• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Yemen Civil War - 2021

Despite the worsening humanitarian situation and all the efforts for peace, the hostilities in Yemen continue and are causing more and more civilian casualties. While the threat of famine loomed in Yemen, many people already live in famine-like conditions. Pockets of famine-like conditions have returned to Yemen for the first time in two years.

On 10 January 2021, the United States Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, announced the designation of the Houthis (Ansar Allah) as a foreign terrorist organization and a specially designated global terrorist entity. The designation entered into effect on 19 January 2021. The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control issued several general licenses aimed at mitigating the anticipated repercussions for humanitarian operations in and commercial traffic to Yemen. However, humanitarian actors in Yemen have repeatedly warned that these licenses are not enough to avert the negative humanitarian impact of the designations.

Yemen depends on commercial imports to bring in nearly all its food and everything else. The licenses as currently formulated do not address the underlying uncertainty around commercial transactions in Yemen – including potential risks of criminal liability for many relevant stakeholders, such as banks and suppliers. This may create a “chilling effect” that would greatly reduce Yemen’s supply of food and other essential goods just as the risk of famine is intensifying. For years, aid agencies have been clear that they cannot compensate for major drops in commercial imports or replace the private sector.

Saudi Arabia welcomed the United States’ decision to designate the Iran-backed Houthi militia as a terrorist organization and to classify three of its leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). The Kingdom’s foreign ministry said it hoped the move would put an end to the Houthis’ terrorist acts and discourage its backers from supplying the group with missiles, drones, weapons, and funds.

On 14 January 2021, Ahmed Awad Ahmed Binmubarak, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Yemen, recalled the 30 December terrorist attack against the newly formed Government, saying that perpetrators have been identified as the Houthi militia, supported by Iran, and must be held accountable. Having given precedence to dialogue over war, the Government’s commitment has been met with violence from the Houthis, who are violating humanitarian laws and obstructing the implementation of signed agreements by laying landmines, destroying infrastructure, looting and blocking aid deliveries and attacking liberated areas to expand their area of control. As such, Yemen supports the United States’ designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Recognizing concerns raised about the designation’s impact on the humanitarian situation, he said the Government has the responsibility to ensure aid is provided and it is committed to work with aid agencies and other relevant actors in this regard.

Mark Lowcock, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that the most urgent priority in Yemen right now is to prevent a massive famine. Sixteen million Yemenis are poised to go hungry this year, and about 50,000 already find themselves in the midst of a small famine, he said, adding: “Every decision the world makes right now must take this into account.” Noting that the United States’ decision to designate Allah Ansar as a foreign terrorist organization will take effect on 17 January, he summarized the reasons why humanitarian actors oppose such a development, including the fact that Yemen imports 90 per cent of its food — with nearly all that food entering through commercial channels that aid agencies cannot replace.

David Beasley, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), said that without the designation, famine looms, with 11 million already in crisis and 5 million at an emergency level. To stave off famine, at least $1.9 billion is needed for 2021, as only $386 million in confirmed contributions have been received and, for the next six months alone, $860 million is required. The shortage means 9 million people now receive half-rations, and without required assistance, starting in February, only quarter-rations can be provided. Painting a grim picture of the looming consequences, he said that: “The designation is going to be a death sentence to hundreds and thousands if not millions.” While Washington, D.C., provided $3.7 billion of support in 2020, this designation needs to be reassessed, revaluated and reversed, as it will force 80 per cent of the population — 24 million people — into severe hunger.

The United States will end its support for military operations in Yemen, but it will continue to help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and land, President Joe Biden said 04 February 2021. Biden said the war in Yemen “must end,” during his first foreign policy speech since taking office. “At the same time, we’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people,” Biden said, adding that the Kingdom continues to be targeted with missile attacks. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said moves related to Yemen were discussed with officials in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. “We are pursuing a policy of no surprises,” he told reporters at a White House briefing. Sullivan said the US was in contact with its partners in allies in the region and that they understood the decision. Biden spoke of the need for the US to play a more active and engaged role in diplomacy to bring an end to the conflict in Yemen.

The Arab Coalition said 11 February 2021 it had intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile fired by the Iran-backed Houthi militia targeting Khamis Mushait in Saudi Arabia. Hours later, the coalition said it had intercepted a second attack of an explosives-laden drone launched by the Houthis. “The Houthis are deliberately targeting civilians and we will firmly hold to account the planners and perpetrators of terrorist attacks in accordance with international law,” the Arab Coalition said after a missile targeted Khamis Mushait.

“The Houthis are deliberately targeting civilians and we will firmly hold to account the planners and perpetrators of terrorist attacks in accordance with international law,” the Arab Coalition says after intercepting the missile target targeting Khamis Mushait. The latest attack came a day after the Houthis targeted Abha International Airport with a drone. A plane that was on the ground at the time caught on fire.

Yemen’s Houthi movement regularly launched drones and missiles into Saudi Arabia, many of which Riyadh says it intercepts. Some have previously hit Abha International Airport which is about 120 kilometers from the border with Yemen.

Some analysts said the US administration's decision to revoke the terrorist designation of the Houthis emboldened the group, which continued to launch bomb-laden rockets and missiles at Saudi Arabia. Hours after Biden said he would reverse Trump’s designation of the Houthis, the group escalated an offensive to capture one of the Yemeni government’s last northern strongholds, Marib. “Emboldened by Biden's decision, the Houthis escalated their offensive to capture Marib the following day after the designation was rescinded,” said Nadwa al-Dawsari, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (MEI). On 10 February 2021, the Houthis claimed a drone attack that targeted a civilian airplane in Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport. The White House and the State Department condemned the incident. Asked if the attacks would push the US to reconsider its plans to revoke the Houthis' designation, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said it had “absolutely nothing to do with the reprehensible conduct of the Houthis.”

The US’s strategy was providing many favors to the Houthis without asking them for anything in return. The Houthis responded by targeting Riyadh, marching towards Marib, and preventing UN inspectors from accessing the SAFER oil tanker. This meant that the US had given away most of its bargaining chips before even kicking off political negotiations.

Saudi Arabia proposed a new peace initiative to end the ongoing conflict in Yemen between the internationally-recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthis, the Kingdom’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on 22 March 2021. Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that it provided for a comprehensive ceasefire under UN supervision, and the deposit of revenues and customs taxes for oil derivatives ships in the port of Hodeidah in a joint account of the Central Bank of Yemen. The Hodeidah branch, based on the Stockholm Agreement, in addition to the opening of Sana’a International Airport for a number of direct regional and international flights, and the start of political consultations between the Yemeni parties.

After seven years of brutal civil war in Yemen, the Iran-backed Houthi armed group refused to give up arms and negotiate – despite their Saudi antagonists’ ceasefire offer and the US withdrawing its support for Riyadh’s role in the conflict. The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis cleared four fuel ships to dock at Yemen’s Hodeidah port on 24 March 2021. This followed the Iran-backed group’s statement that it would only agree to the ceasefire proposed by Saudi Arabia on March 22 if it stopped its blockade – which makes it much harder to deliver humanitarian aid to a country at severe risk of famine, according to the UN.

But the Houthis refused to put down their weapons and enter into talks. Experts say the Saudi olive branch comes from a potential roadmap to peace first discussed over a year ago. It was set up under the UN’s aegis, but now envisages a more prominent role for the US since Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump as president in January. This plan includes a UN-supervised ceasefire, measures to reopen Sana’a airport in the Yemeni capital and the lifting of trade restrictions on the government-controlled Hodeidah port – followed by talks between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed coalition government.

The Saudis’ overture appeared to double down on the idea that it was the Huthis who have to make concessions. And the Huthi response was clear: they say this is an old offer, and that they’ve been clear in their position. Completely lift barriers to movement on Hodeida [an alternative spelling] and Sana’a airport. They accuse the Saudis of using the humanitarian crisis as leverage. Seeing as revenue-sharing at Hodeidah and the reopening of Sana’a airport are longstanding Houthi demands, it is clear that Riyadh believes it is calling their bluff in front of the US and UN to show they don’t want peace in Yemen. The Houthis appear to think they are in a strong enough position to turn down the Saudis’ proposals. Riyadh and Washington are trying to impose through negotiation what they failed to achieve through the use of force.

Saudi Arabia’s air defenses late on 19 June 2021 destroyed six armed drones launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia towards the kingdom, bringing the total it intercepted during the day to 17, according to the Arab Coalition. The coalition said two further drones were fired at Khamis Mushait while eight drones were fired towards the south of the kingdom, one of which was aimed towards the city of Najran. All of these were intercepted and destroyed. The Iran-aligned Houthis have frequently targeted Khamis Mushait and other Saudi cities along the frontier in the more than six-year-old Yemen war.

Houthi forces and allied militias captured the strategic al-Fuqara Mountains area, the last stronghold of pro-Saudi forces in the southern Marib province, in heavy fighting, Houthi-aligned media reported 28 July 2021. According to the report, Houthi forces also made significant advances in the Sanaa and Shabwa provinces. Situated in the heart of central Yemen, the city of Marib is seen as a prime strategic prize by both sides, with the Houthis considering it the final stronghold of the Saudi-backed government forces in northern Yemen. The city is also home to hundreds of thousands of displaced civilian refugees, and the intensification of fighting in the region has led to fears in the international community regarding their fate.

Saudi-coalition warplanes were reported to have launched 16 raids in the Marib and the al-Jawf provinces, with ground-based sources telling the Yemen Press Agency that combat was taking place on the western and northwestern approaches to Marib, with the city now said to be living in a ‘undeclared state of emergency’.

Nearly 15,000 Yemeni Houthi fighters had been killed near the strategic city of Marib since June 2021, in a rare admission of their casualties during the seven-year war. "The air strikes launched by the Saudi-led military coalition and the battles have killed nearly 14,700 Houthis since mid-June near Marib," an official at the Houthi-run defence ministry said on 18 November 2021. On the pro-government side more than 1,200 fighters were killed in the same five-month period while defending area s near Marib, two government military officials said. A Saudi-led coalition which intervened in 2015 to support the government had, since 11 October 2021, reported almost daily air strikes around Marib with a death toll, by their count, of around 3,800 rebels.

The Houthis detained Yemeni staff in the US compound in a daring attack, which might be a message to Washington that they are in charge in the capital. The Houthis, in a show of strength, stormed the US compound, which hosts the American embassy, in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, detaining its security personnel. The Americans announced that the majority of detained Yemeni personnel were released by the Houthis while some still appeared to be under detention. They only detained Yemeni employees, they did not seek to detain any American employees. This was a conscious decision on the part of the Houthis. Sanaa had been under Houthi control for the past seven years.

Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican lawmaker, compared the Houthi storming of the US embassy to previous incidents against American missions. “Tehran in 1979, Benghazi in 2012, Kabul and now Sanaa in 2021. It’s almost like our enemies sense weakness when certain people hold office”. All incidents Crenshaw referred to happened under the watch of a Democratic president.

On 26 November 2021 the Arab Coalition published details of the operation targeting Iran-backed Houthi military camps in the presidential palace in Yemen’s Sanaa. Intelligence and satellite images showed the presidential palace’s link to a secret underground facility located south of the palace and linked to Jabal al-Nahdain. The pictures published by the coalition show the aftermath of the airstrikes conducted by the Coalition’s planes as well as the transfer of weapons from the secret facility after the coalition targeted it two days earlier. The operation in Sanaa targeted Houthi military camps at the presidential residence in Sanaa, according to the Coalition. The Coalition also said it monitored movements to transport weapons after the camp was targeted. “We have taken preventative measures to spare civilians and civilian objects from collateral damage,” the statement said. “The operation was conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law and its customary rules.”

The Arab Coalition has carried out its largest targeting of Houthi militants in Marib during the past 24 hours, killing 280 members of the Iran-backed militia group during 47 operations, according to a statement 06 December 2021. During the operation, 34 Houthi military vehicles were also targeted as well as ammunition storage sites. Military sources in the al-Alam front, north of Marib, confirmed to Al Arabiya’s correspondent on the ground that the army and the Popular Resistance forces managed to seize five fighters belonging to the Houthi militia. This came after the Yemeni forces repelled an attack launched by the Houthi militia on the al-Alam front that destroyed military vehicles and the killing of a number of militia members.

The Shiite Houthis and IRGC turned Sanaa airport into a military base for launching ballistic missiles and armed drones targeting civilians in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. On 20 December 2021 Saudi Arabia's Arab coalition asked civilians to evacuate Sanaa airport in Yemen immediately. The coalition launched qualitative strikes against sites and workshops for storing, assembling and booby-trapping ballistic missiles, as well as targeting secret facilities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese "Hezbollah". The coalition announced and revealed videos that show the militias transforming Sanaa airport into a military barracks, carrying out training on weapons, and using airport facilities to threaten civilians, whether in Yemen or in Saudi Arabia, which prompted the coalition to announce this first, and then warn against exploiting the facilities of the protected airport in accordance with the law. International humanitarian due to its use by UN and international relief agencies. The Houthis did not respond as usual, which called on the coalition to take legal measures to strip the airport’s immunity and launch strikes on facilities used by militias in various parts, while informing civilians and organizations before launching the strikes.

The latest coalition airstrikes in Sanaa saw more employment of GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs dropped by the Saudi F-15s. Such choice of weapons ensures minimal collateral-damage and preserves civilian infrastructure.