining factor for a possible end to the Yemen conflict," Adnan Tabatabai said.
"Namely, as soon as both sides conclude that they would be better off with an end to this dispute, they will commit to a new cease-fire."
Edited by: Rob Mudge
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Yemen's dirty war | DW Documentary
Jun 11, 2022
At least 370,000 people have already died in the Yemen conflict, while millions have been displaced. The United Nations ranks the bloody proxy war and its effects as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The conflict in Yemen, in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, has been going on for years, and has recently seen renewed intensity. In January, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition on a prison in the north of the country killed at least 70 people and left hundreds injured. The war has now effectively divided Yemen in two. Its causes are more than just economic and religious ones. It is seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. At stake are regional dominance, untapped oil reserves and access to the Red Sea, including the all-important Suez Canal.
Sana’a, the erstwhile Yemeni capital, is now considered one of the most inaccessible places on the planet. For the past six years, the city has been controlled by a Houthi political and military movement calling itself "Ansar Allah." But Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates view the Houthi rebels, who belong to the Zaydism branch of Islam, as heretics who pose a threat to Wahhabism. Using weapons provided by the West, they have relentlessly bombarded the north of the country. Meanwhile, a strict embargo is starving the population, with some 400,000 children at risk of death from famine.
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