President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday the end of US support for a Saudi-led five-year military offensive in Yemen that has exacerbated human suffering in the poorest country on the Arabian peninsula, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Biden sees the United States “playing a more active and engaged role” to end the war through diplomacy, Sullivan said at a press conference at the White House before Biden spoke at the State Department.
Thursday’s action, which fulfills a campaign promise, would not affect any US operation against Al Qaeda, based in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP group, said Sullivan.
Yemen, the biblical kingdom of Sheba, has one of the oldest cities in the world constantly occupied – Sanaa, more than 2,000 years old – along with mud-brick skyscrapers and frighteningly beautiful landscapes of arid and steep mountains. But decades of bad Yemeni government have aggravated factional divisions and halted development, and years of conflict have now attracted intervention by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, which, according to officials, have increasingly supported the Houthi faction of fighters from Yemen.
In 2015, the Obama administration gave Saudi Arabia its approval to lead a cross-border air campaign targeting the Houthi rebels, who had taken over Sanaa and other territory and were launching missiles sporadically in Saudi Arabia.
US assistance to Saudi Arabia’s command and control center should minimize civilian casualties in air strikes. But the Saudi-led attacks have since killed several Yemeni civilians, including students on a bus and fishermen on their boats. The survivors display fragments showing American-made bombs.
The Saudi-led campaign, mainly joined by the United Arab Emirates, another Gulf country, just “perpetuated a civil war in Yemen” and “led to a humanitarian crisis,” said Sullivan. US officials have already notified authorities in those two countries to explain the reason for the withdrawal of support, he said.
The paralyzed war has failed to dislodge the Houthis and is helping to increase hunger and poverty. International law experts say that both Gulf countries and Houthis have committed serious rights abuses.
The weeks-long Biden government made it clear that changing its position on the Yemen war and Saudi Arabia because of the Yemen offensive and other rights abuses was a priority. Other measures included the suspension of some arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and a review of the Trump administration’s categorization of Houthis as a terrorist group. Critics say the designation prevents the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemenis.
Biden is also announcing the appointment of Timothy Lenderking as a special envoy to Yemen on Thursday afternoon when he speaks at the State Department. A person familiar with the matter confirmed the choice, speaking on condition of anonymity before the announcement. The Gulf newspaper The National reported the choice for the first time.
Lenderking was deputy assistant secretary of state in the agency’s Middle East section. An international career member, he served in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
By withdrawing support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, the Biden government also says it intends to help the kingdom increase its defenses against any further attacks by Houthis or external opponents. The guarantee is seen as part of an effort to persuade Saudi Arabia and other fighters to end the conflict as a whole.