The up in the fighting on the Saudi-Yemeni border and the death of seven border guards is regrettable in the extreme. The military coalition led by Saudi Arabia has again been forced to show its intent and its commitment to taking on rebels and paying for this commitment in blood and lives.
Despite severe restraint and literally holding back against several provocations the coalition was left with little choice but to retaliate when a major push by the Houthis in the Najran area compelled an aerial strike in the effort to ensure no territory was acceded to the rebels.
That the truce has splintered and the revelation of Houthis using children as shields adds another woeful dimension to the ongoing fighting. It is fervently hoped that the global community will take note of this development, which goes against tenets of conflict and then bring pressure to bear on the Houthi leadership to leave children out of it. Last month the coalition handed over 54 children to the Yemeni caught in the fighting some of them as young as 8 years old.
The Saudi government denounced the use of children in no uncertain terms but it seems the practice has not ceased. Last year, the UN announced that over 900 children had been killed in the fighting. For a brief moment there was a flicker of hope that the truce would hold and the promised meetings for a more durable peace would provide some comfort.
The talks that in March of this year were getting somewhere now seemed to have slipped off the rails. Although technically there is a week to go in the talks in Kuwait any progress of spiking guns seems faint.
Matters have been made worse with the Houthis stating they have joined with the General People’s Congress to create an alternate government to the legitimate Hadi regime. This is a provocative move since it not only vitiates UN Security Council Resolution 2216 that calls on Houthis to not activate any initiative, which goes against the ushering in of peace and this certainly does not conform to any such assurance.
As things stand the situation is being monitored but there seems little doubt that any incursions by Houthi forces to grab Yemeni territory will be met with strong resistance. The point now is whether the militants and their allies or various splinter groups use the remaining six days of the peace proposal to positive advantage and seek the elusive peace for a war-torn country and not wreck prospects by trying to win land at the point of a barrel.
Despite severe restraint and literally holding back against several provocations the coalition was left with little choice but to retaliate when a major push by the Houthis in the Najran area compelled an aerial strike in the effort to ensure no territory was acceded to the rebels.
That the truce has splintered and the revelation of Houthis using children as shields adds another woeful dimension to the ongoing fighting. It is fervently hoped that the global community will take note of this development, which goes against tenets of conflict and then bring pressure to bear on the Houthi leadership to leave children out of it. Last month the coalition handed over 54 children to the Yemeni caught in the fighting some of them as young as 8 years old.
The Saudi government denounced the use of children in no uncertain terms but it seems the practice has not ceased. Last year, the UN announced that over 900 children had been killed in the fighting. For a brief moment there was a flicker of hope that the truce would hold and the promised meetings for a more durable peace would provide some comfort.
The talks that in March of this year were getting somewhere now seemed to have slipped off the rails. Although technically there is a week to go in the talks in Kuwait any progress of spiking guns seems faint.
Matters have been made worse with the Houthis stating they have joined with the General People’s Congress to create an alternate government to the legitimate Hadi regime. This is a provocative move since it not only vitiates UN Security Council Resolution 2216 that calls on Houthis to not activate any initiative, which goes against the ushering in of peace and this certainly does not conform to any such assurance.
As things stand the situation is being monitored but there seems little doubt that any incursions by Houthi forces to grab Yemeni territory will be met with strong resistance. The point now is whether the militants and their allies or various splinter groups use the remaining six days of the peace proposal to positive advantage and seek the elusive peace for a war-torn country and not wreck prospects by trying to win land at the point of a barrel.
