Operation Gold Beard: Week 4, Day 7.

On March 26th (26/3/15) Saudi Arabia embarked on an aerial bombing campaign against it's neighbour Yemen. The hope seemed to be that this onslaught would cause the Yemeni government to collapse allowing Saudi Arabia to re-install the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi which had been forced to flee the country earlier day after being overthrown by a popular rebellion. This seems to have been a complete failure with the areas controlled by the Hadi loyalists continuing to shrink despite the Saudi air-strikes.

After 27 days of bombing which have seen around 120 air-strikes a day alongside a naval bombardment of the port city of Aden the Saudis have simply run out of targets to destroy. Their recent efforts to expand their range of targets in order to sustain the operation have led to them coming under increased international pressure. For example on Monday (20/4/15) the Saudis struck a Scud missile storage facility close to the government district of Yemen's capital Sana'a. Alongside killing 25 people and injuring almost 400 this strike caused a massive explosion that blew out windows and damaged buildings across a wide area. One of the buildings heavily damaged was the Indonesian Embassy where two diplomats were wounded and an Indonesian citizens was killed. This prompted Indonesia to lodge a formal diplomatic complaint with Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday (21/4/15) Saudi Arabia announced that it would be ending the bombing campaign and starting a new phase of operations which they have dubbed "Operation Restore Hope." No-one is quite sure what this new phase will entail but the Saudis seem to have three options;

Firstly they could simply stop and allow the Yemeni people to decide how their country is run and by whom. This seems extremely unlikely.

The second option would be for Saudi Arabia to try and contain the situation by maintaining a blockade of Yemen. Saudi Arabia is of course free to open and close its long land border with Yemen as it wishes and last Tuesday (14/4/15) the Saudis secured a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that allows it to impose a naval blockade on Yemen under the guise of enforcing an arms embargo. 

From a humanitarian perspective this would be very alarming because Yemen imports around 90-95% of its food. If Saudi Arabia refuses to allow those supply ships through the blockade they will effectively be starving the nation to death. From a global security perspective this would be extremely dangerous because by allowing Saudi Arabia to formally control the Gulf of Aden long term it makes it much easier for them to supply Islamist terrorists in Somalia with weapons and equipment. From there they will attack neighbouring states such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda destabilising the entire region. Also on Monday (20/4/14) the US were forced to more an aircraft carrier group into the Gulf of Aden to prevent the Saudis attacking Iranian shipping in the area triggering a regional war. 

Finally the Saudis could maintain the blockade while conducting the sort of hybrid warfare they've waged in Libya, Syria and Ukraine. This involves using special forces to train and equip different factions in order to destabilise the country by keeping it in a constant sate of low-level conflict. The Saudis may also choose to support these groups with the occasional air-strike. As you can see from Libya and Syria this will completely destroy Yemen as a country. 

It is also extremely risky for global security because one of the largest armed groups in Yemen is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Amid the Saudi air-strikes AQAP have grown in strength freeing many of their members from prison and seizing large areas including the Mukalla airport and oil terminal. With the help of the US' drone program Saudi Arabia seem to be positioning themselves to make AQAP their main ally in Yemen.

Despite yesterday's announcement Saudi air-strikes have continued today in Yemen. So at this point I don't think even the Saudis know what their next move will be.

15:55 on 22/4/15 (UK date).