Dubai: The Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen for almost a month announced on Tuesday the end to its military operation, but a Saudi spokesman said forces would continue to target the Iran-allied Houthi movement as necessary.
“Operation Decisive Storm has achieved its goals…(including) removing the threat to Saudi Arabia and neighbouring countries especially in terms of heavy weapons,” said a statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA. “With its end, the new Operation Restoring Hope begins with the following goals: continuing to protect civilians, continuing to fight terrorism and continuing to facilitate the evacuation of foreign nationals and to intensify relief and medical assistance to the Yemeni people.”
The move suggests the campaign’s next phase is more political than military, especially after almost a month of bombing that destroyed or damaged heavy weaponry held by the Houthis’s allies in Yemen’s army, but that hostilities are not definitively over. Saudi spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said the alliance would still target movements by the Houthi militia group. “The coalition will continue to prevent the Houthi militias from moving or undertaking any operations inside Yemen,” Asseri told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh. “Operation Restore Hope has begun and it represents a combination of political, diplomatic and military action,” Asseri said.
In a statement on Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television, the Defence Ministry said it was now starting “Operation Restoration of Hope”. No details were provided. The Defence Ministry statement said that the three-week air campaign in the south of the Arabian peninsula had removed any threat to the kingdom and had destroyed missiles operated by the Houthis and militias loyal to their ally, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The announcement came hours after King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud mobilised the country’s national guard to take part in the campaign against the Iran-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The national guard chief, Muteb bin Abdullah, said his forces were on high alert and were “honoured to answer the call to join their brothers and colleagues in other military bodies”. Riyadh is boosting domestic security measures because of fears of domestic repercussions from the campaign. Riyadh has also been taking part in the coalition against militants in Iraq. Members of the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant, known as Isis, breached the country’s northern border with Iraq this year.
There was no immediate indication that the call-up signalled an imminent ground invasion of Yemen, an option that has been left on the table by the Saudi government, but which could lead the country into a potentially dangerous military intervention that could inflame regional tensions. The Saudi-led bombing campaign has put the Houthis, who had been sweeping through the country, on the back foot but the offensive has yet to bring the rebels to the negotiating table. The UN has called for a ceasefire as civilian casualties and widespread damage have precipitated a humanitarian crisis in the Arab world’s poorest country. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has described Yemen as being “in flames”.
