Yemen: former president Saleh killed in Sanaa

Saudi-led coalition war planes bombed Yemen’s capital on Monday as Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, blew up the house of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, prompting unconfirmed reports that he had been killed.

The radio station of the Houthi-run interior ministry said Saleh was killed by militiamen when his house was destroyed in fierce fighting in the capital, Sana’a.

Unverified video footage circulated by Yemeni social media users and a Houthi-run TV station appeared to a show the corpse of a man resembling Saleh.

More than 125 civilians have been killed and 238 injured in clashes in Sana’a in just the last five days, in the latest turn for Yemen’s three-year long civil war.

The violence came after the sudden collapse of the political and military alliance between the Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Saleh.

The two groups had held Sana’a for the past two years.

The high casualty figures were provided by the International Red Cross, which also warned that it was struggling to keep the hospital functioning in Sana’a and access its warehouse of medical supplies.

The distribution of humanitarian aid across the country is already fraught, with seven million people dependent on aid in what the UN has described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

The civil war has so far claimed 10,000 lives.

Who controls what in Yemen? (Photo: Al Jazeera)

On Saturday, Saleh gave a televised address in effect announcing that he was swapping sides in the civil war, and would be seeking a dialogue with the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led coalition that he had been fighting alongside the Houthis since 2015.

The Saudis sought to reinstall the UN-recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and defeat the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a Middle East-wide power struggle that has the potential to envelop the whole region in a war.

It is widely thought that UAE diplomats persuaded the 75-year-old Saleh to swap sides.

“Yemeni citizens have tried to tolerate the recklessness of the Houthi over the last two-and-a-half years but cannot anymore,” Saleh said in his TV address, and ordered forces loyal to him in the capital to stop taking instructions from the Shia Houthi rebels.

The alliance of convenience between Saleh and the Houthis has been close to collapse for months, with claims that Houthis tried to kill Saleh’s son.

Hadi also ordered forces loyal to him – mainly based in the southern city of Aden – to capitalise on the disarray in the opposition and advance north to Houthi positions. Hadi’s staff also said they will offer an amnesty to anyone that has collaborated with the Houthi regime.

2 days before he was killed, this was ex Yemeni president Saleh's last appearance on his TV station calling on his supporters to confront his former allies, the Houthis https://t.co/HNLBXFS7uo

— Mohamed Yehia (@yeh1a) December 4, 2017

Saleh’s conversion was immediately welcomed by the Saudis and the UAE.

It is widely thought that they had been engineering his conversion for months after they became disillusioned with Hadi’s leadership, and looked for a new way to break the political and military deadlock. Hadi has been living in exile in Riyadh, and there are reports that he now has little independence from Saudi control.

Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia foresaw that their intervention in Yemen would prove so costly or protracted, so Saleh’s volte face could represent a political breakthrough if his forces do not capitulate to the Houthi militia in Sana’a.

Saudi-led coalition planes have been targetting Houthi-held positions in the capital for two days in a bid to force the Houthis back. Targets have included Houthi bases near the airport and the interior ministry. But the loss of Saleh’s house suggests Saudi air power is not enough to win the battle in the streets.

Riyadh’s determination to crush the Houthis hardened last month after an Iranian-made missile was fired from Houthi positions at Saudi Arabia’s international airport in Riyadh, the first attack so close to a large civilian population in the Saudi capital. Saudi Arabia responded by mounting a three-week long blockade of commercial goods entering Houthi-controlled ports, prompting widespread shortages.

At the weekend, the UN secretary general, Antonio Gutteres, again called for the Saudis to fully lift the blockade.

US and UK ministers met foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia and the UAE last week to discuss Yemen, and to press for an end to the blockade. Riyadh has so far been unwilling to lift restrictions and critics claim it is part of the Saudis’ desperate push to end the war.

Since the elevation of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has taken up more aggressive foreign policy positions on Lebanon, Syria, Qatar and the Palestinian territories in what it sees as an over-due push back against Iranian expansionism.