Escalation of Conflict in Yemen

With Hisham Al-Omari, a conflict analyst joining us

from Washington, DC. Now welcome back to the program.

Hisham, an escalation in these attacks then.

Uh, the capital's airport hit three times, and then across these

attacks, a number of people killed and injured.

How concerning is this escalation for a region that is already

very volatile?

I- it's concerning 'cause, uh, one of the things that the Houthis do

is usually

retaliate in an asymmetric way. They are trying to make the

conflict extremely costly for the Saudis, and this is one of the reasons they

didn't attack the Yemeni army, and they didn't attack Yemeni cities.

Instead, they went for the jugular.

They went for the Saudis because the Saudis are supporting the Yemeni forces,

uh, ignoring the fact that this is actually a Yemeni-led, um, a

push to dislodge the Houthis. But the Houthis are trying

to s- put the squeeze on the Saudis so the

Saudis will back away from

supporting the Yemeni government, especially after the announcement of the

Mecca

Pact, which is basically, uh, creating some sort of anxiety for the

Houthis, um, north of their stronghold of Saada and, of

course, south of the Saudi border.

But I expect that the, uh, Houthis are actually gonna

exponentially escalate those kind of attacks against Saudi Arabia, not just

airports, but also oil infrastructure and, and, and other

local, uh, critical infrastructure, uh, uh, like electricity grids,

uh, the water desalination plants, uh, uh, and, uh, other targets as

well.

And how concerned do you think that Saudi Arabia are at this

point? Because militarily they are strong, aren't they?

They are, they are powerful, uh, especially, uh,

through conventional means.

Uh, the Saudis, I imagine, would have at least, uh, factored

in these kind of retaliation into their calculus, so they can

absorb those kind of attacks. I don't think they'll back away.

Instead, they will, um, further support, uh, the Yemeni government,

especially now that the Yemeni government is making gains on the ground.

Yes, the gains have been slow. But you have to remember

that the Houthis have had a

very long period of about 12 years to entrench in their positions.

And I remember a lot of people were saying, "Oh,

there's gonna be a lightning speed

operation to dislodge the Houthis from all these locations, especially the

capital, Sanaa." And I warned against it, uh, over the past week, and I'm like,

"People need to pace themselves. This is gonna be a long

campaign. It's gonna take a while." Because

while the Houthis are thinking

in the mentality of militias, they can just crash through the gate.

The Yemeni government, on the other hand, have to factor in civilian casualties.

They have to bide their time. They have to go slowly to avoid creating a

humanitarian crisis on the ground in their push to dislodge the Houthis from areas

that they've controlled for the better part of the past 12 years.

This is what I wanted to ask you about.

We have spoken about this before, you know, this potentially being a

long-term conflict. How long do you see this

lasting, considering what you've said with,

you know, they've been fighting for a

number of years now?

Well, it's gonna be a while, and it's gonna be divided into phases.

One of the things, for instance, a priority for the Yemeni government has

been to

secure the west coast. And after securing the west coast,

they will go further from the southern governments to the northern places like

Taiz, for instance. And they want to secure Taiz and moving

upward to pla- places like Al Bayda, Dhamar, and then

reaching to the capital, Sanaa. But all of that goes through very rough

and

mountainous terrain, where the Houthis have learned to disperse

their people, to

disperse their weapons, to hide their locket, uh, rocket and, uh,

missile launchers and, and their drones now, thanks to Iran,

of course.

But that takes a while, especially when you're trying to limit the ca-

casualties, not just as- among soldiers, but also am- amongst civilians.

You have also to remember that the Houthis have littered

that whole pathway with

landmines. This has been a serious concern for the

coalition, for the Yemeni

government, also for UN agencies for the past 10

years.

This is why we have this huge demining program that is funded also by the Saudis.

But it's also every time they clear one area, the Houthis come around, and

they plant 10 additional areas with landmines.

And they're not sharing the maps of their map, of the landmine that they've been

planting, which is make, which makes it very risky for civilians

and soldiers alike.

Well, by the sound of things, we will speak again.

We'll have to leave it there for now.

Hisham Al-Omari, thank you so much for your expertise.

We appreciate it.

Thank you for having me, Lisa.