Yemen seeks U.S. military support against Houthis
The government of Yemen is seeking U.S. military support in its fight against the Houthis, a senior Yemeni official said Wednesday, as the Iranian-backed rebels rapidly expand their control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and threaten another critical Middle East waterway for global energy supplies, reports BritPanorama.
Yemen’s president, Rashad al-Alimi, conveyed the request for U.S. assistance to President Donald Trump in a call this week, Abdullah Al-Alimi Bawazir, vice president of the Yemeni Leadership Council, told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
When asked about a report by Reuters, which cited one Yemeni and one Western source indicating that Trump made no direct pledge of military support during the call, Bawazir stated he was unaware that the request had been rejected.
He expressed confidence that Trump understands the danger posed by the Houthis, stating, “we hope and expect more support for the Yemeni government in the face of the Houthi militias.”
The White House did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Bawazir did not clarify whether U.S. support should extend to direct military strikes. “We do not ask the American soldiers to actually go into war on our behalf,” he noted. “And we don’t really request that they do nothing.”
Yemen looks forward to “mutual coordination on the intel and security fields,” according to Bawazir, who requested that the U.S. enhance the Yemeni government’s military capacity to counter the Houthi threat. “The aerial campaigns are important,” he said. “But supporting the Yemeni government and forces on the ground is indeed a guarantor to end the danger of those militias.”
The conflict in Yemen has been ongoing since 2014, when the Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government from Sanaa, leading to a regional proxy war with Saudi Arabia backing the exiled government against the Iranian-aligned rebels.
In a recent military campaign, the Houthis have advanced along Yemen’s Red Sea coastline with the objective of disrupting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital shipping route for Saudi oil amid heightened tensions following Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia, a crucial U.S. ally in the Middle East, has urged Washington to take decisive military action against the Houthis, who escalated their operations over the weekend by launching an attack on the Saudi capital, Riyadh. At this stage, U.S. support has primarily been limited to providing intelligence and targeting data.
Trump, who had announced a ceasefire with the Houthis last year after extensive military strikes against the group, previously ordered strikes on the Houthis but canceled that directive shortly thereafter, as reported by NBC News.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated Wednesday that the U.S. has made commitments to Saudi Arabia and is fulfilling them, indicating that “obviously, the president has many options available to him.”
This month, Trump asserted that the Houthis, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., do not wish to engage militarily with the United States, stating, “They’ve called and they’ve talked to us, and they don’t want us to.”
Mohamed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, indicated that the U.S. had contacted the group following their advancement towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. He maintained, “We confirmed that we are not targeting the United States, or any other nation, in the strait, with the sole exception of the Saudi enemy.”
Bawazir warned against accepting assurances from the Houthis, describing them as “connected to a deviant state in the region,” referring to Iran, although he expressed comfort with the current U.S. position. “We do indeed discuss this particular issue very, very deeply,” he concluded.
