Both the president, who had been in power for a decade, and his vice president, who was also removed, were fiercely opposed by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels that the Saudi-led coalition is fighting in Yemen.
Why then did the Houthis reject the new presidential council? Analysts say the council signals an attempt to unify the ranks of disparate anti-Houthi groups in anticipation of a period of increased confrontation.
Soon after Hadi’s announcement, Saudi Arabia’s state-run press agency SPA published a video of de factor ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman embracing the new Yemeni council and its head, Rashad al-Alimi, in the capital Riyadh. The move took place on Saudi soil with Saudi blessing.
Then, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pledged $3 billion to Yemen, SPA reported on Thursday. The kingdom also announced it is giving $300 million to the UN humanitarian relief fund to Yemen and called for an aid-donor conference to support the war-torn country.
Houthi chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam criticized the move as a farce and a “desperate attempt to restructure the ranks of mercenaries to push them towards further escalation.”
“This is a council that was basically made in Saudi Arabia,” said Gregory Johnsen, non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former member of United Nations’ Panel of Experts on Yemen.
The eight-member council is mixed bag of personalities with starkly opposing views on Yemen, with many having “clashed or fought with one another in recent years,” Johnsen told CNN. One common ground unites them, however: a distaste for the Houthis.
Peter Salisbury, senior Yemen analyst at International Crisis Group, called the council’s formation the “most consequential shift in the inner workings of the anti-Houthi bloc since war began.”
Source : cnn
