Operation Gold Beard: Day 4.

Back in 2011 Saudi Arabia launched an armed insurgency in its neighbour Yemen in order to overthrow the government of Mohamed Saleh - a member of the Shia Houthi tribe. Once Saleh's government had been overthrown in 2012 Saudi Arabia supplanted a Sunni government led by Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi which was utterly obedient to Saudi Arabia.

In part Saudi Arabia did this out of fear. An absolute Monarchy Saudi Arabia's ruling al-Saud family aim to keep their population of around 30 million in line by imposing a 19th century perversion of Islam known as Whabbism. Their problem has always been that Shia Muslims are far less likely then Sunni Muslims to fall into the Whabbist trap. 

So amid the revolutions that swirled around the middle-east region during 2011 - particularly the Bahraini uprising that was brutally crushed by Saudi troops - the al-Sauds became increasingly concerned that this demand for democracy and freedom would catch on in Saudi Arabia and they would be overthrown.

Beyond the fear Saudi Arabia also saw an opportunity to massively increase both their regional and global power. Although it doesn't have much going for it Yemen's location is of massive strategic importance sitting at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. At the other end of the Red Sea you have the Suez Canal through which most sea traffic between the eastern and western hemispheres travels. So effectively whomever controls the Yemeni port of Aden controls global trade.

At the other side of what is known as the Gulf of Aden sits Somalia. The piracy routes across the Gulf of Aden have long been a vital supply route for what I term the new al-Shabaab that has been terrorising the nation since the start of 2011. Essentially charcoal is smuggled by al-Shabaab into Yemen and in return money and weapons are smuggled back to al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Once these weapons and cash arrive in Somalia they can then be smuggled north through Sudan into Egypt and Libya. From Somalia al-Shabaab can also move weapons and fighters south-west into Kenya and Uganda to destabilise those nations. 

Once Kenya and Uganda have been forced to move their limited security forces towards Somalia to defend against al-Shabaab attacks it opens up fresh smuggling routes from the Indian Ocean to resource rich but conflict ravaged central African nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR). If you have any gadget with a battery such as a smartphone or a tablet there is a good chance it has come - in part - from either the DRC or the CAR.

Much like a square peg being forced into a round hole the Hadi regime has never really fitted in in Yemen. Things really began to deteriorate towards the end of August 2014 when Hadi announced that he would be withdrawing from the UN backed transitional roadmap that had brought him to power and instead announced that he was going to rule as a dictator. This prompted the Houthis who have long been considered the traditional rulers of Yemen to start a largely peaceful uprising that by the start of January 2015 had swept across the north of the country to Yemen's capital city Sana'a.

On January 7th 2015 Saudi sponsored Sunni jihadists who had helped overthrown Saleh carried out a series of terror attacks in Paris, France that began with the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine. This was the final straw for many Yemenis and the anti-Hadi uprising swept into to the capital and within a week Hadi had been deposed and arrested.

Unfortunately the part of the United Nation's charter that guarantees nations the right to self-determination doesn't appear to apply to nations that disagree with Saudi Arabia so under intense international pressure Yemen's transitional government were forced to release Hadi from prison and he fled to the Sunni Jihadists stronghold in the south of Yemen.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one from there Hadi teamed up with the Sunni jihadists and launched an attempt to re-take control of the country. This offensive began on March 20th (20/3/15) with twin suicide attacks against predominately Shia Mosques in Sana'a that killed 143 but fortunately it quickly collapsed with even the southern Sunni tribes siding with the transitional government in Sana'a over Hadi. Displaying an impressive grasp of English one Sunni tribal leader even went so far as to describe Hadi as "Trying to F*ck Yemen."

By last Wednesday (25/3/15) Hadi's insurgency had entirely collapsed with the Yemeni military siding with the government to oust Hadi supporters from their positions in the South. Hadi himself was forced to flee Yemen by boat and following an evacuation from the boat by the Oman navy was flown by medical evacuation jet - the only aircraft available at such short notice - to Saudi Arabia where he has been granted asylum.

As we've come to expect Saudi Arabia's response to not getting their own way was swift and violent. That night they launched a large-scale air assault on Yemen and because obviously nations which share a land border with Saudi Arabia are hesitant to tell them "No" they were quickly able to form a coalition of Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC) nations.

On that first night of intense air-strikes the Saudis claimed that they were targeting the command and control structures of the Houthis. However with the Houthis being an ethnic group rather then a militia or even a political party the Saudis appear to have levelled entire blocks of civilian neighbourhoods in both capital Sana'a and the northern city of Hajjah. 

Although no-one in the international community spoke out against this racially charged aggression that silence seems to have spoken volumes to the Saudis. They now seem to be very closely following the strategy used by Israel during the 2014 Gaza war by shifting their focus onto destroying Yemeni weapons stores.

It must be said though that it is extremely difficult getting accurate information out of Yemen at the moment. A significant part of the problem is that the Saudis have launched this war on a lie and therefore are continuing to lie throughout. For example they will not admit that on Friday night/Saturday morning (27/3/15-28/3/15) that they lost an aircraft to Yemeni fire over Sana'a despite the entire incident being caught on camera. Yesterday they claimed that a column of Yemeni troops were moving north to attack Saudi Arabia. No such attack took place and the Saudis have not produced any evidence to support their claim.

Another major problem is that many nations - particularly ones who are allied with France - cannot justify why they are supporting this war. For example both the US and the UK are providing both military support and diplomatic cover to this war. However there has been no Presidental address to the nation nor Parliamentary debate. Therefore governments in these nations would prefer it if there was a complete information black out.

The main problem getting information out though is that the Yemeni people are terrified having been subjected to four successive nights of aerial bombardment. What they are most afraid of though is that Saudi Arabia will launch a ground invasion of Yemen. The Saudis have already made it clear that they see the ultimate objective of this war to be the destruction of an ethnic group and when Saudi troops went into Bahrain to crush the uprising in 2011 they did so through the widespread use of murder, torture and the wanton destruction of private property.

Therefore there is an extremely high level of fear amongst Yemenis - particularly CNN's main source - of talking about the impact of the bombing incase they will singled out for retribution by the invading army.    

29/3/15 (UK date).