Saudi Arabia denied it has deployed ground troops in
Yemen after media reports said the Arab special forces were seen
fighting the Houthi rebels in the port city of Aden. While Riyadh is
heading the military coalition launching airstrikes in Yemen against the
Shiite Houthi rebels, it has consistently refused to address reports
about the presence of its ground troops in the embattled country.
Al Jazeera reported
that dozens of Arab troops were seen arriving in Aden to defend the
city against the Houthis and their allies, but a spokesman for the
anti-Houthi Southern Popular Resistance told Reuters that the fighters were Yemeni nationals.
A Saudi spokesman also refuted the claims. "There are no
foreign forces in Aden but coalition continues to help fight against the
Houthi militia," Brigadier General Ahmed al-Asiri said, according to Al
Jazeera.
The reports come shortly after the announcement of a “historic” unified Arab military
force drawing on nations from the Gulf region. The move was
prompted by
the unprecedented regional threats posed by the Islamic State group and
Iran’s proxies in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. Riyadh has not ruled out the
possibility of a ground strike in the future, and previous reports
indicated that the country was mobilizing ground troops as the strikes
in Yemen began.
Aden is a stronghold of the anti-Houthi movement loyal to the internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled
the country following a rebel attack in March. The Houthis control the
capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country’s north, and are
supported by militants loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The World Health Organization said in a recent report that the fighting has so far killed
over 1,244 people, around half of whom are civilians, and 300,000
people are thought to have fled the country. U.N. Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon voiced his concern about the fighting’s impact
on the country’s populace. "There are credible reports of families in
Aden trapped by the bombardment and snipers targeting civilians in the
street," Ban said in a statement, according to BBC. Activists and rights groups have also accused the coalition of using cluster bombs in their attacks; Riyadh has reportedly denied these allegations.
The U.N. warned that Yemen’s infrastructure will soon
collapse under the strain of the sustained fighting. "The services still
available in the country in terms of health, water, food are quickly
disappearing because fuel is no longer being brought into the country,"
Johannes van der Klaauw, a spokesman for the U.N., told Agence
France-Presse. "If something is not done in the next few days in terms
of bringing fuel and food into the country, Yemen is going to come to a
complete stand-still."
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