Ahmed Al-Haj and Salah Nasrawi
Associated Press
SANAA: Saudi Arabia is trying to create a buffer zone inside Yemen after its week-long offensive along the border against Yemeni Shiite insurgents, a rebel spokesman said on Wednesday. Mohammad Abdel-Salam said Saudi warplanes and artillery had been shelling deep into border areas to create the zone and drive the rebels away.
“Their goal seems to be establishing a buffer zone or a no-man’s land on the border,” he said in a telephone interview from the rebels’ strongholds in Yemen’s northern Saada province.
Saudi Arabia launched an air and ground offensive against the Yemeni rebels last week after skirmishes along the border. Both Saudi Arabia and Yemen have accused Shiite Iran of backing the rebels, raising concerns of another proxy war in the Middle East between region’s Shiite and Sunni powers.
Iran has denied the charge and warned against outside involvement in the Arabian Peninsula country.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki said Tuesday regional countries should not “interfere in internal issues” in Yemen.
In Sanaa, the Foreign Ministry acknowledged Iran’s comments and stressed in a statement Wednesday that no country has the right to interfere in Yemen’s internal affairs.
On Tuesday, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian assistant Defense Minister, said the rebels must “withdraw dozens of kilometers” inside Yemen before the Saudi military would halt its assault.
The Yemeni Army has also halted its four-month-long offensive on the rebels positions after the Saudi assault, Salam said. “They are leaving the Saudis to do the job for them now.”
The official Yemeni news agency, Saba, said earlier that the army has advanced into some rebel-controlled areas and inflicted “huge casualties” on the insurgents.
Yemen has been embroiled in a sporadic, five-year conflict with Shiite Houthi rebels in northern Saada Province along the border with Saudi Arabia. The Shiites have accused the authorities of neglecting their needs, and allying with hard-line Sunni fundamentalists.
Fighting has intensified since August, displacing tens of thousands of people and limited their access to humanitarian aid.
According to the UN’s refugee agency, some 175,000 people have been displaced since the fighting began.
On Tuesday, a Saudi government adviser said Saudi Army had imposed a naval blockade on the Red Sea coast of northern Yemen, to stem the flow of weapons and fighters to Shiite rebels along its border. For their part, the rebels have denied being backed by any of the regional players.
On Wednesday the state news agency reported that Yemen has signed a military cooperation agreement with the US for “exchanging experiences, training and qualification in the military and security fields.”
Salam, the rebel spokesman, suggested that many of those who cross to Saudi Arabia are destitute Yemenis in search of a better life on the other side of the boundary, and the buffer zone would not prevent them from crossing into Saudi Arabia.
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