A coalition of Saudi-led forces continued to pound rebel-held positions in the Yemeni province of Marib with artillery this week, forcing Iran-backed Houthi rebels to retreat from their positions.
Marib has been a priority for the Gulf Arab alliance since the beginning of the conflict back in March, as the energy-rich province is widely regarded as a gateway to the capital city of Sana'a. And although the coalition is encircling the Houthis further into their northern stronghold, that doesn't, however, mean the war is near its conclusion, as the Shiite rebels are embedded in mountainous, difficult to penetrate terrain.
The conflict has dragged on for months now, resulting in thousands of deaths and leaving an already unstable and deeply impoverished country on the brink of complete disaster -- what World Bank analyst Omer Karasapan has dubbed a "perfect humanitarian storm":
"Government agencies are now unable to deliver basic healthcare and nutrition services as well as water and electricity. Yemen is a country that imports over 90 percent of its food and the war and ensuing blockade have had their impact on the distribution and availability of food. 1.8 million children are likely to suffer from malnutrition in 2015, an increase of 1 million over 2014 and, of these, half a million will be at risk of severe malnutrition, a threefold increase over 2014. UNICEF has warned that 10 governorates are at crisis levels that place them just one step away from a famine. UNICEF also noted full or partial damage to 429 schools, while 3,600 schools will fail to open due to security considerations, affecting 1.8 million students."
There is plenty of blame to go around: Blame the Houthi rebels, who cynically manipulated popular unrest in 2014 to seize control of the government; blame former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has used his remaining network of loyalists in Yemen to manipulate the Houthis and, as such, keep a foothold in the country; and blame ousted President Abded Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who has walked away from peace negotiations twice now, preferring to lean on Saudi muscle rather than lead. All of the aforementioned have some degree of blood and blame on their hands.
The bulk of the blame for Yemen's current suffering, however, falls squarely on the coalition forces, and on the often shambolic and indifferent war they continue to wage from far away and well above. The New York Times reports:
"Errant coalition strikes have ripped through markets, apartment buildings and refugee camps. Other bombs have fallen so far from any military target ... that human rights groups say such airstrikes amount to war crimes. More than a thousand civilians are believed to have died in the strikes, the toll rising steadily with little international notice or outrage."
U.S. President Barack Obama reached out to Saudi Arabia's King Salman this week to address the violence in Yemen, and Obama pledged more financial aid to the country. But the Gulf countries are driven in large part by an irrational fear of Iranian imperialism in Yemen and the entire region. It is a war being waged by a number of factions with numerous grievances, but without any serious endgame or clear objectives.
Washington can try its best to pull all of the diplomatic levers at its disposal, but the conflict may just have to play itself out.
Around the Region
Is America to blame for al-Baghdadi? Reacting to earlier reports on the rearing and radicalization of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Will McCants of the Brookings Institution suggests that we begin to take a deeper look at Baghdadi and his fellow travelers:
"Pause for a second and answer this question: under what circumstances would you take up arms? Chances are, foreign occupation is high on your list, so let's call that your theory of radicalization. In the absence of facts to the contrary and the presence of several accounts from Baghdadi's neighbors that he was a peaceful guy before the war, how would you explain his radicalization? I'll bet the puzzle pieces fit your theory of radicalization. And given that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq did radicalize thousands of Iraqis and Muslims in general, Baghdadi's supposed radicalization is a path many of his co-fighters really did travel."
McCants recently published an essential essay on al-Baghdadi.
Who is Ali Mohammed al-Nimr? Orlando Scowcroft of the International Business Times profiles the young man reportedly set to be beheaded and crucified by Saudi Arabia:
"Ali was arrested in 2012 when he was 17 years old for taking part in a protest. According to anti-death penalty charity Reprieve, Ali was tortured and forced to sign a confession in 2012 and after two years he was sentenced to death in May 2014."
[...]
"He was convicted under a range of charges, from the most seemingly innocuous to the gravely serious. As well as being accused of being part of a terrorist organisation, carrying weapons and targeting security patrols with Molotov cocktails, Ali was also charged with encouraging others to protest using his BlackBerry and explaining to others how to give first aid, Reprieve claimed in a statement on 17 September."
Is Congress coming around on Assad? More than four years after President Obama insisted that Syrian President Bashar Assad step down from power, U.S. lawmakers -- most of them members of the president's own party -- may be changing their minds. Julian Pecquet reports:
"'I don't know that it helps for us to keep banging the table about Assad,' panel member Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told Al-Monitor. ‘I think it would be better for us to be as effective as possible in fighting [IS] and restoring some kind of security environment that shifts back the flow of refugees.'"
Why ISIS fights. Martin Chulov examines the spiritual and historical significance behind the Syrian city of Dabiq, and why keeping its grip on the city is imperative to the Islamic State group:
"One of the earliest sayings of the Prophet Muhammad -- a hadith -- mentions Dabiq as the location of a fateful showdown between Christians and Muslims which will be a precursor to the apocalypse. According to another prophecy, this confrontation will come after a period of truce between Muslims and Christians, during which Muslims -- and only puritanical Sunnis fit the definition -- would fight an undefined enemy, which in northern Syria today is deemed to be ‘Persians.'"
The Islamic State of gold bugs. And finally, Al-Monitor's Rami Galal takes a look at the Islamic State's plan to bring down the global economy -- with gold, copper, and silver. ISIS "asserts that replacing the dollar with gold will push major powers such as China and Russia, who had bought U.S. Treasury bills, to sell these bills, leading to a complete collapse of the U.S. financial system," reports Galal.
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