Yemen’s civil war has taken a dramatic turn after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels killed the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, punishing him for switching sides and seeking peace with Saudi Arabia.
Pictures of Saleh’s corpse appeared on Houthi-run television after the militia said it had killed him as he fled the capital, Sana’a. He had ruled Yemen for more than 30 years and was forced to resign in 2011 as part of the Arab spring political revolution.
Houthi military officials said Saleh was killed as he was travelling with other top party leaders from Sana’a to his hometown of Sanhan. Houthi fighters followed him in 20 armoured vehicles, then attacked and killed him and almost all those with him. Gruesome video footage of his blood-spattered body were distributed on social media.
Earlier his house was destroyed in fighting that has erupted in Sana’a between Houthi militia and forces loyal to Saleh. Saudi-led coalition warplanes pounded Houthi positions close to the city airport, and the ministry of the interior.
The Saudi bombing was part of a desperate and ultimately doomed attempt to prevent the Houthis taking complete control of the capital. Salah’s death may prompt a furious reaction from Saudi Arabia, which is determined to push back Iranian influence in the country.
The violence between the Houthis and Saleh’s forces has led so far to the deaths of at least 125 civilians in clashes in the last last five days, according to the International Red Cross. The fresh violence comes after the sudden collapse of the political and military alliance between the Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Saleh. The two groups had held Sana’a for the past three years in an uneasy alliance.
The International Red Cross also warned it was struggling to keep the hospital functioning in Sana’a and access its warehouse of medical supplies.
The distribution of humanitarian aid across the country is fraught, with 7 million people dependent on aid in what the UN has described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The civil war has so far claimed 10,000 lives.
Timeline Yemen since the Arab spring
Arab spring protests erupt against Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power in Yemen since 1978. He agrees to step down in return for immunity from prosecution
Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Saleh’s former deputy, succeeds him as president.
Anti-Hadi protests hit the capital, Sana’a, after a cut to government fuel subsidies sharply increases fuel prices.
Houthi rebels take control of most of Sana’a and form an anti-Hadi alliance with forces loyal to Saleh.
The Saleh-Houthi forces seize the presidential palace in Sana’a and Hadi flees to Aden, Yemen’s second city.
Saudi Arabia enters the war at the head of a nine-country coalition bombing the rebels in defence of Hadi’s internationally-recognised government.
The UN puts the death toll at 10,000 since the Saudi intervention.
Saudi Arabia tightens its blockade on Yemen, including of humanitarian aid, after a rocket fired from the country falls close to Riyadh.
Saleh reaches out to the Saudi-led coalition, offering to “turn the page” if it lifts the blockade. The Houthis accuse him of a “coup against our alliance” and ambush his convoy as it flees Sana’a, killing him.
On Saturday, Saleh gave a televised address in effect announcing that he was swapping sides in the civil war, and would be seeking a dialogue with the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led coalition that he had been fighting, alongside the Houthis, since 2015. The Saudis have sought to reinstall the UN-recognised government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and defeat the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a Middle East-wide power struggle that has the potential to envelop the whole region in a war. It is widely thought that UAE diplomats persuaded the 75-year-old Saleh to swap sides.
“Yemeni citizens have tried to tolerate the recklessness of the Houthi over the last two and a half years but cannot any more,” Saleh said in his TV address. He ordered forces loyal to him in the capital to stop taking instructions from the Shia Houthi rebels.
The alliance of convenience between Saleh and the Houthis has been close to collapse for months, with claims that Houthis tried to kill Saleh’s son.
Hadi also ordered forces loyal to him, mainly based in the southern city of Aden, to capitalise on the disarray in the opposition and advance north to Houthi positions. Hadi’s staff also said they would offer an amnesty to anyone that had collaborated with the Houthi regime.
Hours after Saleh’s death, Hadi delivered a televised speech calling for Yemenis to unity against the Houthi rebels, describing them as “Iranian militias” and a “nightmare”.
It is widely thought that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been engineering Saleh’s change in allegiance for months after they became disillusioned with Hadi’s leadership, and looked for a new way to break the political and military deadlock. Hadi has been living in exile in Riyadh, and there are reports that he now has little independence from Saudi control.
Peter Salisbury, expert on Yemen at the thinktank Chatham House, said: “With Saleh gone, and no one with whom the Saudis can strike a deal, it is very likely the Saudis will take the gloves off, but the precise extent to which they do so depends very much on what Washington allows them to do. It could get very bloody and messy.”
“Everyone has been shocked by the speed with which the Houthis seem to have gained ground in Sana’a, and it has left the Saudis worse off than they were 72 hours ago.”
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, called for fighting in Sana’a to pause on Tuesday during daylight hours to allow civilians trapped in their homes to seek food and water.
“The streets of Sana’a city have become battlegrounds and people are trapped in their homes, unable to move out in search of safety and medical care and to access basic supplies such as food, fuel and safe water,” he said in a statement issued from Geneva.
Riyadh’s determination to crush the Houthis hardened last month after an Iranian-made missile was fired from Houthi positions at Saudi Arabia’s international airport in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia responded by mounting a three-week blockade of goods entering Houthi-controlled ports, prompting widespread shortages.
