Saudi replaces army brass amid Yemen war stalemate

The kingdom also announced a new female deputy minister of labor and social development as it tries to broaden the role of women in the workplace.

Saudi Arabia made the announcement in a flurry of royal decrees carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. As with many announcements in the ultraconservative Sunni kingdom, it was short on details.

King Salman "approved the document on developing the Ministry of Defense, including the vision and strategy of the ministry's developing program, the operational pattern targeting its development, the organizational structure, governance and human resources requirements," one statement said.

That restructuring was part of a "multi-year effort," Prince Faisal bin Farhan, a senior adviser at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, wrote on Twitter.

Prominent among the personnel changes was the firing of military chief of staff Gen. Abdulrahman bin Saleh al-Bunyan. Another announcement said the general would become a consultant to the royal court.

Al-Bunyan was replaced by Gen. Fayyadh bin Hamid al-Rwaili, who once had been the commander of the Royal Saudi Air Force, among the nation's premier military forces.

Also appointed as an assistant defense minister was Khaled bin Hussain al-Biyari, the CEO of the publicly traded mobile phone and internet service provider Saudi Telecom Co.

The decisions come as the Saudi-led coalition, chiefly backed by the United Arab Emirates, remains mired in a stalemate in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country.

Over 10,000 people have been killed in the war in which Saudi-led forces back Yemen's internationally recognized government against Shiite rebels and their allies who are holding the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and much of the north of the country.

The kingdom faces wide international criticism for its airstrikes killing civilians and striking markets, hospitals and other civilian targets. Aid groups also blame a Saudi-led blockade of Yemen for pushing the country to the brink of famine.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to the throne after his father King Salman, is the Saudi defense minister and architect of the Yemen war. While the crown prince has burnished his reputation abroad with promises of business-friendly reforms and other pledges, his role in Yemen haunts that carefully considered public personae.

But the overhaul in the Saudi defense forces should not be seen only as a reaction to the Yemen war, said Becca Wasser, a Washington-based RAND Corp. analyst specializing in Gulf security who has traveled to Saudi Arabia in the past.

The war in Yemen functions "to push these reforms forward, but it's not the driver," Wasser told The Associated Press.

In general, Wasser said such an overhaul would include improving training and recruitment of troops, allocating better resources and changing a military's leadership to one willing to hear new ideas and make changes.