Page 8 The Skanner November 15, 2017
News
AP Analysis: No End to War in Sight as Life Worsens in Yemen
By Brian Rohan
Associated Press
CAIRO — As Saudi Ara-
bia tightens the screws
on its weak southern
neighbor, the war it
launched in Yemen over
two years ago appears
more intractable than
ever, with nothing but
further suff ering in
sight.
Despite crushing air
power by the Saudi-led
coalition seeking to rein-
stall the country’s exiled
president, which has re-
duced much of the north
to rubble, Yemen’s Shiite
rebels, with the political
backing of Iran, still hold
large swaths of territory,
including the capital, Sa-
naa.
And while the U.S.-sup-
ported coalition’s recent
tightening of a blockade
to include aid shipments
might be intended to
starve the rebels into
submission, they remain
dug in to diffi cult, moun-
tainous and urban ter-
rain.
Unlike other regional
confl icts in Syria or Lib-
ya, no side is winning,
and peace talks are non-
existent. With both sides
deeply committed to vic-
tory, face-saving exits are
elusive, especially with
the Saudi-Iranian rival-
ry heating up. The war,
which has killed more
than 10,000 civilians and
pushed millions of Yeme-
nis to the brink of fam-
ine, appears unlikely to
end any time soon.
A look at the impasse:
HOUTHIS WEAK-
ENED BUT DUG IN
On much of the ground
and especially in the
north, the battle-hard-
ened Shiite rebels known
as Houthis hold the up-
per hand. They control
most state institutions
and fortifi cations, are
well-armed, and are
backed by the remnants
of a powerful army built
up by former President
Ali Abdullah Saleh. In-
frastructure, such as
health care, water and
electricity however, are
failing.
Opposing them are
a jumble of forces os-
tensibly loyal to exiled
President Abed Rabbo
Mansour Hadi, and a col-
lection of tribes under
nominal tutelage of Sau-
di Arabia and its main co-
alition partner, the Unit-
ed Arab Emirates.
These forces control
most of the south, includ-
ing the port city of Aden,
Yemen’s second largest
and the offi cial seat of
Hadi’s government, but a
place where weak securi-
ty, local factional power
struggles and repeated
attacks have kept him
away for most of the year.
Neither the Saudis nor
the UAE appear to have
forces capable of taking
over the whole country.
An earlier drive north-
ward ended up in trage-
dy for the coalition, with
over 100 Emirati soldiers
killed in combat so far.
NO LEADERS LEFT
Aft er all the fi ghting, to
say Yemen lacks leaders
with broad consensus is
an understatement.
The Houthis, a long-ne-
glected Shiite off shoot in
the north, consider them-
selves revolutionaries
fi ghting corruption. But
their enigmatic leader,
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi,
appears only rarely, and
his appeal has little reach
beyond the bounds of
sectarianism.
Likewise, his erstwhile
ally Saleh, who once mas-
tered the country with
a deft tribal balancing
act until he was deposed
in a 2011 Arab Spring
uprising, now has little
comprehensive appeal,
although some yearn for
the pre-war days when
he ruled. The two have
reportedly fallen out,
with news occasionally
surfacing that the Houth-
is have put Saleh under
house arrest.
Hadi, meanwhile, has
fared no better as a po-
tential leader of a post-
war Yemen. Now in ex-
ile in Riyadh, the Saudis
have prevented him from
travelling to Aden since
February, saying it’s not
safe. As his infl uence
waned, the UAE built up
its own force in the area,
training and fi nancing
militias loyal to it.
THE COALITION’S
COMPETING
AGENDAS
The UAE’s rising clout
in the south, where it
has backed alternate
local leaders, has led to
friction with Hadi and
AP PHOTO/HANI MOHAMMED, FILE
No side is winning, and peace talks are nonexistent
In this Jul. 26, 2017 fi le photo, a girl scavenges at a garbage dump in a street in Sanaa, Yemen. The United
Nations and more than 20 aid groups said Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, that the Saudi-led coalition’s tightening
of a blockade on war-torn Yemen could bring millions of people closer to “starvation and death.” About
two-thirds of Yemen’s population relies on imported supplies, said the groups, which include CARE, Save
the Children and Islamic Relief.
further undermined his
rule.
And while not at odds
with the Saudis, the UAE
prefers supporting ul-
traconservative
Salafi
groups as a bulwark
against Islamist organi-
zations it loathes, like the
local branch of the Mus-
lim Brotherhood, which
the Saudis have given a
pass in Yemen.
Riyadh has also histor-
ically been more tolerant
of more hard-core Sun-
ni-inspired fi ghters, blur-
ring the lines regarding
who the coalition should
consider friend or foe in
southern Yemen. Al-Qa-
ida and Islamic State
group affi liates operate
there, sometimes strik-
ing targets in Aden and
other southern cities.
The same goes for the
lawless east, a vast desert
with little state control
and occasional U.S. drone
strikes on militants.
While minor, the diff er-
ences highlight potential
pitfalls in eff orts to unify
the south, let alone the
larger country with its
diverse tribal mosaic.
IRAN
DISENFRANCHISED
While the Saudi-led
coalition’s air power and
naval blockade cannot
bring victory on its own,
it has made a large-scale
Iranian
intervention
nearly impossible.
Tehran, while ideologi-
cally close to the Houthis
and happy to give them
political and diplomatic
backing, denies supply-
ing them with weapons.
Small arms shipments
on fi shing boats are occa-
sionally intercepted en
route to Yemen, and both
the U.S. Navy and coa-
lition forces accuse the
Iranians of gun-running.
No one can say for
sure which is ultimate-
ly true, but the block-
ade has largely held and
prevented quantities of
game-changing weapons
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become a writer and get
their work out there.
Kiely’s response was
simple— “do you write?”
he asked. To the ones that
said yes, he said, “then
you are already a writer.”
He encouraged students
to listen and stay curi-
ous. All three authors
suggested students share
their work widely via so-
cial media and writing
contests because getting
feedback, even rejection,
is important to becoming
a better writer. One place
new writers can submit
their work right now is
to the library with the
Library Writers Project.
The deadline is Decem-
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from entering the coun-
try.
Saleh built up an im-
pressive weapons stock-
pile over the years that
included missiles, and
those fi red into Saudi
Arabia recently may in-
deed have been locally
manufactured, as the
Houthis contend, despite
U.S. and Saudi allega-
tions to the contrary. On
Friday, the top U.S. Air
Force offi cial in the Mid-
east said that Iran had
manufactured a missile
fi red toward the Saudi
capital on Nov. 4, add-
ing that remnants of it
bore “Iranian markings.”
There was no immediate
response from Iran.
While the Houthis and
Iran briefl y operated di-
rect fl ights between their
capitals at the beginning
of the war, no such route
exists today, making any
potential Iranian resup-
ply eff orts extremely
diffi cult. Tiny sailboats
may be able to smuggle
small parts like guidance
systems via costal routes,
however.
Reynolds also talked
about having never fi n-
ished a book until he was
almost 18 and about how
he never saw himself in
anything he read. Today,
the books that Mr. Reyn-
olds writes are “love let-
ters” to teens like him.
Watson shared with
students how she read
the Ramona Quimby
series growing up, but
despite calling the same
city home, she was an-
gered that she never
saw anyone that looked
like her. Now when she
writes she makes sure
she is bearing witness —
making sure the Black
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More writing and au-
thor events are being
planned for the new year,
so be sure to check our
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