Saudi forces push back al Houthi rebels

Wael Mahdi, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 16. 2009 10:52AM UAE / November 16. 2009 6:52AM GMT

JEDDAH // The Saudi navy said yesterday that its ground forces had pushed back a group of Yemeni al Houthi rebels who attempted to occupy a mountain on its southern border and also intercepted a group of unarmed Yemeni infiltrators on speed boats.

Saudi forces have been shelling and bombing rebel positions in the 2,000-metre Jebel al Dukhan mountain area straddling the border since November 4, after rebels killed a border guard and occupied two small villages inside Saudi territory the previous day.

Admiral Moiedh al Shammrani, the Saudi navy commander in Jizan province, said its troops had cleared al Houthis from Jebel al Rumaih, a mountain next to Jebel al Dukhan.

“The infiltrators wanted to reach Jebel al Rumaih, as it is a strategic mountain because of its proximity to Jabal al Dukhan, but our troops pushed them back,” he said.

After an announcement last Friday that it will prevent future infiltration by al Houthi insurgents, Saudi Arabia is now tightening control over its coastal borders to cut off the smuggling of arms to the rebels.

The Saudi military is co-operating with its counterparts in Yemen to put an end to all guerrilla operations, but the fighting has led to a refugee crisis in Yemen that is beginning to spill into Saudi as hundreds of Yemenis have fled their villages for the Saudi province of Jizan.

Yemen’s deputy prime minister of security and defence affairs, Rashad Oliami, met King Abdullah in Riyadh on Saturday, the Saudi Press Agency reported, though no further details were given.

“We are looking for speed boats that infiltrators use to traffic arms to mountain gangs through the sea,” the al Hayat daily quoted Adml al Shammrani saying.

Last month officials in Yemen said five Iranians were arrested on a boat loaded with weapons allegedly destined for the rebels. Tehran denied an Iranian vessel was involved.

But Sana’a has remained cautious about openly accusing Iran of direct involvement in the fighting.

Saudi forces regained control last week of Jebel al Dukhan after launching an offensive against them in which at least three Saudi soldiers were killed. Saudi airforce F-15 and Tornado jets attacked rebel positions around the massive Jebel al Dukhan.

Riyadh has said the air strikes and shelling will continue until the rebels withdraw tens of kilometres from the Saudi-Yemeni border.

Yesterday, Yemeni and Saudi forces pounded rebel positions along the border between the two countries, witnesses and military officials said. “There was relative calm on Sunday morning but air operations against the border area are continuing,” a witness said.

The Saudi military presence in Jizan has been boosted over the past two days, according to a correspondent for Agence France-Presse, who said reinforcements were seen on the route to Khubah, close to the rebel positions.

On Saturday night, Yemeni forces pounded rebel positions in their Sa’ada province stronghold and in Harf Sufyan in Amran province, a Yemeni military official said.

“Strong clashes erupted in Harf Sufyan between the army and the rebels, supported by tribes,” the official said, adding that five tribal members were killed.

The clashes came after reinforcements arrived at Harf Sufyan to “help the army gain control of the area,” the official said.

Casualties were reported on both sides in the fighting in Sa’ada.

The Saudi offensive has left several hundred Saudis and Yemenis living in camps in Jizan after they fled their villages in Yemen or were evacuated from their Saudi homes.

The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) said on Friday that 240 villages had reportedly been evacuated and more than 50 schools closed in Saudi Arabia since the conflict erupted. Unicef’s Middle East regional director, Sigrid Kaag, said last week it was “deeply concerned about the escalation of the conflict in northern Yemen”.

Across the border in Yemen, the number of people who have fled the fighting has risen by 25,000, according to Ms Kaag.

“The total number of people displaced by the conflict since 2004 has gone up to more than 175,000, from an estimated 150,000 only a few weeks ago,” Ms Kaag said, while malnutrition is reaching “alarming levels” in Yemen.

Hundreds of Saudis were evacuated from scores of villages earlier this month and relocated to camps far from the border as the Saudi forces began operations to flush out the Houthis.

The authorities have pitched 420 tents to accommodate them, the Jizan civil defence chief, Hammud al Hassani, said.

Conditions in the camps are still far from perfect, according to a volunteer who acknowledged that the distribution of blankets and pillows is still erratic because the number of people who have been displaced is still unclear.

Ali Hassan Jrad, 21, moved with his family from their home in the village of Al Maqatba in Jizan to the Ahad-Almasarha camp, home to about 1,000 Saudi evacuees.

“My family and I have been living in a tent, which is not equipped with air conditioning because there is no electricity,” Mr Jrad said.

“We get daily food rations … but some services are lacking in the camp,” he complained.

Ahad-Almasarha camp was set up on a field in a small town of the same name 50km from the border.

Saudi Arabia has a 1,500km border with Yemen, the poorest Arab country, where al Qa’eda has established bases that it has used as a launching pad for cross-border attacks on Saudi targets.

Fighting between Yemeni forces and the rebels first broke out in 2004, and the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has pledged to crush the rebellion. Last Saturday Mr Saleh insisted he would “never stop this war, no matter how high the financial and human cost”.

The Yemen authorities accuse al Houthis, who are from the Zaidi Shiite sect, of seeking to reinstate the imamate, that ended in a republican revolution in 1962, and of being backed by Shiite Iran.

The rebels deny both claims, and have accused the government of bringing in Saudi warplanes to support the army. They claim the needs of their communities are ignored by a government increasingly allied with Sunni fundamentalists, who consider Shiites heretics. Yemen’s president is himself a Zaidi.

wmahdi@thenational.ae

* With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse