SANAA/ BEIRUT: Saudi Arabia and a coalition of regional allies have launched airstrikes in Yemen against the advancing Ansarullah fighters, who deposed the US-backed Yemeni president last month.
Adel al-Jubair, Saudi ambassador to the US, said on Wednesday that a coalition consisting of 10 countries, including the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), had begun airstrikes at 7pm Eastern time.
Nearly 100 Saudi warplanes, mostly American made F16s, bombed the positions of the Ansarullah fighters and launched attacks against the Sana’a airport and the Dulaimi airbase early on Thursday.
Two warplanes, one each belonging to Saudi and UAE were shot down by the countrys air defense system, Iran’s Arabic language al-Alam television reported.
The airstrikes also targeted the residential Nasr complex in northern Sanaa killing dozens civilians including children, according to reports.
“The operation is to defend and support the legitimate government of Yemen and prevent the radical Houthi movement from taking over the country,” Jubair told reporters in Washington.
In the south, residents reported hearing large blasts at Al-Anad main airbase, north of Aden, which was seized by anti-government forces on Wednesday.
Al-Anad Airbase in Southern Lahj governorate was damaged in air strikes there, while the house of Ansarullah supremo Abdulmalik Al-Houthi in northern Saada governorate was also targeted.
At least 26 people, mostly civilians, have been killed. Three Houthi military commanders, Abdel Khaleq Badereddine Al-Houthi, Yousef Al-Madani and Yousef Al-Fishi have been reportedly killed in the attacks.
Mohamed Al-Bokhaiti, a member of the Ansarullah movement, called the military action as a declaration of war on Yemen.
Hakim Al Masmari, Yemen Post editor, said that “people are very terrified”.
“It’s [bombing] not in any particular location in Sanaa, it’s throughout the capital,” he said.
Separately, a statement issued in Riyadh in the name of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – the GCC countries without Yemen’s neighbour Oman – said they had been asked for help by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s embattled government.
In a statement from the state news agency Egypt, too, announced political and military support. “There is coordination ongoing now with Saudi Arabia and the brotherly gulf countries about preparations to participate with an Egyptian air and naval forces and ground troops if necessary,” the statement said.
Al-Jubair said that for the moment the action was confined to airstrikes on various targets around Yemen, but that other military assets were being mobilised and that the coalition “would do whatever it takes”.
Al-Jubeir said the Saudi airstrikes were designed “to prevent Yemen from falling into the hands of the Houthis,” but the reality is that the capital and some of the country’s main cities already have fallen to the group, and ground troops will be required to take them back.
The Ansarullah fighters, mostly hailing from Houthi heartland up north, and their allies have seized large parts of Yemen and on Wednesday landed in Aden, where Hadi fled after escaping house arrest in the capital Sanaa last month.
A spokesman for the Ansarullah said the ongoing conflict is aimed at fighting al-Qaeda militants and the countrys former president Hadi.
Analysts say, Saudi intervention has raised the spectre of what could be a deeply destabilising proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Saudi announcement only reinforced that notion.
US Hails Saudi Raids
US Secretary of State John Kerry has commended the work of a Saudi-led coalition taking military action in Yemen, a senior US official said.
The top US diplomat Thursday held a conference call with Persian Gulf ministers to discuss the Yemen crisis amid Saudi airstrikes against Houthi Ansarullah fighters, according to AFP.
Saudi Arabia has begun launching airstrikes in Yemen where the Ansarullah fighters have acquired power.
Washington has offered support for the Saudi campaign, including intelligence sharing and targeting assistance, a State Department official said.
President Barack Obama authorized the Pentagon to provide logistical and intelligence support to Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said in a statement.
“While US forces are not taking direct military action in Yemen in support of this effort, we are establishing a joint planning cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate US military and intelligence support,” Meehan said.
A US official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that Saudi Arabia coordinated with the United States ahead of the airstrikes, without elaborating on the kinds of support Washington has provided.
Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Washington told reporters his government had consulted closely with the US but Washington was not participating in the military operation itself.
Iran condemns Saudi strikes as dangerous step
TEHRAN: Iran condemned regional rival Saudi Arabia on Thursday for launching air strikes on Yemen, saying it was a dangerous step that violated international responsibilities and national sovereignty.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Marzieh Afkham said that the military action would further complicate the situation, spread the crisis and remove opportunities for a peaceful resolution of Yemens internal differences.
This aggression will have no result except to spread terrorism and extremism, and increase insecurity throughout the region, she said in a statement, calling for an immediate halt to the air strikes.
Her comments were echoed by Alaedin Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliaments national security and foreign policy committee, who accused Saudi Arabia of irresponsibility.
The fact that Saudi Arabia has fanned the flames of a new war in the region shows its carelessness, he said, in comments carried by the Fars news agency.
The smoke of this fire will go into the eyes of Saudi Arabia as war is never limited to one place only. We hope this military operation will be halted immediately and the Yemen problem solved through political means.
Boroujerdi accused the United States of backing the Saudi air strikes.
America, which leads the fire mongering in the region, has supported this act and no doubt Saudi Arabia and some countries in the Arab cooperation council would not get involved without Americas permission, he said.
Having imposed long years of crisis in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, America has in practice started another crisis and massacre on the Islamic world and this act is strongly condemned, he added.
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