Saudi Airstrikes Cripple Houthi Controlled Air Force in Yemen

Saudi warplanes struck military bases that had been seized by Houthi rebels in Yemen, crippling the air force in a U.S.-backed campaign that has led to fears of a proxy war among the Middle East’s big powers.

As weekend airstrikes blunted their expansion into southern Yemen, the Iranian-backed rebels suffered a political setback: Their most powerful patron at home, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, called for a truce and peace talks with his Saudi-backed rival.

A burnt petrol station in Yemen's second city of Aden on 
Sunday, as the Houthis’ offensive in the country continued. 
Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The rebels continued to battle government forces on Sunday, with no end in sight to the weeks of fighting. The chaos forced the U.S. military this month to withdraw its counterterrorism forces from a country on the front lines of the global war with al Qaeda—a group at odds with both Yemeni factions but not involved in their current fray.

Mr. Saleh’s rival, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, fled the country last week after the rebels closed in on his stronghold in the southern port city of Aden.

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U.S. officials said that Mr. Saleh—an autocrat who was forced from office in a Saudi-brokered pact in 2012 following the Arab Spring uprisings—was sowing instability in a bid to return to power.

The prospect that the Houthis, who practice a form of Shiite Islam, might take over the entire country so alarmed the Sunni leaders of neighboring Saudi Arabia that they began launching airstrikes Thursday and assembled a 10-country coalition to intervene—an alliance the U.S. has promised to help.

A neighborhood in San’a hit by Saudi-led airstrikes 
Photo: YAHYA ARHAB/European Pressphoto Agency

On Sunday, Mr. Hadi joined the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the 21 other Arab League nations in agreeing to set up a Joint Arab Force that would take military action against threats to the peace and security of any member state.

The force was expected to take months to form. Participation would be optional.

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