Saudi, Yemen fighter jets conduct air strikes against Iran-backed insurgents
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 E-Mail this story Free Headline Alerts
ABU DHABI Ñ Saudi Arabia has to air power in the expanded war against Shi'ite rebels from neighboring Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has used its air force against the Iranian-backed Believing Youth along the border with as well as inside Yemen. Officials said the Royal Saudi Air Force has used its U.S.-origin F-15 and British-origin Tornado fighter-jets in attacks on rebels camps in northern Yemen.
"The operations will continue until all positions inside Saudi territory are purged of all hostile elements," a Saudi official said. "All necessary measures will be taken to prevent this from happening again in the future."
Officials said this marked the first sustained air offensive by Saudi Arabia since the 1991 war against Iraq. At the time, the Saudi air force used F-15s and Tornados to protect the kingdom's air space as well as counter invading Iraqi troops.
The Saudi military operation, directed by Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, has combined air strikes with elite infantry units in the mountainous region of Jabal Dukhan, which reaches 2,000 meters above sea level. Officials said Saudi Special Forces were being fed data from reconnaissance operations conducted by the F-15s.
"The Saudi Armed Forces have supported the Border Guards with a number of armed units and they have been making concentrated air strikes on the infiltrators' positions in Jabal Dukhan as well as other targets within the area of operations inside Saudi territories," an official Saudi source said.
At the same time, Saudi aircraft were also helping relay information on the whereabouts of Shi'ite rebels to artillery units. Officials said Saudi artillery has quelled most of the fire by the Believing Youth on border villages. They said the Shi'ite attacks were aided by Iran.
"The Houthi rebels [Believing Youth] now pose a grave threat to its own internal security," Saudi analyst Yousuf Al Kowalit said. "The government of Saudi Arabia will do whatever needed to protect its borders from such an aggression."
The Saudi operation, launched on Nov. 4, was meant to counter a Shi'ite rebel invasion of the border area. At one point, about 1,500 people fled from six Saudi border villages and the Believing Youth captured a sliver of the kingdom's Jazan region. For several days, the Shi'ites controlled two villages.
"Border Guard patrols are carrying out their missions as per plans, and the evacuated people could return to their native villages over the coming few days," Saudi Border Guard Lt. Col. Salem Al Silmi said.
Silmi said the Border Guard was not searching for the Shi'ite rebels. Instead, the Guard has been protecting civilian communities with the Saudi military assigned to expel the Believing Youth presence.
Officials said the Saudi Interior Ministry has been operating the first stage of a border security network to help identify and block infiltrators. They said thermal cameras and sensors were relaying information on suspected insurgents.
At the same time, officials acknowledged that Saudi fighter-jets were attacking Believing Youth positions in Yemen. They said the operation was conducted in cooperation with the regime of Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, which until now denied any direct Saudi military help.
"We took back a small piece of territory and hit their camps around Saada," a Saudi government adviser said. "They've been hit hard and it's ongoing."
Meanwhile, Yemen has lost another Russian-origin fighter-jet in its war with Iranian-backed Shi'ite rebels.
Yemeni sources said Shi'ite rebels shot down a combat aircraft in Al Malahaid, west of the war-torn Saada province. They said the aircraft was one of the more advanced platforms in the Yemen Air Force.
"The pilot ejected in time and survived," a source said. "The plane crashed and was destroyed."
The downing on Nov. 8 marked at least the third Yemen Air Force crash in the north over the last month. The Yemeni military has acknowledged the crashes, but insisted they stemmed from technical faults.
Later, a Yemeni military source identified the downed plane as the Su-20. Sanaa procured nearly 50 Sukhois from the former Soviet Union in 1980.
The sources said the air crashes were linked to the supply of surface-to-air missiles by Iran to the Believing Youth. They said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hizbullah were training the Shi'ite rebels to counter the Yemeni fighter-jets.