I recently attended an advocacy group meeting on the Yemen, which had a variety of speakers and two UK-based SME made a particular impact. The meeting was under 'Chatham House Rules' so the SME remain anonymous.

Both agreed that the Saudi intervention is becoming their Vietnam, a quagmire where 'The poorest Arab country is being destroyed by the richest'. Yemenis share an Afghan characteristic in rejecting foreigners. The cost of the war is US$5-6 billion per month - this was attributed to a paper by Bruce Reidel. Too many armed group now exist, it is in their interests to continue the war and the Saudi coalition is yet to find competent local partners amongst he mix of tribes, military defectors and others. Since the Arab Spring the Saudis have opposed every change by repression, thir strategic interest in the Yemen is not to have a sovereign, stable nation-state.

Popular support for the intervention has disappeared inside Saudi Arabia and is often seen as inflicting 'severe damage at home and abroad'. Inadvertently the action has opened a public debate in the West over Western support for the Saudis.

So far the Saudi Army has been deployed to the border, with mixed results in fighting intrusions by the Houthi and recent urges of senior officers have put the better equipped National Guard under Army command, which led to rumours of dissent.

The ex-President Saleh led faction, with a good part of the Yemeni military, somehow remains fighting with the Houthi. One factor could be that Saleh's moves to defect from the Houthi coalition became known to the Saudis, but they failed to plan for him actually moving against the Houthi. This failure has been noticed by others.

'AQAP are the main beneficiary of the war' and the Mukalla bank raid, with a US$100m gained will fund them for years.

In 2008 the UAE =based and owned operator, DP World, leased Aden port for twenty years, paying a claimed US8 billion (which was never seen by Yemenis); they promptly closed the port and sacked staff. The contract was subject to negotiations to cancel in 2012. Put simply the UAE has an interest in Aden port not working. In a quick search I found two reports that supports this: https://www.hiiraan.com/op4/2017/apr...r_somalia.aspx
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/co...n-gulf-of-aden