Saudi Arabia – Iran War Rages Again in Yemen

Saudi Arabia – Iran War Rages Again in Yemen

The Saudi state news broadcaster Ekhbariya reported that Houthi forces had carried out attacks in the central province of Marib and central city of Taiz.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all parties on Sunday to suspend military operations during the pause and refrain from exploiting it to move weapons or seize territory.

Shortly before Ban’s statement, the head of the Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said the group had not been informed by the United Nations about the truce and would not form a position toward it until then.

“There is no positive or negative stance until the United

Nations formally addresses us concerning the matter,” he said.

Yemen’s Houthi group carried on fighting across Yemen on Monday despite a ceasefire announcement by its Saudi-led foes, and media controlled by the Iran-allied movement acknowledged that its forces had shelled targets inside Saudi Arabia.

The violence prolongs a four-month-old conflict rooted in political strains that spread across the Arabian Peninsula country last year, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and pushed aside President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a U.S. ally.

This angered the Sunni Muslim-ruled Gulf Arab states led by Riyadh, which regards the once obscure Houthis, who hail from Yemen’s northern highlands, as terrorists.

The turmoil has made Yemen a front in Saudi Arabia’s region-wide rivalry with Shi’ite Muslim power Iran, sometimes contested along sectarian lines, by creating an ally for Tehran in its backyard.

The Arab coalition fighting the Houthis had announced a five-day truce from 11:59 p.m. (4.59 p.m. ET) on Sunday to allow in emergency aid amid severe shortages of fuel, food and medicine.

But the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television reported Houthi forces shelled the northerly al-Tawal region on the Saudi border hours after the truce was meant to have started, and that Saudi forces had retaliated.

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