President Joe Biden will announce the end Thursday of U.S. support for a five-year Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen that has deepened human suffering in the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, national security adviser Jake said Sullivan.
Biden sees the United States as “playing a more active and committed role” in ending the war through diplomacy, Sullivan said at a White House briefing before Biden spoke to the State Department.
Thursday’s move, which fulfills a campaign commitment, would not affect any U.S. operation against the Yemen-based al-Qaeda group in the Arabian Peninsula or the AQAP group, Sullivan said.
Yemen, the biblical kingdom of Sheba, has one of the oldest cities in the world constantly occupied, the 2,000-year-old Sanaa, along with mud-brick skyscrapers and haunting landscapes of beautiful, steep, arid mountains. But decades of Yemen’s misgovernment have worsened factional divisions and halted development, and now years of conflict have intervened in the intervention of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, officials have said. growing support for the Houthi Yemeni fighting faction.
The Obama administration in 2015 gave its approval to Saudi Arabia by leading a cross-border air campaign targeting Houthi rebels, who had seized Sanaa and other territories and sporadically fired missiles at Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. was supposed to direct aid to the Saudi command and control center to minimize civilian casualties in airstrikes. But since then, Saudi-led strikes have killed numerous Yemeni civilians, including schoolchildren on a bus and fishermen on their boats. Survivors show fragments showing American-made bombs.
The campaign led by Saudi Arabia, joined mainly by the United Arab Emirates, another Gulf country, has only “perpetuated a civil war in Yemen” and “caused a humanitarian crisis,” Sullivan said. U.S. officials have already notified senior officials in those two countries to explain the reason for the withdrawal of support, he said.
The stopped war has failed to evict the houthis and contributes to deepening hunger and poverty. International law experts say both Gulf countries and Houthis have committed serious rights abuses.
The weeks-old Biden administration has made it clear that changing its stance toward the Yemen war and Saudi Arabia on the Yemen offensive and other rights abuses was a priority. Other measures have included stopping some arms sales in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and a review of the Trump administration’s classification of houthis as a terrorist group. Critics say the designation makes it difficult for Yemenis to deliver humanitarian aid.
Biden also announces the election of Timothy Lenderking as special envoy to Yemen as early as Thursday afternoon, when he speaks at the State Department. A person familiar with the matter confirmed the selection and spoke on condition of anonymity prior to the announcement. The Gulf-based newspaper The National first reported on the choice.
Lenderking has been an assistant deputy secretary of state in the Middle East section of the agency. A member of the foreign service career, he has served in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere.
Despite withdrawing support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, the Biden administration also says it intends to help the kingdom increase its defenses against any other attacks by Houthis or external adversaries. The guarantee is seen as part of an effort to convince Saudi Arabia and other fighters to end the conflict in general.