From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Nov 05 2009 - 15:53:36 EST
Saudis Bomb Yemen Rebels Across Border
Saudi Arabia launches large military offensive against Yemen Shiite rebels
By AHMED AL-HAJ and SALAH NASRAWI Associated Press Writers
SAN'A, Yemen November 5, 2009 (AP)
The Associated Press
Saudi Arabia sent fighter jets and artillery bombardments across the border
into northern Yemen Thursday in a military incursion apparently aimed at
helping its troubled southern neighbor control an escalating Shiite
rebellion, Arab diplomats and the rebels said.
The Saudis - owners of a sophisticated air force they rarely use - have been
increasingly worried that extremism and instability in Yemen could spill
over to their country, the world's largest oil exporter. The offensive came
two days after the killing of a Saudi soldier, blamed on the rebels.
Yemen denied any military action by Saudi Arabia inside its borders. But
Yemen's president is a key ally of the Saudis, making it highly unlikely the
kingdom would have launched the offensive without tacit Yemeni agreement.
A U.S. government official said the Yemenis were not involved militarily in
the fighting. The official spoke anonymously because he was not authorized
to discuss the matter publicly.
The offensive immediately raised concerns of another proxy war in the Middle
East between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally. Shiite Iran is believed
to favor the rebels in Yemen while Saudi Arabia, which is Sunni, is Iran's
fiercest regional rival.
The same dynamic has played out in various forms in Lebanon, where Iran
supports the Shiite militant Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia favors a U.S.-backed
faction, and in Iraq, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have thrown support to
conflicting sides in the Sunni-Shiite struggle.
A top Saudi government adviser confirmed "a large scale" military operation
underway on the Saudi-Yemeni border with further reinforcements sent to the
rugged, mountainous area.
"It is a sustained operation which aims to finish this problem on our
border," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the issue. He said Saudi troops were coordinating with
Yemen's army, but Yemen's defense ministry denied the Saudis were inside the
country.
The rebels said the Saudi airstrikes hit five areas in their northern
stronghold Thursday but it was not possible to independently verify the
reports. They said there were dead and wounded, and that homes were
destroyed.
"Saudi jets dropped bombs on a crowded areas including a local market in the
northern province of Saada," Hawthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam told The
Associated Press. "They claim they are targeting al-Hawthis, but regrettably
they are killing civilians like the government does."
He said the attacks were followed by hundreds of shells from the border, but
there was no reliable information about casualties.
The fighting is more than 600 miles from Saudi Arabia's oil fields on the
kingdom's eastern Persian Gulf coast. But northern Yemen overlooks the Red
Sea, the world's
Two Arab diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saudi Tornado
and F-15 warplanes had been bombarding targets inside Yemen since Wednesday
afternoon, inflicting significant casualties on rebels. The diplomats spoke
on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to the media.
They said army units and special forces also had been sent to northern
Yemen, and that several Saudi towns on the border had been evacuated as a
precaution.
The weak central government of Yemen, which has little control outside the
capital San'a, is fighting on multiple fronts including the northern rebels
and a separatist movement in the south. But the most worrisome is a
lingering threat from al-Qaida militants.
The U.S. also fears any Yemeni fighting could spill over into Saudi Arabia
and is concerned that Yemen could become a haven for al-Qaida militants
hiding out in the nation, at the tip of the Arabian peninsula.
The Yemeni government openly accuses Iran of arming the Hawthis rebels, but
there has been no public evidence to back those claims, said Joost
Hiltermann, deputy program director of the Middle East program for the
International Crisis Group think tank in London.
The U.S. also fears any Yemeni fighting could spill over into Saudi Arabia
and is concerned that Yemen could become a haven for al-Qaida militants
hiding out in the nation, at the tip of the Arabian peninsula.
The Yemeni government openly accuses Iran of arming the Hawthis rebels, but
there has been no public evidence to back those claims, said Joost
Hiltermann, deputy program director of the Middle East program for the
International Crisis Group think tank in London.
"I think Iran is probably pleased with what is happening, but that is not
the same as saying they are supporting the Hawthis," Hiltermann said.
Simon Henderson, director of Gulf and energy policy at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, agreed that there is no clear
evidence that Iran funds the rebels. But he said there is a wide assumption
that Iran favors the Hawthis and the Saudis are backing Yemen's Sunni
president.
"So it is a Saudi-Iranian proxy war," he said.
Saudi Arabia, rich in oil, has one of the world's most sophisticated air
forces but rarely uses it.
The bulk of its air power, with more than 350 combat aircraft, derives from
squadrons of F-15s and British-supplied Tornados, according to the military
and intelligence analysis group GlobalSecurity.org. The kingdom also for
decades has received U.S. military assistance in the form of training.
The Saudi incursion marks the first time since the 1991 Gulf War that the
country has deployed military might beyond its borders.
In that war, Saudi forces assisted the U.S. Marine Corps, providing staging
grounds for airstrikes and in joint operations targeting Iraqi positions in
Kuwait with artillery fire and ground offensives.
The incursion is not, however, Saudi Arabia's first involvement in internal
Yemeni conflicts. During Yemen's 1962-70 civil war, sparked by a military
coup that overthrew Yemen's royalist government, Saudi Arabia supported the
royalists against the Egyptian-backed government.
When civil war erupted again in 1994, it was widely believed that the Saudis
sided with southern secessionist rebels against the central government.
A security official told Saudi Arabia's state news agency that the soldier
died when gunmen infiltrated from Yemen and attacked security guards
patrolling the Mount Dokhan border area Tuesday. Rebels said that area was
among the bombing targets Thursday.
The Gulf Cooperation Council, the region's main diplomatic forum, condemned
what it called the "violation and infiltration" of Saudi Arabia's borders.
"Saudi Arabia is capable of protecting its lands," it warned in a statement.
----Nasrawi reported from Cairo. Associated Press Writers Omar Sinan and Ben Hubbard in Cairo and Pamela Hess in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
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