DUBAI, UAE – The battle for a war-torn former desert city in Yemen has become key to understanding the wider tensions now engulfing the Middle East and the challenges it faces the efforts of President Joe Biden’s administration to displace U.S. troops from the region.
Fighting has been in the mountains outside Marib as Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who hold Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, try to seize the city, which is crucial to the country’s energy supplies.
Saudi Arabia, which since 2015 has led a military coalition supporting the exiled government of Sanaa, has launched one air strike after another to halt the Houthi advance on Marib. Houthis have retaliated with drone and missile attacks far inside Saudi Arabia, plunging global oil markets.
The battle for Marib will likely determine the outline of any political agreement in Yemen’s second civil war since the 1990s. If captured by the Houthis, the rebels may press that lead into negotiations and even continue further south. If Marib is owned by the internationally recognized government of Yemen, it may save its only stronghold while secessionists challenge its authority elsewhere.
The fight also puts pressure on the most powerful Arab allies in the U.S. Gulf and surrounds any U.S. return to the Iranian nuclear deal. It is even complicating the Biden administration’s efforts to slowly move massive U.S. military deployments to the Middle East to counter what it sees as the emerging threat from China and Russia.
Marib’s loss would be “the last bullet in the head of the internationally recognized government,” said Abdulghani al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies. “It will set the stage for the dismemberment of the Yemeni state. You are seeing a generation of instability and humanitarian crisis. You will also see a free theater for regional interference. ”
___
THE OLD OASIS BECOMES WAR
Located 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Sanaa, Marib is located on the edge of the desert of the empty quarter of the Arabian Peninsula, at the foot of the Sarawat Mountains, which run along the Red Sea. It is believed to be the home of the biblical queen of Sheba, which gave King Solomon a wealth of spices and gold. In the Qur’an, it was the site of the massive floods that accompanied the collapse of its ancient dam.
The disaster that plagued the city today is totally artificial. More than 800,000 refugees fled the Houthi takeover of Sanaa in September 2014 and the ensuing war inflated the city’s population, according to the UN refugee agency.
Taking Marib, or cutting him in another way, would represent a major reward for the houthis. It hosts oil and gas fields that have interests in international companies, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Total SA. Marib’s natural gas bottling plant produces kitchen gas for the nation of 29 million people. Its power plant once provided 40% of Yemen’s electricity. The modern Marib Dam is a key source of fresh water for a dry nation, although it never fully developed even in peacetime.
When Saudi Arabia entered the Yemeni war in 2015 alongside its exiled government, the kingdom allied with the Marib tribes, who for a long time perceived Sanaa and the Houthis as deprivations of law. Another important political power was Islah, a Sunni Islamist political party that is the Yemen branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. These disparate forces provided a lifeline to the exiled Yemeni government, which is already facing pressure from allied secessionists in the south.
For a time, starting in the fall of 2019, Saudi Arabia came to a standstill with the Houthis, said Ahmed Nagi, a non-resident Yemen expert at the Carnegie Middle East Center. Citing two Houthi officials familiar with the discussions, Nagi said that in an agreement on the back channel it was seen that both the Saudis and the rebels refrained from attacking populated areas.
But when the Houthis began to push back towards Marib, the Saudis resumed a strong bombing campaign.
For Houthis, “they believe they earn more through war than peace talks,” Nagi said. For the Saudis, “if they lose Marib, they will have zero cards on the negotiating table.”
___
THE YEMEN CARRIED ON A REGIONAL VISA
The escalation of the conflict around Marib coincides with major changes in U.S. policy toward war. The administration of President Donald Trump had declared the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organization,” following a campaign by Saudi Arabia that supported the movement.
Biden resigned as Houthi terrorist after taking office. He also announced that the U.S. would stop supporting Saudi Arabia’s offensive combat operations in Yemen, saying, “This war must end.”
But fighting around Marib has only escalated even when the Saudis recently offered a ceasefire agreement.. Iran’s frustration over the Biden administration’s failure to quickly lift sanctions has contributed to “an intensification of group attacks in Iraq, and the same in Yemen,” said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an Iranian academic at the Royal United Services Services Institute of Great Britain.
“Iran is trying to send a message to the US,” Tabrizi said. “A message that says the status quo is not sustainable.”
As experts debate how much control Iran exercises over the Houthis, the rebels launch more and more bomb-laden drones previously tied to Tehran at the bottom of the kingdom. These attacks included a drone that crashed into a parked commercial aircraft and others aimed at major oil facilities, temporarily shaking energy prices.
“Unfortunately, the removal by the U.S. administration of the Houthis from the list (foreign terrorist organization) appears to have been misinterpreted by the Houthis,” the Saudi government said in a statement to The Associated Press. “This misinterpretation of the measure has led them, with the support of the Iranian regime, to increase hostilities.”
Since the war began, Houthis have launched more than 550 bomb-laden drones and more than 350 ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia, the kingdom said. While this has caused damage, injuries and at least one death, the war in Yemen has reportedly killed more than 130,000 people.. Saudi Arabia has been repeatedly criticized internationally for airstrikes that kill civilians and embargoes that exacerbate hunger in a nation on the brink of starvation.
And even though Biden has withdrawn support, U.S.-made planes and ammunition sold to Saudi Arabia continue to be aimed at Yemen. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has linked the kingdom’s armaments to the United States, allowing for war.
“I’m asking this question to Americans: did you know what would happen to the Saudis the day you gave them the green light to enter the Yemeni war?” Khamenei asked in a March 21 speech. “Did you know that you are sending Saudi Arabia to an ambush?”
___
THE USA WEIGHS MEDIA MOVEMENTS
Biden’s efforts to end U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen come as his administration tries to re-enter the Iranian nuclear deal with world powers. Indirect talks began on Tuesday in Vienna.
“Iranians want to change the Yemeni card to get something more durable,” said al-Iryani, a researcher at the Sanaa Center.
This agreement may be tailored to American interests. Biden’s Department of Defense is studying the possibility of redistributing troops, especially those from the Middle East, amid what experts call the “conflict of the great powers” facing America with China and Russia..
Extracting troops from the Middle East could bolster the forces that America may need elsewhere. However, doing so will probably be easier said than done.
Only in Yemen, every American president since George W. Bush has launched drone strikes aimed at al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, long considered by Washington to be the most dangerous branch of the militant group. Biden himself has not yet launched any such strike, although the group still operates in the east of the country.
U.S. troops continue in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, Gulf Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia rely on U.S. forces stationed in their countries as a counterweight to Iran.
The U.S. military sent troops to Saudi Arabia in 2019, deployment of anti-missile batteries amid tensions with Iran. However, US forces recently reduced this presence.
“The kingdom believes the U.S. presence in the region can help promote security and stability in the region by supporting allies facing transnational threats sponsored primarily by the Iranian regime,” the Saudi government said. He made no specific comments on the redistributions.
Overall, U.S. forces will remain in the Middle East as it remains crucial to global energy markets and includes important offshore offshore points for world trade, said Aaron Stein, the U.S.’s director of research. Philadelphia Foreign Policy Research Institute. However, the appearance of these forces will change as the United States ponders how to counter Iran by returning to the nuclear deal, he said.
“It doesn’t solve the Iranian problem,” Stein said. “It puts us in a place to manage it, as if we were in the care of the hospice.”
___
Follow Jon Gambrell and Isabel DeBre on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP and www.twitter.com/isabeldebre.