Saudi warns Yemen’s Shiite rebels against border incursions

Saudi Arabia warns it is 'ready to engage' anyone who crosses its border as Shiite Houthi rebels extend their territorial gains across Yemen.

Gunmen loyal to the Shiite Houthis in Sanaa, Yemen on October 19, 2014. Saudi Arabia has warned the Shiite rebels, who have been making territorial gains in Yemen, it is 'ready to engage them' after the rebels seized a crossing point into the kingdom. Yahya Arhab/ EPAShow less

Riyadh // Saudi Arabia warned against any breach of its border after Shiite Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen seized a crossing point into the kingdom.

“If anyone comes into the border area, we are ready to engage them,” Gen Mohammed Al Ghamdi, spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s border guards, said on Sunday. “We are always on alert because of the situation on the border.”

The swift gains by the Houthis have raised concerns among Gulf Cooperation Council nations that Shiite-led Iran is extending its influence through the well-armed Houthi fighters.

Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud Al Faisal cautioned last month about a “circle of violence” in Yemen.

The rebels grabbed the crossing along the kingdom’s southern border earlier this week as they expanded their control in impoverished Yemen. The passage is adjacent to the Saudi province of Jazan, where the kingdom’s troops were drawn into a conflict in 2009 following a cross-border incursion.

Arab News reported on Sunday that the kingdom's troops had been placed on high alert.

Armed Houthis extended their territorial gains across Yemen after seizing Sanaa, the capital, last month in a move that forced Yemen's GCC-backed president Abdurabu Mansur Hadi to appoint a new government. Last week they captured the country's second-largest port in Hodeidah and on Sunday defeated tribesmen to take Yareem, a town in the central province of Ibb, according to residents in both locations. Yareem has a population of more than 100,000 and lies along the main road to Yemen's southern provinces.

The Houthis, widely suspected to have links with Iran, took over the house of a prominent Islamist politician in Yareem on Saturday, setting off clashes that left 12 people dead. The politician, who comes from the powerful Islah Party, was not home at the time. On Sunday, according to the officials, the Houthi rebels blew up the house.

The rebels, named after the group’s founder, Hussein Al Houthi, say they face discrimination from Yemen’s Sunni majority. Yemeni authorities have accused the Houthis of trying to reinstate Shiite religious rule, which ended in 1962.

Iran is interfering in the affairs of Arab countries, "most recently and dramatically Yemen," Anwar Gargash, the UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, said on Sunday in a speech in Abu Dhabi. "The fact that this foreign policy is inherently sectarian further exacerbates the tension in the region."

Shiite-ruled Iran supports the rebels’ “rightful fight”, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Saudi Arabia has reinforced security along its 1,800-kilometre border with Yemen to try to block infiltrators operating in the rugged terrain and remote mountain villages. Saudi soldiers patrol in search of drug and arms smugglers and monitor the frontier from a chain of watchtowers.

It has also bolstered its defences in the north to prevent Iraq’s sectarian conflict from spilling across the border.

“We have to defend our border,” Gen Al Ghamdi said. “We are monitoring the situation closely.”

Five years ago, Saudi forces battled Houthi rebels who had seized land inside the kingdom, losing more than 100 soldiers during three months of fighting.

That same year, Al Qaeda militants based in Yemen attempted to assassinate interior minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was then running the kingdom’s counter-terrorism programme before being appointed minister.

In Sanaa, the rebels stormed the headquarters of the capital’s local government – chasing out the governor, Abdul Ghani Jameel, who they accuse of corruption, according to the officials.

The Houthis are at sharp odds with Yemen’s Islah party and powerful Sunni tribes allied with it. The rebels say they are demanding a bigger share of power and a change to the country’s political order following the 2011 protests that forced longtime leader Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office. But their military advances suggest they are seeking to take full control of Yemen’s northern provinces at a time when secessionist sentiments are growing in the once-independent south.

The country is one of the most active battlegrounds in the US campaign against Al Qaeda’s leaders, hideouts and camps, and American drones operate openly there with permission from the Yemeni government.

* Bloomberg and the Associated Press