Saudi warplanes continue to pound Yemen, with a new round of attacks nationwide on Monday leaving at least 25 people killed, including 11 civilian bystanders. Saudi officials identified the other 14 slain as all Shi’ite Houthi movement members.
The deadliest incident against civilians was in Maarib, where warplanes destroyed a home and killed five members of the same family. The area attacked is part of a district which was attacked by pro-Saudi forces last week, in an attempt to oust the Houthis from the area.
Nine rebels were also reported slain in the same part of Maarib, with artillery shelling destroying a vehicle and killing three fighters, while other airstrikes killed six others, again all labeled Houthis. Maarib is an important central part of Yemen, and like most of the Saudi invasion of Yemen, central regions are heavily contested.
Saudi forces control most of southern Yemen, operating mainly out of the southern port of Aden, while the Houthis control the north, including the capital city of Sanaa. Saudi Arabia invaded in early 2015, vowing to reinstall the former Hadi government militarily.
One assumes that the former Aden protectorate supports Hadi, or at least doesn’t want to be ruled by the north. Since the southern oil fields appear to be operating again, presumably the south can stand on its own as an independent state. Perhaps the basis for a compromise solution? Certainly despite all the pictures of bearded gun-wavers, no one seems anxious to make a real invasion of the north, or the south, with plenty of mounds of mangled corpses. Still, it’s none of our business how the Yemenis and their neighbours choose to mismanage their affairs.