Saudi Arabia defends its military intervention in Yemen as being based on a UN resolution authorising the restoration of the internationally recognised government in Sana’a. It also insists that the intervention is necessary to defend its own security.
The Saudi government made no official comment on Wednesday on the leaked UN panel report highlighting civilian casualties and breaches of international humanitarian law. But a Saudi analyst said the report documented allegations that were “largely based on hearsay”.
The conservative kingdom sees its neighbour, the Arab world’s poorest country, as its backyard, and blames its strategic rival, Iran, for backing Houthi rebels – from the country’s Zaydi minority – who are fighting alongside the former Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
It has repeatedly dismissed charges by Yemenis, NGOs and human rights organisations that it has been deliberately targeting civilians – and points to the presence of US and British military personnel in its airforce operations centre.
The US and Britain supported UN security council resolution 2216, issued in response to an appeal by the Yemeni president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Of the council’s five permanent members, only Russia abstained. The resolution placed the onus on the Houthis to withdraw in favour of the “legitimate government”. It also reaffirmed the need for all parties to ensure the safety of civilians.
Saudi air attacks on Yemen are launched from the Khamis Mushayt airbase near the Yemeni border. Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have also taken part in military operations.
The Saudi-led operation, codenamed Decisive Storm and later Restoring Hope, is overseen by the Saudi defence minister and deputy crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman. Critics say he is reckless but he insisted in a recent interview that the action was necessary to safeguard the kingdom’s security.
Its purpose was described last year as being to “protect Yemen and its people from the aggression of the Houthi militias that are supported by regional powers whose goal is to establish hegemony over Yemen and to make it a base for its influence in the region”.
The Saudis will be unhappy with the renewed focus on civilian casualties and new calls to end British arms sales. But they are likely to welcome the findings of the UN report that Iranian-manufactured anti-tank missiles being supplied to the Houthis had been seized off the coast of Oman.
“Any accusation that civilians are being intentionally targeted by the coalition is simply propaganda being disseminated by those who are using Yemen as a staging ground for their violent, revolutionary agenda,” the Saudi ambassador to Britain said last October.
Airstrikes were first launched in March last year and within days had led to calls for an immediate ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. The UN high commissioner for human rights warned as long ago as last March that Yemen was on the verge of total collapse.
Diplomatic sources say the Saudis are keen to see a resumption of UN-brokered peace talks, which were due to resume this month, but have not yet. The financial cost of the war is causing alarm in Riyadh, where a sharp decline in oil revenues has led to a ballooning budget deficit and unprecedented subsidy cuts. But the escalation of tensions with Iran is likely to make diplomacy harder.
Saudi analyst Mohammed Alyahya said the UN report “was prepared far away from Yemen and used satellite imagery to document allegations of human rights violations. It is not an investigation. The report itself is calling on the United Nations to investigate these allegations.
“The Yemeni government’s investigations into human rights violations is currently underway. No report can be taken seriously if its authors weren’t even in Yemen to conduct investigations.” The UN team was not given permission to enter the country.
The key moment on the path to Saudi intervention came in September 2014, after a UN-sponsored political dialogue broke down and Houthi fighters took over Sana’a, forcing Mansour Hadi to flee, first to Aden and then to Riyadh.
The Saudis say their priority is to have a stable neighbour to the south and to protect their southern cities. Last September, the UN human rights council dropped plans for an international inquiry into human rights violations by all parties in the war in Yemen.
Yemen: the devastation of a nation, largely ignored