Yemen and Iran meddle in the war

The energy crisis and the brutal rise in oil and gas prices are, besides of course the destruction of Ukraine, the most immediate and visible consequence of the war of aggression unleashed by Putin's Russia. Now, with the attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabian oil installations, the no less destructive and bloody war in Yemen has come to the fore.  

For seven years now, the conflict has been raging in what is theoretically a civil conflict in the country that occupies, together with Oman, the southern fringe of the Arabian Peninsula. In reality, the real war is fought between Iran, which arms, finances and backs the Houthi rebels, and an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, all of which are Sunni-majority monarchies. At stake are the power and supremacy of the region and obviously the leadership of the Muslim world.  

According to the United Nations, the conflict has already caused nearly 400,000 deaths, the destruction of Yemen's weak infrastructure, persistent famine and the plunge of more than 30 million people into abject poverty. The scale and duration of the conflict is such that it has led to the accelerated rearmament of Arabia and the UAE, which have climbed to the top of the SIPRI world rankings for defence investment, and has served as a spur to a radical change in the status quo in the Middle East, embodied in the Abraham Accords, signed by Israel with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and open to new members, the most desirable of which would undoubtedly be Saudi Arabia. 

Against this backdrop, Yemeni Houthis launched on Friday 25 March a total of 16 attacks against the south of Saudi territory, and in particular against several infrastructures in Jeddah, especially the refinery depots of Aramco, the Saudi oil giant. As usual, these attacks were carried out with drones, of the same type and Iranian origin as those launched last January against oil installations and the Abu Dhabi airport. 

According to Saudi colonel and coalition spokesman Turki Al-Maliki, these latest attacks "aim to strike at the nerve of the world economy", already severely disrupted by the sanctions and restrictions imposed on Russia. The coincidence of the attacks with the F-1 Grand Prix has brought extra attention to the so-called Yemen war when all eyes were on President Biden's tour of Europe and the many multilateral meetings of the EU, G-7 and NATO.  

Through these bombings, Iran has sought to make its presence felt on the stage and demonstrate that it can easily reach vital installations for the Gulf countries, but also for the vast majority of the world's countries, which need Middle Eastern oil and gas to run their economies.  

Al-Maliki added another piece of information that, if confirmed, would add a new cause for concern: that Daesh has allied with the Houthis, and that the attack operations are already being carried out jointly. For the moment, this is a risky assertion, given that the actions carried out in the past by Daesh Islamists have been claimed by the self-proclaimed Sunni caliphate, a fierce adversary of Iranian Shi'ism. It is true that, apart from inter-Muslim religious rivalry, quite a few researchers have long associated Daesh more with organised crime than with its religious proclamations, which would be the pretext and the main cover for its propaganda.  

In any case, this upsurge in the war in Yemen is a violent shake-up of the international chessboard. It is no secret that the European Union is pressuring the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to increase its production. In other words, for Riyadh, the leader of OPEC+, which also includes Russia, to do so, which puts the Kingdom in one of the most difficult dilemmas to manage and solve.