Khaoba, January 28: At the small outpost atop the Jebel Doud, Saudi Major General Said al-Ghamedi doesn’t miss a beat as automatic gunfire and mortar explosions echo across the valley below.
“That is where the Huthis smuggle in supplies. We cut them off,” he points, referring to the Yemen rebels just across the porous border.
His vest weighed down with grenades and ammo clips, the paratroop commander says the Saudi campaign against the rebels is drawing to an end, signified by Monday’s Huthi offer of a ceasefire and promise to withdraw from Saudi territory.
“They did not withdraw. They have been forced out,” he said, declaring the three-month old campaign against the Huthis a success.
The mountain top where he stood, and others nearby — including some several kilometres (miles) farther inside Saudi territory — were until recently occupied by the Yemeni rebels.
The Huthi land-grab, the exact aim of which is still unclear, sparked the biggest mobilisation of the Saudi military since the 1990-91 Gulf war.
Thousands of desert-trained Saudis backed by heavy artillery at first found themselves outmatched by the guerrilla tactics of the Huthis, who are more familiar with the craggy peaks and pocket valleys along the border.
Several days into the fighting in November, Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan suggested the conflict would last a few weeks only, with just a handful of casualties on his side.
That was premature. As casualties mounted on the ground, Saudi Arabia unleashed its air power — Apache helicopters for tactical raids and F-15 and Tornado jets to rocket Huthi positions well inside Yemen, according to defence analysts.
Three months in, the Saudis have gained the upper hand on their side of the border, with the help of Western-supplied infrared detection equipment, computer-guided sniper rifles and surveillance drones.
The numerous Saudi outposts on the mountain peaks — some barely large enough for three soldiers — attest to the great effort, though at the unexpected cost of 109 men.
Continuing gunfire shows the Huthis have not all left.
“Some Huthis tried to cross the valley last night,” said one of the soldiers manning 50-calibre machine guns in the dusty redoubt. “We see them with night-vision equipment.”
When Saudi involvement became known in November, analysts said it appeared that Riyadh had assumed the lead in Yemen’s campaign against the rebels, Zaidi Shiites with long-standing demands on Sanaa.
But that risked regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia losing its reputation as reticent to use its armed forces. Riyadh stressed that it was only “defending its sovereignty” to “expel the invaders.”
For Riyadh, the Huthis, who have many links to Saudi tribes across the border, are more dangerous as a conduit for other threats, especially Al-Qaeda plots to smuggle weapons and militants from Yemen to attack the Saudi government.
Moreover, Saudis believe that arch-nemesis Iran is aiding the Huthis with arms and ammunition, although hard proof of such aid has been lacking.
Asked on Wednesday whether the rebels had the backing of Shiite Iran, Prince Khaled said evidence exists of Tehran giving more than just verbal support.
He noted that Saudi forces had discovered and destroyed large Huthi arms caches. “It cannot be done by themselves,” he said.
While pushing back the Huthis, the Saudis emptied villages and farms along the frontier of Jizan province and permanently moved more than 10,000 people west towards the Red Sea coast.
Riyadh said this was aimed at creating a permanent buffer zone of 10 kilometres (six miles) on either side of the border.
That underpinned Prince Khaled’s rejection on Wednesday of a Huthi ceasefire offer — an insistence that Yemen’s military take control of its side of the border.
“If they (Huthi snipers) withdraw, and if they return our six missing (soldiers), and if we become sure that Yemeni armed forces are stationed along the borders… these three steps would prove their good intentions,” he said.
—Agencies