DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – The struggle for an ancient desert city in war-torn Yemen has become a key to understanding greater tensions that are now fueling the Middle East and the challenges facing President Joe Biden’s government efforts experienced expelling U.S. troops from the region.
Fighting is raging in the mountains outside Marib as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who own the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, try to seize the city, which is crucial to the country’s energy supply.
Saudi Arabia, which has led a military coalition since 2015 with support for Sanaa’s allied government, launched air strike after air strike to stun the Houthi march on Marib. The Houthis have retaliated with drone and missile attacks deep inside Saudi Arabia, raging global oil markets.
The battle for Marib is likely to determine the outline of any political settlement in Yemen’s second civil war since the 1990s. If the Houthis seize it, the rebels can take advantage of negotiations and continue even further south. If Marib is held by the internationally recognized government of Yemen, it might save his only stronghold if secessionists challenge his authority elsewhere.
The fight also puts pressure on the most powerful of the United Arab allies in the Gulf and ensnares the US return to Iran’s nuclear deal. It even complicates the Biden government’s effort to slowly shift the US government’s long-running mass-military deployments to the Middle East to counter what it sees as the emerging threat from China and Russia.
The loss of Marib would be “the last point in the head of the internationally recognized government,” said Abdulghani al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies. “This will set the stage for the disintegration of the Yemeni state. You are looking at a generation of instability and humanitarian crisis. You will also see a free theater for regional intervention. ‘
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ANCIENT OASIS BECOMES WAR
Marib, located 120 kilometers east of Sanaa, sits on the edge of the empty quarter desert of the Arabian Peninsula at the foot of the Sarawat Mountains that run along the Red Sea. It is believed to be the home of the Biblical Queen of Sheba., which gave king Solomon riches of spices and gold. In the Qur’an, it was the site of massive floods that accompanied the collapse of its ancient dam.
The disaster that befalls the city today is completely man-made. According to the UN refugee agency, more than 800,000 refugees who fled the Houthi takeover of Sanaa in September 2014, and the war that followed, swelled the city’s population.
Taking Marib, or otherwise cutting off, would represent a big prize for the Houthi’s. It is home to oil and gas fields owned by international companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Total SA, have interests. Marib’s natural gas bottling plant produces boiling gas for the country of 29 million people. Its power station once supplied 40% of Yemen’s electricity. Marib’s modern dam is an important source of fresh water for a dehydrated nation, although even in peacetime it was never fully developed.
When Saudi Arabia entered the Yemeni war on the side of its exile in 2015, the kingdom committed itself to the tribes of Marib, which Sanaa and the Houthis had long regarded as the rights. Another important political force was Islah, a Sunni Islamic political party that is Yemen’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. These divergent forces have a lifeline for the fighting exile of Yemen, which is already under pressure from Allied separatists in the south.
Ahmed Nagi, a non-resident Yemeni expert from the Carnegie Middle East Center, reached a withdrawal with the Houthis for a while, starting in the fall of 2019. Referring to two Houthi officials familiar with the discussions, Nagi said that the Saudis as well as the rebels refrained from attacking populated areas.
But when the Houthis started pushing Marib again, the Saudis resumed a heavy bombing.
For the Houthis, ‘they think they’re getting more through war than peace talks,’ Nagi said. For the Saudis, “if they lose Marib, they will have no cards on the negotiating table.”
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JEMEN MADE IN REGIONAL FISH
The growing conflict surrounding Marib coincides with major changes in US policy toward the war. President Donald Trump’s government has declared the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organization”, following a Saudi campaign supporting the move.
Biden recalled the designation of the Houthi terrorists after taking office. He also announced that the United States would suspend support for Saudi Arabia’s offensive in Yemen, saying, “This war must end.”
But the fighting around Marib has only intensified, even though the Saudis have recently offered a ceasefire offer.. Iran’s frustration over the Biden government’s failure to lift sanctions quickly has contributed to ” an increase in attacks by groups in Iraq, and the same in Yemen ”, said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, a scholar of Iran to the British Royal United Services Institute, said.
“Iran is trying to deliver a message to the US,” Tabrizi said. A message that the status quo is not sustainable. ‘
While experts are debating how much control Iran is exercising over the Houthis, the rebels are increasingly launching bomb-laden drones that were previously linked to Tehran deep in the kingdom. These attacks include a drone wrecked in a parked commercial plane and others aimed at large oil facilities, temporarily shaking energy prices.
“The removal of the Houthis from the US (foreign terrorist organization) list of the US government unfortunately appears to be misinterpreted by the Houthis,” the Saudi government said in a statement to The Associated Press. “As a result, they have increased hostility with the support of the Iranian regime.”
Since the war began, the Houthis have launched more than 550 bombed-out drones and more than 350 ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia, the kingdom said. While causing damage, injuries and at least one death, it is alleged that more than 130,000 people were killed in the war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been repeatedly criticized internationally for airstrikes that kill civilians and embargoes that exacerbate hunger in a nation on the brink of starvation.
And although Biden has withdrawn support, US-made aircraft and ammunition to Saudi Arabia are still targeted at Yemen. The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, linked the arming of the kingdom to America so that the war could take place.
“I ask the Americans this question: Did you know what would happen to the Saudis on the day you gave them the green light to enter the Yemeni war?” Asked Khamenei in a speech on March 21. “Did you know you’re sending Saudi Arabia into a swamp?”
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USA WEIGHS MOST INSTITUTE SETTINGS
Biden’s efforts to end US involvement in the war in Yemen come as its government seeks to re – enter Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Indirect talks began in Vienna on Tuesday.
“The Iranians would like to exchange their Yemen card for something more durable,” said Al-Iryani, a researcher at the Sanaa Center.
Such an agreement might suit US interests. Biden’s Department of Defense is looking at the redeployment of troops, especially those in the Middle East, amid what experts call the “great power conflict” facing America with China and Russia..
If you pull troops out of the Middle East, the forces that America needs elsewhere can be strengthened. However, it will be easier said than done to do so.
In Yemen alone, every US president since George W. Bush has launched drone strikes on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, long regarded by Washington as the most dangerous end to the militant group. Biden has not yet launched such a strike, although the group is still working in the east of the country.
US troops remain in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, Gulf Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia rely on US forces stationed in their countries as a counterweight to Iran.
The US military sent troops to Saudi Arabia in 2019, the use of anti-missile batteries amid tensions with Iran. However, US forces have recently reduced their presence.
“The kingdom believes that the presence of the US in the region can help promote the region’s security and stability by supporting allies faced by transnational threats, which are mainly sponsored by the Iranian government,” the Saudi government said. said. It did not specifically comment on the redeployments.
In general, U.S. troops will remain in the Middle East as they remain crucial to global energy markets and contain important choking points at sea for global trade, said Aaron Stein, director of research at the Institute for Foreign Policy Research Institute. Philadelphia, said. However, what the powers there are will change as the US weighs how to counter Iran by returning to the nuclear deal, he said.
“It does not resolve the Iranian issue,” Stein said. “It puts us in a place to manage it, as if we’re in hospice care.”
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