President Joe Biden will end US support on Thursday for a sharpening five-year Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen that deepened human suffering in the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, Jake Sullivan, national safety adviser, said.
Biden sees the United States playing a more active and involved role in ending the war through diplomacy, Sullivan said at an information session in the White House before Biden spoke to the State Department.
Sullivan said Thursday’s move, which is a promise of a campaign, would not affect U.S. operations against Yemeni-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
Yemen, the biblical kingdom of Sheba, has one of the world’s oldest cities that is constantly occupied – the more than 2000 year old Sanaa – along with mudstone skyscrapers and ghostly landscapes of steep, dry mountains. But decades of Yemeni mismanagement have exacerbated factional divisions and halted development, and years of conflict have now been intervened by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, which officials say have given increasing support to Yemen’s Houthi faction of fighters.
The Obama administration in 2015 approved Saudi Arabia, which led a border campaign for the Houthi rebels, seized Sanaa and other territories and sporadically launched missiles into Saudi Arabia.
The US, which provided assistance to Saudi Arabia’s command and control center, was supposed to reduce civilian casualties in airstrikes. But since Saudi-led strikes, many Yemeni civilians have been killed, including schoolboys in a bus and fishermen in their boats. Survivors display fragments showing that the bombs were made in America.
The Saudi-led campaign, mainly with the United Arab Emirates, another Gulf state, only continued a civil war in Yemen and “led to a humanitarian crisis,” Sullivan said. U.S. officials have already notified senior officials for the two countries to explain the reason for the withdrawal of aid.
The war that ensued could not drive out the Houthis and help exacerbate hunger and poverty. International rights experts say both the Gulf states and Houthi have committed serious rights violations.
Biden’s week – old government has made it clear that it was a priority to shift its stance towards the Yemeni war and Saudi Arabia over the Yemeni insurgency and other rights violations. Other measures include interrupting some arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and reviewing the Trump administration’s categorization of the Houthis as a terrorist group. Critics say the name hinders the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemenis.
Biden also announces the selection of Timothy Lenderking as special envoy for Yemen as soon as he speaks at the State Department on Thursday afternoon. A person familiar with the matter confirmed the choice and spoke on condition of anonymity prior to the announcement. The Gulf-based newspaper The National first reported on the choice.
Lenderking was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Middle East division of the agency. He is a foreign service member and serves in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
While withdrawing support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, the Biden government also says it intends to help the kingdom strengthen its defenses against further attacks by Houthi or outside opponents. The assurance is seen as part of an effort to persuade Saudi Arabia and other fighters to end the conflict altogether.