Trump administration weighs deeper involvement in Yemen

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has asked the White House to lift Obama-era restrictions on US military support for Gulf states engaged in a protracted civil war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, The Washington Post quoted senior Trump administration officials.

In a memo this month to national security adviser H.R. ­McMaster, Mattis said that “limited support” for Yemen operations being conducted by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — including a planned Emirati offensive to retake a key Red Sea port — would help combat a “common threat.”

Approval of the request would mark a significant policy shift. US military activity in Yemen until now has been confined mainly to counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda’s affiliate there, with limited indirect backing for gulf state efforts in a two-year-old war that has yielded significant civilian casualties.

It would also be a clear signal of the administration’s intention to move more aggressively against Iran. The Trump White House, in far stronger terms than its predecessor, has echoed Saudi and Emirati charges that Iran is training, arming and directing the Shiite Houthis in a proxy war to increase its regional clout against the Gulf’s Sunni monarchies.

The administration is in the midst of a larger review of overall Yemen policy that is not expected to be completed until next month.

But the immediate question, addressed by Mattis’s memo and tentatively slated to come before the principals committee of senior national security aides this week, is whether to provide support for a proposed UAE-led operation to push the Houthis from the port of Hodeida, through which humanitarian aid and rebel supplies pass.

The Pentagon memo does not recommend agreeing to every element of the Emirati request. A proposal to provide American Special Operations forces on the ground on the Red Sea coast “was not part of the request [Mattis] is making,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss planning and the review.

Source: MENA