Military Strikes in Yemen: The Ongoing British and American Presence in the Yemeni Civil War
Houthi supporters protesting US strikes. Image courtesy of Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
In 2012, a popular coup in Yemen ousted the sitting president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and handed power to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. During the transition, the Houthis, who emerged in the 1990s, launched a military campaign against the Saudi-supported government, leading the country into civil war. By 2014, they secured North Yemen, including the country’s capital, and forced Hadi to relocate to the United Arab Emirates. Iran backed the Houthis, and Yemen became a site of a proxy war for the US and the UK. However, both nations had been in Yemen long before the civil war broke out.
The bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 brought Yemen to US counter-terrorism attention, though they did little in response until November 2002. Trials and drone strikes surrounding the event continued until 2022. After a failed terrorist attack in 2009, the US entered Yemen militarily and launched a campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, including 18 drone or airstrikes in Yemen between 2009 and February 2012. During that time, the US encountered difficulties with then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. President George W. Bush pressed Saleh to allow aggressive counter-terrorism operations, but Saleh often resisted.
After Hadi took office, US military operations rose from 12 in 2011 to 56 in 2012. During an intense counter-terrorism campaign, the US, with support from Hadi, flushed al-Qaeda out of southern and central Yemen. Since 2019, US support has slowed, with President Biden declaring he would back out of Yemen.
UK support has been significantly deeper and more prolonged. In 1985, the UK and Saudi Arabia signed the al-Yamamah arms deal, which guaranteed the British maintenance, training, and rearmament of any British aircraft sold to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Yemen have a tumultuous history; they had gone to war in 1934 and again in 1964 over border disputes. After the 2000 Treaty of Jeddah, which sought to redefine the border and establish relations between Saudi Arabia and Saleh’s government, the Houthis resented Saudi influence in Yemen. This positioned Saudi Arabia to become a key player in the Yemeni Civil War in 2014, and by extension, the UK. By then, an investigation conducted by the Guardian revealed that roughly 95% of the Saudi air operations against Yemen were conducted by British contractors. From 2014 to 2015, the British export of arms to Saudi Arabia increased from £83m to £2.9bn, despite a European call for an embargo on arms exports to Saudi Arabia for their actions in Yemen.
At the same time, the UK directly deployed special forces on several operations and faced criticism for breaching international humanitarian law in the recruitment of child soldiers, totalling 848 by October 2016. Parliament also admitted to supplying Saudi Arabia with cluster bombs used in Yemen. These are banned by over 100 countries, including the UK, for their indiscriminate effects on civilian populations. In June 2019, the UK government was forced to suspend all arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia, though it continued to do so until September when it issued a formal apology. In 2020, the UK resumed granting arms export licenses and has not stopped since; in 2022, the UK sent £2.7bn worth of arms to Qatar.
On 19 November 2023, the Houthis seized a British-owned, Japanese-operated cargo ship in the Red Sea, where about 15% of global trade passes through. Spokesperson Yahya Sare’e wrote on X that their forces would “continue to carry out military operations against the Israeli enemy until the aggression against Gaza stops and the ugly crimes … against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and the West Bank stop”. Since then, they have seized more than two dozen ships, forcing 35% of traffic through the Red Sea to be diverted, largely around Africa.
On 11 January 2024, the US and UK launched their first coordinated airstrike on more than a dozen targets in Yemen, and the second came ten days later on eight additional targets. Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands issued a joint statement with the US and the UK in support of the strikes. The US has carried out other attacks as well, including a Navy Seal operation off the coast of Somalia, where two SEALs are presumed dead.
President Biden has expressed doubt that the airstrikes will force the Houthis to cease their attacks in the Red Sea, and the Houthis have pledged to retaliate against the US and UK, potentially leading to an escalation. However, the US remains committed to avoiding war in Yemen, as does (ironically, given its past) the UK.