The invasion force in Yemen is growing. The invasion troops now include:
- 3,000 United Arab Emirates
- 1,000 Qatar
- 1,000 Saudi Arabia
- 6,000 (somewhat unreliable) Yemeni expats hired and trained by Saudi Arabia
- 600-800 Egypt small contingents from Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan
All together the force has now nearly the size of an infantry division in a “western” army. That is not really much should these want to advance from Marib towards the capital Sanaa through the mountainous terrain inhabited by an unfriendly and well armed population. I would recommend at least three division or some 40-50,000 men for that partial task. (For comparison: In the 1960s Egypt sent some 70,000 troops to a proxy civil war in Yemen of which some 12,000 got killed and many more wounded.)
Coordinating such an array of forces with different military cultures will be extremely difficult. There have already been several cases in which the Saudi air force “successfully” bombed ground elements of its Yemeni allies.
Announced are also some 6,000 troops from Sudan though I doubt that so many will ever arrive. Smaller contingents are also to come from Senegal and Morocco.
The U.S. is not only supporting the Saudis with targeting advice, intelligence and logistics. It has now silently joined the fighting:
#Yemen : US drones in Sirwah area of Marib tonight where Saudi allies trying for weeks to dislodge Houthi/Saleh forces. 2 missiles missed
— Haykal Bafana (@BaFana3) September 7, 2015
The devastating blockade of Yemen continues. Yesterday an Indian fisherboat smuggling some small load of fuel near Hudaydah harbor was bombed by Saudi aligned forces. Twenty Indian fisherman died. Eleven food trucks with inspected load on their way from “liberated” Aden toward Mocha were bombed and destroyed. Over the last months Yemen received only 10% of the fuel it needs to keep emergency generators, ambulances and water pumps going. Child male nutrition in several areas is now above 30%. Half of the Yemeni population of 26 million are in danger of famine. Yemen’s religious and cultural heritage gets literately ruined.
The capital Sanaa is under constant bombing even though there are hardly any Houthi forces or valuable targets left but a Saudi general now announced that it is time to completely “cleanse” it.
All peace talks have broken down and the UN envoy, selected by the Saudis, is hapless and gets ignored.
“Western” media mostly ignore the war on Yemen and “western” governments excuse their very best customers, the Saudis, by repeating that the Houthis are aligned with Iran which is just one of the false myths around this war.
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.
