WSJ: Houthis Demand $51 Billion From Saudi Arabia
The Iran-backed group also wants Riyadh to recognize it as Yemen’s ruler, as it advances toward Aden and Saudi officials weigh limited and costly options
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have demanded $51 billion from Saudi Arabia, and official recognition as Yemen’s rulers, as the price of ending hostilities with the kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people briefed on the discussions.
Riyadh reached out to the group to ask what a negotiated halt would take after Houthi attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea and the group’s capture of territory overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait. Neither the Saudi government nor the Houthi leadership responded to the Journal’s requests for comment.
The Houthis said the sum would cover the cost of years of Saudi strikes and a long blockade, the people said. Other figures have since come up, they said, but the message was clear: the price of an exit would be in the tens of billions of dollars. Recognition would leave Saudi Arabia accepting an Iranian-armed adversary on its southern border, the Journal said.
The fighting flared again this summer with Houthi attacks on Saudi oil facilities and airports, and with a Houthi ground offensive that has taken strategic territory across Yemen.
The Houthis announced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia on July 22 and have claimed attacks on Saudi tankers since. They are now pressing toward Aden, the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, and have moved to within about 50 miles of the city, closer than at any time since 2015, the Journal said, a distance Reuters reported on Monday.
In October the Houthis carried out a near-daily campaign of attacks on Saudi Arabia, including civilian airports and repeated strikes on Aramco facilities, and the conflict monitor Acled counted 26 reported incidents in the kingdom in recent days alone. The Journal reported that Houthi strikes inside Yemen have hit areas that would serve as muster points for any Saudi-led ground attack, including a strike in Shabwah governorate that killed at least 75 people and wounded more than 200.
Saudi officials say Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman does not want to negotiate fully with the Houthis without gains on the ground to use as leverage, but fears that sending more troops to Yemen could be bloody and unpopular at home, according to the report. Dozens of Saudi personnel have been killed, though authorities have not announced the casualties. Analysts quoted by the Journal said the Houthis have far less to lose in a war of attrition, and that the larger concern for Riyadh is the precedent that the group could escalate whenever it wants more money.
Saudi Arabia has little outside help to escalate on the ground. The United Arab Emirates withdrew from the anti-Houthi campaign last December after a dispute with Riyadh. Pakistan has refused to join strikes inside Yemen, Turkey’s parliament has yet to approve the Mecca Pact, which describes an attack on one as an attack on all, and Egypt’s parliament approved military support in October, which President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi says would be defensive only. The US has declined to offer direct support against the Houthis. Saudi Arabia could also be drawn into a wider conflict if Israel or the US attack Iran again, which Washington has warned Gulf states could come after the midterms. “What’s really needed is some sort of ground pressure and the Saudis don’t have the ability to provide those forces,” said David Des Roches, a retired US Army colonel who has trained Saudi air-defense officers.