Did the coalition fail them? .. These are the reasons for the retreat of the Yemeni army on the front

Mohammed Abdul-Malik - Al-Jazeera Net

The Houthis carried out intense and surprising attacks on the positions of the Yemeni government army during the past seven days in the Naham front east of the capital Sana'a, in which the legitimate forces have been stationed for more than four years, but a large percentage of them are now under the control of the Houthis, amid a retreat of the army forces towards the Ma'rib Governorate.

This accelerated progress of the Houthis, which coincided with other attacks against them on army positions in a number of districts of Al-Jawf Governorate near Sanaa and Marib governorates, raised Yemenis' questions about the actual reasons that made the army give up some of its positions, especially in light of the multiple accounts of the reality of what happened.

Reasons for progress
In search of those reasons, Al-Jazeera Net communicated with leaders of the National Army and other military sources, all of which confirmed that more than seven days ago the Houthis began carrying out the most violent attacks on army positions from all directions, and the army units were trying to repel, but some found themselves exposed and unable to Stay on site.

Among the reasons that enabled the Houthis to make progress according to the military sources that spoke to Al-Jazeera Net and asked not to reveal their names, was that the Houthis were able to penetrate the wireless network of the National Army and issue fake orders to them to withdraw from their sites, as well as disrupting the other communications network and the Internet until it became The seventh military zone of the National Army and those fronts is completely isolated.

The reasons for the withdrawal of the Yemeni army were not only limited to these tactical factors of the Houthis, but also the letdown of the Saudi-Emirati coalition aircraft was also a major reason for what happened, as it did not carry out any direct targeting of the Houthi forces, according to what was confirmed by the Brigadier in the National Army, Muhammad Al-Jamra, who said that the Houthi forces The military was roaming around the battlefields, while the coalition aircraft were flying at the same time, as if it were their mission to protect them and not target them.

Regarding the limited strikes carried out by coalition aircraft during the battles, military sources told Al-Jazeera Net that they targeted the national army weapons stores after the withdrawals operations only, at the request of the leaders of the government forces so that the Houthis would not seize them later.

Houthis' justifications for escalation
Al-Jazeera Net asked, in return, a member of the Houthi Supreme Political Council Muhammad al-Bakhiti about the motives that led them to go up like this. He replied, "Things were going well between us and the Islah Party," calm on the fronts, and a joint call for the return of Yemeni fighters from the frontiers with the Saudi border, and a sensor The two sides risked the Emirati project west of Taiz, and the danger of targeting the unity of Yemen, "but we were surprised by a surprise attack on the Naham front and air cover from the two aggression countries (Saudi Arabia and the UAE), despite the existence of an understanding between the military on both sides of the armistice.

Al-Bakhiti continued, "We do not know the exact reasons that led them to this escalation, and it seems that the pressures of the aggression countries were a reason for this, and in any case it is an unsuccessful step and was not in their favor, especially as the balance of power has tended to our advantage."

But an official source in the political party of the Islah Party described Bakhiti’s statement as “woeful and lying.” He said that he “attempts to undermine the party’s fixed positions against the destructive Houthi project backed by Iran,” stressing that “these statements no longer fool anyone and that they clarify the state of defeatism and hysteria that Al-Bakhiti and his group pass by.

New arrangements
To refute these successive developments and what may result from them, Al-Jazeera Net spoke with the Yemeni military expert Ali Al-Dahab who said that the Houthis do not actually have the power with which they can reach the depth of the Ma'rib or Al-Jawf Governorate because the war has fled, and that the government army that reached the area of ​​knowledge In Aden, in the south of the country, months ago, the Houthis will not be allowed to achieve their goals easily.

Gold adds to Al-Jazeera Net, "It is true that there are failures by the army or its commanders and by the coalition, and there may be certain plans to manage the battle or to rearrange the military ranks of legitimacy. These things necessitated and took place and the Houthis exploited and advanced towards voracity and al-Jawf, but the battles are still continuing."

On the actual causes of these developments, gold sees that part of it is due to political and military arrangements within the ranks of legitimacy.

And it is considered that "there are contradictions among the legal authority, as there is an attempt to merge the forces of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh with the Naham front and rearrange the system of the Yemeni Ministry of Defense and the Chief of Staff, and so it may be likely that there was no agreement between the legitimacy and the coalition on the merger and taking such The step until the army's retreat happened. "

There is also an attempt to thwart the Riyadh agreement that the government signed with the southern transitional, whose implementation means the return of the government, the stability of security, and the payment of coalition forces and legitimacy to the fronts to fight the Houthis, which the Houthis are trying to block, according to Gold.