New US-raids against Al Qaida – Saudi coalition propaganda – Humanitarian catastrophe – Women and girls: Sexual abuse – Displaced people – Wahabism in Indonesia – USA, UK and terrorism – Saudi coalition air raids – and more
Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Klassifizierung / Classification
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp2 Allgemein / General
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
cp6 Südjemen und Hadi-Regierung / Southern Yemen and Hadi-government
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche/ UN and peace talks
cp7a Saudi-Arabien, Emirate und Iran / Saudi Arabia, Emirates and Iran
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
cp9 USA
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
cp13a Flüchtlinge / Refugees
cp13b Wirtschaft / Economy
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp15 Propaganda
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
cp17a Kriegsereignisse: Küste / Theater of War: Coast
cp17b Kriegsereignisse: Sonstige / Theater of War: Other
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
Klassifizierung / Classification
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**
*
(Kein Stern / No star)
A = Aktuell / Current news
B = Hintergrund / Background
C = Chronik / Chronicle
D = Details
E = Wirtschaft / Economy
H = Humanitäre Fragen / Humanitarian questions
K = Krieg / War
P = Politik / Politics
PH = Pro-Houthi
PS = Pro-Saudi
T = Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
3.3.2017 – Washington Post (** A K T)
Accelerating Yemen campaign, U.S. conducts flurry of strikes targeting al-Qaeda
While Pentagon officials denied Yemeni reports that the U.S. military conducted a ground raid in conjunction with the strikes, U.S. forces were on the ground in the same period, another possible indication of an accelerated offensive in Yemen. Those forces, however, did not conduct any raids, U.S. officials said.
“We have U.S. Special Operations forces that go in and out of Yemen to assist our partner forces in fighting al-Qaeda,” Davis said. He declined to comment on specific activities overnight.
The flurry of activity, following a Jan. 29 raid by U.S. Special Operations forces, comes as the United States seeks to step up its approach to counteracting militancy in Yemen.
The military has also been seeking other authorities for operations in Yemen, including the ability to conduct sustained airstrikes in parts of Yemen and to take part in raids with elite forces from the United Arab Emirates that are assigned to Yemen.
The defense official said that the military had been granted temporary authority to conduct intensified air operations against AQAP in some areas of Yemen. The granting of that authority for what is known in government jargon as an “area of active hostility” typically enables the military to launch strikes without a more lengthy approval process managed by the White House. It is similar to the authority the U.S. military was granted for the Libyan city of Sirte, where it conducted a multi-month air campaign against the Islamic State last year.
The official declined to say how long that temporary authority would last. If granted for an extended period, it could permit more-intensive strikes, such as those that occurred Thursday, over a sustained period.
Although the United States has conducted periodic strikes against AQAP in Yemen, they have mostly occurred in small numbers.
Military officials said it was not immediately clear how many people were injured or killed in Thursday’s airstrikes, but local news media reported that “hundreds” of militants were slain.
Ramzi al-Fadhli, head of the government’s special forces media office in Aden, described a multi-pronged air assault, which he said involved not only aircraft but also attacks from U.S. ships off Yemen’s coast. In one instance, a car was struck near an area of Abyan province called Mowjan, killing all five passengers, he said. Senior AQAP figures were thought to be among the dead.
Fadhli also said that Yemeni officials thought foreign soldiers, believed to be Americans, had conducted operations on the ground in Mowjan, which has been known as an AQAP stronghold. “Footprints from soldiers and police dogs have been seen in the area of Mowjan. . . . We are also looking into the purpose behind the American soldiers’ landing in the area and what their mission was,” he said.
Salem al-Marqashi, a tribal leader from the Mowjan area, said that helicopters brought forces from offshore locations early Thursday to an area called al-Nukhaila. “We believe that the soldiers were American because they came from the battleships, and it is known to the fishermen and locals in the area that the battleships in that area are American,” Marqashi said. “The locals saw them from a distance of about one kilometer [0.6 miles] away.”
He said locals did not detect any gunfire in the area and said the foreign forces left by helicopter “around dawn.”
According to Saleh Abu Awdal, editor in chief of the Yemeni news website al-Yawm al-Thamen, residents of Mowjan reported the foreign troops to be from the UAE because of materials they left behind and said they departed shortly after arriving.
The United States partners closely in Yemen with UAE forces, as it did in the raid in January – By Missy Ryan, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Ali Al-Mujahed
Remark: More reporting on the newest raids at cp14.
3.3.2017 – The American Conservative (** A P)
Shameless Coalition Propaganda and the War on Yemen
The Wall Street Journal gives the UAE’s foreign minister a platform to recite the Saudi-led coalition’s propaganda:
Checking Iranian aggression will not be easy, but the stability of the region depends upon it. Holding the country to its commitments would be an important first step. Rebuilding America’s ties to its traditional partners in the region would be another. So too would be directly confronting Iranian interference in places like Yemen.
The op-ed is typical for a representative of one of the governments currently destroying Yemen: it grossly exaggerates Iran’s role, portrays the coalition as defenders of “stability” when they have been among the worst destabilizers, blames Iran for the humanitarian crisis for which the coalition bears most of the responsibility, and casts Iran’s minimal involvement as “aggression” while whitewashing the coalition’s invasion and bombardment of another country. Most of the minister’s claims are false or wildly misleading. Consider this laughable statement:
The effort in Yemen demonstrates that the U.A.E. and other Arab Gulf states are taking the lead to protect not only our own interests, but also American ones.
It is debatable whether the interests of the Gulf states are served by getting bogged down in an ill-advised war they can’t win, but it is certain that U.S. interests have been harmed by their “effort.” Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been greatly strengthened by the Saudi-led intervention, and the coalition has sometimes made common cause with AQAP. Insofar as the U.S. has any interests at stake there, they are being undermined by a war that gives priority to fighting people that have never been our enemies while allowing hostile groups to flourish. The U.S. has stupidly made itself complicit in their war, but that doesn’t alter the reality that the Saudi-led war has been damaging to U.S. interests, and it is an insulting lie to claim otherwise.
The coalition’s desperation to deflect blame for the destruction of Yemen is impossible to miss. This was an extraordinary bit of misdirection:
Meanwhile, Iran has steadily escalated its support for the Houthis, prolonging a war that has had horrible humanitarian consequences and distracted from the fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist franchises.
Iran’s support for the Houthis remains negligible, and the Houthis haven’t been and still aren’t their proxy. The conflict has been intensified and prolonged because the Saudis and their allies attacked two years ago, blockaded the country, and systematically wrecked Yemen’s infrastructure and economy. Had they not done so, the war would not have been as severe, and humanitarian conditions would not be nearly as bad. The war has distracted from the fight against AQAP, but the coalition is largely to blame for that. It is the coalition’s determination to focus their efforts on the Houthis while mostly ignoring AQAP that has allowed the latter to become stronger. The minister takes the consequences of the coalition’s reckless intervention and lamely tries to pin it on a government that isn’t involved in the fighting. Unfortunately, this upside-down version of events is one that is readily accepted here in the U.S., because it allows our political leaders to pretend that our government’s enabling of the Saudi-led war on Yemen is something other than the ongoing disgrace and indefensible blunder that it is.
The UAE foreign minister wants the U.S. to increase its support for that indefensible war, and there is a very real possibility that the Trump administration will do just that. Regardless, it is important to understand that increased U.S. involvement will only make the conflict worse, and no American interests will be served by it. The coalition governments have based their intervention on the lie that they are combating Iranian influence, but there is scarcely any such influence to combat. All they are really doing is destroying a poor neighboring country in the name of reimposing a widely-hated, discredited leader, and we should not be helping them commit their outrages on the people of Yemen – By DANIEL LARISON
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/shameless-coalition-propaganda-and-the-war-on-yemen/
1.3.2017 – IRIN (** A H)
Yemenis fight for survival as famine looms
Economic collapse, hunger and conflict mean civilians are struggling just to stay alive
It has been almost two years since Yemen’s third-largest city had running water or electricity. Worn down by relentless shelling and street-to-street fighting, Taiz is heading into its third year of conflict. But while the seemingly unending hostilities drag on, civilians, every day, face an ever more deadly fight: a battle against starvation.
Taiz governorate is one of the worst affected areas in a country facing the largest food insecurity emergency in the world. Deemed “one step from famine” by the UN, its hospitals and medical centres are seeing a steep increase in cases of severe acute malnutrition, known as SAM, the most critical classification of undernourishment.
A combination of issues – restricted access to food and medical care because of locally imposed sieges; spiralling costs of food and water; an increasing reliance on wages from unpaid state employees – has created an immense challenge to daily survival in Taiz, which has seen some of the heaviest and most sustained fighting, in a country wracked by war.
Taiz and Yemen
Taiz is one of two governorates (out of 22) already facing emergency levels of food insecurity. But the UN said last week that the whole of Yemen faces a credible risk of famine in the next six months.
It is largely a man-made crisis, brought about by years of war.
With infighting amongst several different groups on the anti-Houthi side, the perpetual struggle for control of Taiz has become the longest-running battle of Yemen’s civil war.
The case of Uniquba
In four therapeutic feeding centres visited by IRIN in Taiz governorate, records show the number of children being treated for SAM has more than doubled compared to pre-war figures. Most of those being admitted for treatment hail from al-Sabir mountain, outside the city.
In Uniquba, one of the remote villages of al-Sabir with a population number not officially recorded, residents are clearly struggling to cope.
Primary breadwinners here have either lost their jobs because of the conflict or are awaiting government salaries that have gone unpaid for six months or more. Roads blocked for months by Houthi forces, in addition to the new wave of violence, have all contributed to driving up food and water prices.
The villagers of Uniquba, no longer able to afford water truck deliveries – prices trebled as the Houthi-Saleh siege of Taiz city took hold in 2016 – now have a rota system for families at their drying spring. Three houses are allocated six hours at a time to fill their yellow plastic water cans before it’s the next trio’s turn.
At this time of year, with the water table near to its lowest point, it takes between two and three hours to fill a 20-litre container. The roster runs through the night, with women and children sitting under the trees at the spring 24 hours a day collecting precious drips of water.
Unable to irrigate their terraced fields, their subsistence living has ground to a halt as the entire village waits expectantly for spring rains to arrive when they can plant crops that will not be ready for harvest before October.
Until then, many are living on one meal a day. They depend on the salaries of extended family members in far-away cities where regular protests are taking place demanding unpaid wages.
Protests and a paralysed Central Bank
Yuslim Mohammed Haytham, a military veteran of three wars in Yemen, is one of scores of soldiers staging weekly protests by blocking roads at a major junction in the southern city of Aden, the current base for the internationally recognised (but still largely exiled) government of president Hadi.
In front of burning tyres, while leaning on his crutches, the 45-year-old amputee complained of not being paid since the middle of last year. Even those who have received salaries say the payment only covered one of many months of missing wages.
Soldiers, medical staff and those working in government institutions are among some of the state employees across Yemen who have gone without pay since August 2016. With the war forcing private companies out of businesses, wages earned by civil servants and previously used to support one, or at the most two, families are now being stretched to meet the needs of 20 or more extended family members.
Adding to the economic strain in Uniquba, greater Taiz, and Yemen as a whole, is the relocation last September of the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) to Aden.
The payment of most government salaries was frozen prior to the move (when the CBY was still under control of the Houthis in Sana’a), but as a consequence of the ill-prepared relocation the CBY is now unable to offer its usual lower exchange rate for traders importing food into the country.
Remittances and a healthcare system on its knees
With no income, families in Uniquba are now entirely reliant on remittances from Yemen’s urban centres. “We can only buy half the food we could before [the war],” said 30-year-old Samira Ahmed, sitting next to the spring in a traditional wide-brimmed straw hat, her face tinged orange by turmeric – a traditional form of sun protection.
Healthcare is also an unaffordable luxury for the rural population. No one can pay the 5,000 YR (around $15) charge for the taxi ride to the asphalt road a few miles down the mountain track, putting access to medical care out of reach for thousands of families living beyond the scope of aid agencies in remote highland villages.
To add to the daily burden, the population of Uniquba has grown as a result of the conflict. Fathers and sons previously working in cities returned to their village homes as the violence escalated, businesses closed and many lost their jobs. The village has also become a local safe-haven for those displaced from areas closer to the front line.
As is the case in the rest of Yemen, the healthcare system is also on its knees. – by Iona Craig (with photos)
https://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2017/03/01/yemenis-fight-survival-famine-looms
Remark: Please read in full length at the original site and look at the photos.
2.3.2017 – Middle East Eye (** B H)
'He killed my child's innocence': Sexual abuse soars in war-torn Yemen
War has forced two million Yemenis from their homes. For many women and girls, this is only the beginning of their nightmare
Rehab was missing for four days before she was found at midnight, silent and crying, crouched in the pitch-black yard of the al-Mafeer refugee camp.
The 17-year-old had last been seen being bundled into a car outside her school by a man who had befriended her impoverished family, and promised to support them.
But his true intentions soon became clear - when an offer to marry Rehab was refused, the man abducted and raped her, and then dumped her in the camp under cover of darkness.
The abuse has left deep scars on Rehab - she no longer studies, has developed a stammer and wakes almost every night in floods of tears.
Her torment is the culmination of a traumatic two years that saw her family of seven forced from their comparatively wealthy life in Taiz city.
Rehab's torment is not in isolation. A refugee family in al-Shimayateen told MEE that their 13-year-old daughter had suffered an even worse fate at the hands of another "benefactor".
"The savage man, who used to give us food, kidnapped my daughter in December 2016," the girl's mother told MEE.
"After two days of investigation by the police, residents found her body in the well of the village. She had been raped before she was killed."
Lankani Sikurajapathy, of the UN Population Fund in Yemen, UNFPA, said reports of gender-based violence, which includes sexual violence, had shot up by almost two thirds since the war began.
"By the end of 2016, there had been more than 10,000 reported cases of gender-based violence," she said.
"This means more rapes, more forced marriages, more child brides and many more acts of violence against women and girls compared to two years ago."
Nabil Fadhel, head of the Yemeni Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking, said the exodus, war and poverty are three main factors that have led to a surge of sexual exploitation and abuse among refugees.
"There are evil men who only think about the satisfaction of their sexual desire and they do not care how they get it," Fadhel said.
"Displaced people are often in dire need of basic things such as shelter, food, healthcare and other needs, and vulnerable to exploitation."
Both Sikurajapathy and Fadhel said the known levels of abuse did not reflect the full problem.
"Families fear scandal and society's reaction," said Fadhel. "They keep the incident secret, and the law cannot help the victims anyway."
He said his colleagues had also been threatened by camp supervisors fearful they would be held accountable.
Sikurajapathy added that there was little to no support for women and girls who had been abused - although last year UNFPA had helped more than 6,000 with legal aid, access to safe houses and healthcare – by Amal Mamoon and Nasser al-Sakkaf
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemen-refugees-sexual-exploitation-1211162745
1.3.2017 – Crisis Group (** B H K P)
Yemen: A Humanitarian Catastrophe; A Failing State
As Yemen's unremitting conflict continues to drive a nation-wide humanitarian crisis, there is an ever-increasing need to quell hostilities. In this excerpt from our Watch List 2017 annual early-warning report for European policy makers, Crisis Group urges the European Union and its member states to rebuild the credibility of the UN-sponsored talks in order to find a durable ceasefire and work toward a political settlement within Yemen.
Yemen’s war has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters; between 70 and 80 per cent of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance and over half of its 26 million people face food insecurity.
Continued fighting, especially the Saudi-led coalition’s attempt to capture the Red Sea port of Hodeida (northern Yemen’s economic lifeline), stifling blockades and unilateral moves such as the relocation of the Central Bank from Sanaa to Aden will deepen intra-Yemeni divisions and increase the risk of famine. The conflict is likely to continue to expand into the region with growing refugee flows, violence by AQAP and IS outside Yemen and more attacks by Huthi/Saleh forces inside Saudi Arabia. Continued fighting will further fuel tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, also a contributory factor in other conflicts in the region. International efforts to press the two sides to a ceasefire have been woefully inadequate. Insufficient media attention hasn’t helped either.
Incoherent International Approaches
The approach that the U.S. and UK, in particular, have taken in Yemen has been muddled. They have supported UN efforts to end the conflict, but at the same time continued to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia despite evidence that it has repeatedly violated the laws of war. In April 2015, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2216, a one-sided document that essentially called for the Huthi/Saleh alliance to surrender and which the Yemeni government and Saudi-led coalition have used repeatedly to obstruct efforts to achieve peace.
In August 2016, a fresh initiative by then U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to revive the peace process proved too little too late. Nonetheless, while it exposed the Obama administration’s inability to bring along Saudi Arabia, it did present a more balanced solution. Current UN-led diplomatic efforts are complicated by uncertainties surrounding the position of the new Trump administration. It appears to favour more aggressive military action against AQAP and possibly against the Huthis, whom it seems to view as an Iranian proxy, to the detriment of prioritising a negotiated settlement. Further, after three rounds of peace talks and multiple failed ceasefires, the UN has lost credibility with all sides, especially the Huthi/Saleh bloc, which sees UN mediation efforts as biased toward Saudi Arabia.
The EU’s Peace-making Potential
The EU – through its delegation to Yemen and in coordination with Brussels – is well qualified to help rebuild the credibility of UN-sponsored talks and prod the sides toward a ceasefire and settlement. Throughout the conflict, it has been a consistent advocate of a ceasefire and political solution under UN auspices, a position that has not been compromised by active participation or partisan support in the war.
Increasing Humanitarian Relief and Upholding International Law
The EU and its member states should continue efforts to mitigate the war’s humanitarian toll and prevent further deterioration. Specifically, they should urgently discourage, both privately and publicly, the Saudi-led coalition’s attempts to capture Hodeida, a move that would likely worsen the humanitarian crisis and set back prospects for a negotiated settlement. More generally, they should call on the Saudi-led coalition to relax the air and sea blockade on Huthi/Saleh-controlled areas (including by allowing civilian flights in and out of Sanaa, the capital), and call on the Huthis to ease the blockade of Taiz. In each case, they should encourage the blockading side to facilitate the free movement of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and civilians. They should also encourage the Yemeni antagonists to reach a compromise that allows basic Central Bank functioning throughout the country, including especially the payment of public-sector salaries and enabling importers to secure letters of credit for essential foodstuffs.
Finally, the EU and its member states should speak with one voice in consistently and explicitly condemning violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by all sides.
My comment: Unfortunately, the EU has quite well been involved in this war – as a warring party and pro-Saudi partisan. Think of the role the UK played in this conflict, and arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states not only by the UK, but also by France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Sweden…
2.3.2017 – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (** A H)
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien Remarks to the Media, Sana’a, Yemen, 2 March 2017
I have undertaken this second five-day mission to Yemen in 15 months to see for myself the situation on the ground
But since my last visit, the situation has deteriorated. Today, nearly 19 million people – that is about two thirds of the population– need humanitarian or protection assistance tonight. This morning, 7 million people in Yemen do not know where they will find their next meal. They urgently need food assistance to survive. Almost 500,000 children under 5 years of age suffer severe acute malnutrition. A child dies every 10 minutes of preventable causes. And I’ve just seen for myself in As Sabain Hospital, where I’ve been this morning, many malnourished children who are getting the support they need. At least they are in the hospital and getting the help they need. Think of all those who haven’t been able to get there.
However bleak the outlook, there is still time to alleviate suffering and avert a famine in Yemen. The UN and its over 120 partners have successfully been providing coordinated assistance in all 22 governorates through five hubs – in Aden, Hudaydah, Ibb, Sa’ada and Sana’a.
We reach close to 6 million people every month. We know that’s insufficient although it’s very significant. And we all want to do more. We can do more and we have a plan to do more. We are ready to scale up the response, but need US$2.1 billion of funding.
But getting the funds is not enough in itself. We also need all the parties to the conflict to immediately facilitate timely, full and unimpeded humanitarian access, at all times. More suffering and the spectre of famine is encroaching on the very people the parties claim to be fighting for; the time is now to prove their seriousness by helping us to try to ensure there is never famine in Yemen. This includes access to cities, ports and the reopening of airports and airspace.
With the Government in Aden, I discussed the humanitarian situation and how to better protect the civilians that are caught up in this conflict. Given the urgency of the situation, we discussed the need to facilitate commercial imports of food, fuel and medicine, through all the ports of Yemen, and the resumption of commercial flights to all of Yemen. We also discussed a very important point about making sure that if the cash is being made available, the salaries are equitably distributed and paid from the Central Bank.
And in Aden, I met with affected people in the Craitor neighbourhood and met with displaced people from Mocha. I was heartened to know that in the maternity hospital – a ruin of a building that is being reconstructed but still functions – a baby boy and a baby girl were born while I was there. They are indeed Yemen’s hope and future.
In Ibb, I discussed with the Governor the situation of people displaced from Mocha and other districts and an allocation for IDP response from the Central Emergency Response Fund which will help IDPs with health, shelter, nutrition and child protection issues.
Regrettably, I am not here to tell you what I saw in Taizz city. Despite having received assurances of safe passage by all parties for all stages of the mission, the convoy was denied passage at a last checkpoint before crossing the frontline coming from Ibb to Taizz city.
I was outraged that humanitarian efforts to reach people in need were once again thwarted by parties to the conflict, especially at a time when millions of Yemenis are severely food insecure and face the risk of famine. I took the matter up with the highest authorities here in Sana’a in my subsequent meetings, who provided assurances to facilitate sustained access. And I have received news that the WHO truck is now moving from the warehouse in Ibb towards the first checkpoint. It must arrive in Taizz city today.
In and around Ibb and Taizz, I met with families to hear their horrific stories of displacement. Running from violence, bombings and shelling these people from Taizz and Mocha had left with nothing. It is now ordinary Yemenis, host communities and humanitarian actors providing lifesaving assistance and protection. But it's not enough. Many are malnourished and hungry. I saw myself; babies and children are sick and listless. There is no money to buy food or medicine. I was very moved to hear 13-year-old Mariam tell me of how she cares for her seven siblings. She is an articulate, stern girl who has had to grow up too fast, struggling daily to provide for the family and relying on charity to feed her younger siblings. They are hungry and live in desolate conditions.
Yesterday here in Sana’a, I met with authorities to discuss the humanitarian situation. We had a very direct discussion about the need to respect international humanitarian law, about humanitarian access and the need for commercial imports and flights alongside aid to ensure the needs of Yemenis can be addressed. I received renewed reassurances that the authorities understood the importance of safe and unimpeded access and will do everything in their power to ensure humanitarians can reach all the Yemenis in need, including in Taizz city.
Once again, it is clear that innocent women, men, boys and girls suffer the consequences of this terrible conflict that is not of their own making. Mariam – and all people in need across Yemen - deserve our help, support and assistance. With the access and funding, we can help. We have a plan and we can help avert a famine. One thing is clear, though: there are no military solutions to this terrible conflict. Only sustainable peace can bring about the solutions, hope and future of Yemenis. I call on all parties to the conflict to come together and make peace. That is the best humanitarian assistance.
Only a remark: Be aware of how he makes a difference between a “government” at Aden and “authorities” at Sanaa.
and
1.3.2017 – UN Multimedia (** B H)
Audio: “We need to do everything now” to avert Yemen famine: UN relief chief
Continuing conflict in Yemen has left millions without adequate access to food and water, and the international community needs to do everything it can “now” to fund a major relief effort.
Stephen O'Brien, the UN emergency Relief Coordinator, said public services were under huge stress and in some cases, civil servants had gone six months without pay.
Escalating conflict in Yemen between Saudi-backed government forces and Houthi rebels has persisted for nearly three years.
Mr O'Brien spoke to May Yaacoub from Yemen, where he been rallying support for relief efforts to prevent famine.
10.1.2017 – International Organization for Migration, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (** A H)
Yemen: Task Force on Population Movement | TFPM - 12th Report Executive Summary, January 2017
CONFLICT RELATED: The 12th TFPM identifies, in connection with the ongoing conflict, 2,007,216 internally displaced persons (IDPs) across 21 governorates; the majority, 50%, are displaced in Hajjah, Taizz, Amanat Al Asimah and Sana’a. The TFPM has identified 1,027,674 returnees in 19 governorates; the majority, 68%, have returned to Aden, Amanat Al Asimah and Taizz.
INTRODUCTION
This is the 12th report of the Task Force on Population Movement (TFPM), which is a Technical Working Group of the Yemen Protection Cluster. The report details the latest snapshot on displacement and return in Yemen providing indicative findings related to displacement/return trends, area of origin, duration of displacement, shelter situation and top priority needs.
The data used for the 12th report was collected through October and November, 2016. The TFPM collects data in monthly cycles to monitor trends and provide a further comparative basis for analysis. For this reason, since the publication of the 11th report there have been two ‘rounds’ of data collection supporting the validation of the statistics published in this report.
The 12th report identifies 18,582 unique locations that host IDP populations through interviews with Key Informants (KI) from an extensive network developed and maintained over the operational life cycle of the TFPM. This community level information was provided by 22,985 KI with the assistance of whom 19,011 Area Assessments were completed covering 98.5% of the 333 districts throughout the 22 governorates of Yemen. The districts not covered were: Al Dhaher, Ghamr, Haydan,
Monabbih, Qatabir and Shada’a in the governorate of Sa’ada.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-task-force-population-movement-tfpm-12th-report-executive-summary-january-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/task-force-on-population-movement-12th-report-january-2017.pdf
2.3.2017 – The Atlantic (** B P)
Saudi Arabia Is Redefining Islam for the World's Largest Muslim Nation
King Salman's historic visit to Indonesia is the culmination of a long campaign for influence.
When Saudi Arabia’s King Salman landed in Indonesia on Wednesday, he became the first Saudi monarch to visit the world’s largest Muslim-majority country since 1970. Officials in Jakarta had hoped the visit would help them strengthen business ties and secure $25 billion in resource investments. That’s largely been a bust—as of Thursday, the kingdom has agreed to just one new deal, for a relatively paltry $1 billion.
But Saudi Arabia has, for decades, been making investments of a different sort—those aimed at influencing Indonesian culture and religion. The king’s current visit is the apex of that methodical campaign, and “has the potential to accelerate the expansion of Saudi Arabia’s cultural resources in Indonesia,” according to Chris Chaplin, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asia. “In fact, given the size of his entourage, I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be a flurry of networking activity amongst Indonesian alumni of Saudi universities.”
Since 1980, Saudi Arabia has devoted millions of dollars to exporting its strict brand of Islam, Salafism, to historically tolerant and diverse Indonesia. It has built more than 150 mosques (albeit in a country that has about 800,000), a huge free university in Jakarta, and several Arabic language institutes; supplied more than 100 boarding schools with books and teachers (albeit in a country estimated to have between 13,000 and 30,000 boarding schools); brought in preachers and teachers; and disbursed thousands of scholarships for graduate study in Saudi Arabia. All this adds up to a deep network of Saudi influence.
“The advent of Salafism in Indonesia is part of Saudi Arabia’s global project to spread its brand of Islam throughout the Muslim world,” said Din Wahid, an expert on Indonesian Salafism at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta.
The heart of Indonesian Salafism is the Institute for the Study of Islam and Arabic (LIPIA), a completely Saudi-funded university in South Jakarta whose campus was abuzz the day before the king’s visit. Music is considered bid’ah, an unnecessary innovation, and is prohibited, along with television and loud laughter. Men and women do not interact; classes of male students attend live lectures on one floor while female students watch the same lecture, live-streamed, on a separate floor.
Beyond LIPIA, hundreds of Indonesians receive scholarships to study at Saudi universities every year. LIPIA alumni have also set up pesantren, or Islamic boarding schools, across Indonesia. Many of the country’s 100-odd Salafi pesantren are supplied by Saudi Arabia with teachers, especially of Arabic language, and textbooks, according to Din Wahid. For many poor families, these pesantren are the only feasible option for their kids’ schooling, despite ideological quibbles, Wahid said.
LIPIA alumni have also set up pesantren, or Islamic boarding schools, across Indonesia. Many of the country’s 100-odd Salafi pesantren are supplied by Saudi Arabia with teachers, especially of Arabic language, and textbooks, according to Din Wahid. For many poor families, these pesantren are the only feasible option for their kids’ schooling, despite ideological quibbles, Wahid said.
One reason Indonesia has been reluctant to push back on Saudi cultural advances is the all-important hajj quota, the number of citizens who can make pilgrimage to Mecca in a given year. Indonesia gets the largest allowance in the world: 221,000 this year. But decade-long hajj waiting lists are common in many provinces, and jeopardizing the national allowance could provoke a huge backlash, said Dadi Darmadi, a UIN researcher and hajj expert.
The first big policy objective announced for the visit, however, addressed not the hajj, but terrorism. A “pact to combat terrorism” will be the “centerpiece” of agreements signed in Indonesia this week, the Saudi ambassador, Alshuaibi, told reporters on Tuesday.
It’s ironic, then, that some of Indonesia’s leading jihadists have passed through Saudi institutions.
The Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah received funding from Saudi charities in the early 2000s. Salafi TV, YouTube channels, Facebook groups, and Telegram channels have become a fertile ground for female extremists and ISIS sympathizers in Indonesia in the last few years
“Salafi pesantren, and Saudi-inspired religious education in general, no longer necessarily rely on Saudi donations, as followers have become incredibly adept at raising money locally,” Chaplin said.
As the rise of hardliners, the Arabic language, and Salafi jihadist cells in Indonesia show, Salafism has some undeniable, durable appeal here. In Indonesia, at least, Saudi Arabia is already seeing the fruits of its labor. This new religious ecosystem may be self-sustaining – by Krithika Varagur
3.3.2017 – Rania Khalek (** B P T)
America’s love affair with Salafi jihadists
Contrary to popular media portrayals, the Middle East wasn’t always plagued by regressive fundamentalism. Salafi jihadist groups like Al Qaeda were not popular in the region. They still aren’t. They have been violently imposed on people thanks in large part to the actions of the US, which has a longstanding pattern of backing religious fundamentalists to further its geopolitical ambitions.
As far back as the 1950s, the CIA teamed up with the Muslim Brotherhood, then backed by Saudi Arabia, to weaken secular Arab nationalism and communism.
The most significant chapter in the US-Islamist love affair came in the 1980s, when the US armed the Mujahedeen to bleed the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It was the largest and longest running covert operation in US history. People like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Osama bin Laden associate whose claim to fame was splashing acid in the faces of unveiled schoolgirls at Kabul University, were the top recipients of CIA funds.
After the Soviet Union fell, the American-armed Mujahedeen groups morphed into Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Not long after that, Al Qaeda pulled off an attack that killed 3,000 people in New York City and its existence has been invoked to justify endless war and the curtailing of civil liberties ever since. (Afghanistan, where the US is still at war, remains the world’s second largest producer of refugees.)
The US played a similarly dirty game in Syria over the last six years. By knowingly arming rebel groups linked to Al Qaeda to weaken the Syrian government, the US created the world’s greatest refugee crisis since World War Two, which fueled the resurgent far right in the west and helped get Trump elected. I go into great detail about this topic in a recent piece I wrote for Alternet. Check it out here.
In September, during a private meeting at the state department, I expressed frustration about the US allowing Saudi Arabia to spread its toxic Wahhabi ideology, which serves as a primary inspiration for Salafi jihadist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, around the world. Before I could finish, a senior level official in the department of near eastern affairs interrupted me to defend the Saudis.
“Saudi Arabia isn’t exporting terrorism, they’re exporting religion and we can’t get into the business of policing religion. It’s a free speech issue,” said the official. “The Saudis are a very important geostrategic ally. And they are changing. They’ve worked very hard to reform their textbooks,” the official added.
The official then brought up the jihadist textbooks printed by the US and disseminated to Afghan school children in refugee camps in Pakistan in the 1980s. The textbooks encouraged violence against infidels, communists and the Soviet Union in the name of Islam and helped inculcate an entire generation. These US-printed textbooks can still be found in in Taliban-run schools today.
The senior state department official insisted that in the end printing them was “worth it” because “we got rid of the Soviet Union.”
The official’s response was reminiscent of former US National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the architects of the US policy to arm the Afghan mujahedeen. Asked in 1998 if he regretted supporting Islamic fundamentalists, Brzezinski replied, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
This sort of thinking continues to dominate the foreign policy establishment’s approach to the region with ever more disastrous consequences – by Rania Khalek
https://raniakhalek.com/americas-love-affair-with-salafi-jihadists/
17.12.2015 – Mark Curtis (** B P T)
Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam
From the Introduction to Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam
Britain’s contribution to the rise of the terrorist threat goes well beyond the impacts its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had on some individuals. The more important story is that British governments, both Labour and Conservative, have, in pursuing the so-called ‘national interest’ abroad, colluded for decades with radical Islamic forces, including terrorist organisations. They have connived with them, worked alongside them and sometimes trained and financed them, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives. Governments have done so in often desperate attempts to maintain Britain’s global power in the face of increasing weakness in key regions of the world, being unable to unilaterally impose their will and lacking other local allies. Thus the story is intimately related to that of Britain’s imperial decline and the attempt to maintain influence in the world.
With some of these radical Islamic forces, Britain has been in a permanent, strategic alliance to secure fundamental, long-term foreign policy goals; with others, it has been a temporary marriage of convenience to achieve specific short-term outcomes. The US has been shown by some analysts to have nurtured Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida, but Britain’s part in fostering Islamist terrorism is invariably left out of these accounts, and the history has never been told. Yet this collusion has had more impact on the rise of the terrorist threat than either Britain’s liberal culture or the inspiration for jihadism provided by the occupation of Iraq.
[…]
My argument is not that radical Islam and violent jihadism are British or Western ‘creations’, since this would overstate Western influence in regions like the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where numerous domestic and international factors have shaped these forces over a long period. But British policy has contributed to the present threat of terrorism, although this dare not be mentioned in mainstream British culture. – by Mark Curtis
http://markcurtis.info/2015/12/17/britains-collusion-with-radical-islam/
cp2 Allgemein / General
2.3.2017 – The Economist (* A H K)
Government advance adds to famine concerns
Pro-government forces have been making some progress on the west coast. A further advance towards the critical port of Hodeida, possibly approved by the new US administration, would increase the risk of famine, given the fact it would prevent crucial imports into the port city. And although the retaking of Hodeida would increase pressure on the Houthi rebels to accept a peace deal, it is also unlikely to prove militarily decisive.
The advance since the start of 2017 has seen government forces push up the west coast in Taiz governorate, capturing Mocha. The city of Hodeida is still about 170 km away, but, in a sign of its intentions, the coalition has already intensified bombing on the city and has been redirecting shipping away from it towards Aden.
This diversion of shipping from Hodeida is likely to take a severe humanitarian toll, because, particularly since the loss of Mocha, it is the main entry point for food—imports provide about 80-90% of dietary staples for Yemenis—and other supplies for the capital, Sanaa, and most rebel-held territory. The UN World Food Programme has warned that over 7m people are on the brink of famine. Indeed, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, has called the blockage of Hodeida an attempt to weaponise the economy, following on from the government's attempt last year to take control of the Central Bank of Yemen.
One reason that the west coast advance is happening now, despite the humanitarian concerns, is because of the change in US administrations. The former administration of Barack Obama had repeatedly urged Saudi Arabia to avoid actions that endangered the flow of imports through the west coast ports. The administration of the new president, Donald Trump, however, appears more concerned with restricting the spreading regional influence of Iran (which has backed the Houthis verbally and with weapon shipments) than with humanitarian risks. Without the restraining nature of the Obama administration, an assault on Hodeida now seems likely.
Mr Hadi and the Saudis appear to have concluded that with a more permissive US government, and as the economic toll of two years of conflict wear down the population and the rebel forces, there is a new window for a military victory. However, even if they were able to capture Hodeida, advances into the highlands themselves would still be extremely perilous. More likely is that the capture of Hodeida and the resulting control that the coalition would have over the distribution of imports, would persuade the Houthis to accept a less favourable peace deal.
http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=915176275&Country=Yemen&topic=Politics
3.3.2017 – Al Riyadh (A P)
Permanent Saudi Delegation to UN hosts Military Experts in Alliance Forces to restore Legitimacy in Yemen
Permanent Saudi delegation to the United Nations hosted here during the period from February 27 to March 2, 2017 a high-level delegation of military experts in the Alliance Forces to restore legitimacy in Yemen, headed by Maj. Gen. Misfer Al-Ghanem.
A press statement issued by the Saudi delegation said that military experts held, in the presence of Permanent Representative of the Kingdom to the United Nations, Ambassador Abdullah bin Yahya Al-Mouallimi, a number of meetings with representatives of Member States of the United Nations that are involved in the Alliance, experts from the Security Council, a number of United Nations officials and representatives of international humanitarian organizations.
3.3.2017 – Press TV Iran (* A K)
UAE-trained militias ready to join Yemen battlefield: Video
The first battalion of militants trained by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is now ready to join other Saudi-backed mercenaries fighting on the ground against Yemeni armed forces.
The official Emirates News Agency published video footage of a ceremony, marking the end of the pro-Saudi militants’ training process in the Yemeni port city of Aden.
The ceremony was also attended by Brigadier General Saleh Ali Hassan, a deputy minister at Yemen’s former Defense Ministry. He said the forces had been trained by Sudanese experts with the help of Emirati forces.
The UAE has been among the most active members of a coalition helping Saudi Arabia in its deadly military campaign against Yemen since early 2015. The war is aimed at reinstalling the government of former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is based in Aden.
Saudi Arabia has also recruited and trained militants loyal to the former government for ground operations against Yemeni army forces and allied Houthi Ansarullah fighters under the cover of Riyadh’s air raids (with film)
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/03/03/512794/UAE-Yemen-Saudi-Arabia
3.3.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (* A P)
NDC Outcomes Lay Foundations for Federal State in Yemen
Effective and consensual solutions attending most of Yemen’s pressing issues are found in the NDC’s final statement.
In terms of Southern and Sa’ada issues, considered intricate and upmost challenging, the document guarantees freedom of religion, makes stipulations on the nonsectarian nature of the government, outlaws illegal financial or arms support from foreign powers, calls for a return of stolen government weapons, prohibits the possession of medium to heavy arms, and calls for addressing the feuds that have contributed to the conflict. The NDC outcomes will be enshrined in the forthcoming constitution.
The NDC concluded that a six-region Yemeni federation would encompass each of Azal, Saba, Janad and Tihama, Aden and Hadramawt.
Sana’a will have a special status and not be part of any region. Aden, the former southern capital, would also have a special status. Azal, Saba, Janad and Tahama would be northern provinces where Aden and Hadramawt would be southern.
President Hadi described the NDC’s final statement as ‘the most important to Yemen’s modern day history’, stressing that the unique vision projected by the charter is to offset any return of tyranny or autocracy– it’s a key step towards building a state with functioning institutions, law and order, state justice, equality and freedoms.
Yemenis at the NDC, which lasted about 10 months, successfully drafted central solutions for the South within the framework of a federal state, ensuring equitable distribution of wealth and power, equal citizenship and the establishment of good governance.
Sustainable development across all domains along with the promotion and protection of rights and freedoms have been clearly protected by the conclusive charter.
The NDC was a transitional dialogue process held in Sana’a, Yemen from March 18, 2013 to January 24, 2014 as part of the Yemeni crisis reconciliation efforts.
National Dialogue is a key part of the agreement brokered by the United Nations and the Gulf Co-operation Council that saw the official handover of power to Hadi in November 2011 after an uprising.
Outcomes yielded by the NDC saw international backing, as the European Union Foreign Affairs Council released a statement that the NDC “has set an example in the region” for transitional phases.
Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary General Abdul Latif al-Zayani stated that the NDC was a positive development and that “the GCC States will continue to exert full efforts alongside regional and international parties to ensure the success of the political settlement in Yemen.”
http://english.aawsat.com/2017/03/article55368601/ndc-outcomes-lay-foundations-federal-state-yemen
2.3.2017 – Al Sahwa (A K)
Military commander: Iranian experts help Houthis in operating drones
A Yemeni high-ranking commander has revealed that Iranian and Hezbollah experts are helping the Houthis in operating drones and providing the Houthis with military consultations.
Brig. Gen. Omar Jawahar told the Saudi-based Okaz newspaper that Houthi captives admitted that the Houthis have unmanned planes and that Iranian experts help them in developing them.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-4580
My comment: Observers believe that actually there are some Iranian and Lebanese advisors in Yemen, but just a few playing no greater role. And for information on drones the Hadi side would not have needed captives: just looking into the internet would have shown it.
2.3.2017 – Living in Yemen on the Edge (* A H)
You may recall baby Zainab: she was killed one year ago in an airstike and her father was looking (and still is) for an international lawyer to bring those responsible in front of a Court.
Ever since, pain has just continued growing.
We will post, right after this tweet by Zainab's father, a letter he has written along with his wife. To Zainab, emblem of our pain, of what war is all about: the killing of innocent, and a pain which will never disappear.
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/photos/a.961595153893515.1073741828.961126490607048/1292957834090577/?type=3 and https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/photos/a.961595153893515.1073741828.961126490607048/1292958287423865/?type=3&theater
2.3.2017 – Red Dirt Report (* B K P)
Situation in Yemen more complex than ever
Professor Mustafa Bahran, also a former Yemen Minister of Electricity and Energy talked about the complex and difficult situation of the Yemen civil war on Tuesday at the University of Oklahoma.
Bahran believes the Yemen conflict is different from the other conflicts ongoing in the region such as in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bahran said Yemen was on the way of democracy with a new constitution approved by all the political and tribal parties until one of these groups called the Houthis (members of the Shi’a minority in north Yemen, representing 40 percent of the Yemen population), organized a coup by overthrowing the President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in January 2015.
“They wanted not to be a part of the government, they wanted to take it all,” Bahran said
Bahran said the Yemen governmental coalition against the Houthis is composed of various groups who don’t like each other. The governmental collation includes the legitimate government army, the Islamic Brotherhood, political movement and paramilitary organizations, warlords and local tribal.
Bahran said the Houthis have a similar collation, as the descendant of the Prophet Mohammad, they believe they have God in their side such as the Islamic Brotherhood. And also a legitimate political government with Ali Abdullah Saleh, former Yemen president during of 32 years, who has a large network around Yemen. The other groups are the Hadramis groups and also the warlords.
“Warlords are an important part of why this war keeps going on,” Bahran said, adding terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida are partially controlled by both sides. But the civil war eventually is helping ISIS and Al-Qaida to expand in Yemen.
Then Bahran noted it has been proven that the Islamic Brotherhood is selling arms to the Houthis and Saleh is supporting some groups of his enemy Hadi, making the civil war even more complicated.
However, Bahran pointed out one of the reasons of this conflict is since more than hundreds of years, Yemen has continuously been ruled by a person from the north and that President Hadi was the first ruler from the south, which the north didn’t appreciate
“But it is not going to work anymore, Yemen will not be ruled except democratically,” Bahran said, noting there are numerous reasons why each faction is fighting in the Yemen civil war including local, regional and international powers. The other reasons cited by Bahran are North Yemen against South, Americans against terrorists, Saleh against Hadi, Yemen against Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), a proxy war between Iran and KSA and games of influence between the different countries of the Arabic peninsula.
“Everyone is losing except Iran for now,” Bahran said. “Nor party in this conflict is clean.” – by Olivier Rey
http://www.reddirtreport.com/around-world/situation-yemen-more-complex-ever
My comment: Interesting; the story how and why the Houthis got to rule is too simple however. It was Hadi who wanted to take as much as possible.
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
Siehe / Look at cp1
3.3.2017 – The Guardian (* A H)
Wealthy western countries must do more to fight the heartbreaking devastation and hunger in my native country – we mustn’t wait for famine to be declared
I have just returned from a heartbreaking visit to Yemen, the land of my birth, and one of the four regions – along with Somalia, South Sudan and northern Nigeria – declared as being at imminent risk of famine.
It is depressing to think that Yemen was not always like this.
The civil conflict and large-scale destruction caused by the warring parties has turned the clock back two or three decades. I was astounded by the devastation.
I travelled to Hodeida, one of the areas worst affected by extreme hunger.
The number of patients accessing the hospital there has increased fivefold over the past year, although the budget has been frozen at pre-2011 levels. To say it is struggling to cope is an understatement.
I heard bombs whistling overhead. It is hard to describe the terror of experiencing that chilling sound but not knowing where the bomb will land. The people of Yemen live with that horror and uncertainty every day.
The bald statistics state that 14 million people are hungry while nearly 19 million (70% of the population) are in need of humanitarian assistance. It broke my heart to see so many undernourished children.
The next part of my journey took me across frontlines to southern Yemen. I lost count of the number of checkpoints I had to pass through – certainly more than 50 – as I made the journey from Sana’a, the capital, to the temporary new capital, Aden.
Traditionally, older people are treated with enormous respect and given the best of everything by their families. But the conflict has led to the abandonment of that way of life. I witnessed grandmothers in their 80s and even their 90s going out in search of food for their grandchildren. The resilience of communities is at breaking point and the infrastructure of survival is breaking down. When people invited us into their kitchens, all they had were empty bags of grain.
The real solution to this conflict is for all sides to put down their guns and broker both local and national peace deals so that people can rebuild their lives. It’s heartbreaking to see children deteriorating because they can’t get the help they need.
We mustn’t wait for widespread famine to be declared before we act. There’s enough food on the planet for everyone, we just need to ensure that help is reaching those who need it most – by Saleh Saeed, CEO of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC)
My comment: Of course he is right. But the wealthy countries (in the West) even could do much more for Yemen: Just do nothing. do not any more interfere in favour of any warring party: no more arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, remove your warships, your staff, stop political support for any of the warring parties. That would be the best.
3.3.2017 – Ärzte ohne Grenzen (* A H)
Ärzte ohne Grenzen nimmt Arbeit im Krankenhaus von Hajdan wieder auf
Nach sechs Monaten sind Teams von Ärzte ohne Grenzen am Freitag in das Krankenhaus von Hajdan im Gouvernement Saada zurückgekehrt. Die Organisation hatte sich wegen der Bombardierung des Krankenhauses von Ärzte ohne Grenzen in Abs aus dem Norden des Jemen zurückgezogen.
Ärzte ohne Grenzen hatte nach dem Luftangriff auf das Krankenhaus in Abs am 15. August 2016 entschieden, den Großteil seiner Mitarbeiter aus den Provinzen Hadscha und Saada abzuziehen. Beim dem Angriff waren 19 Menschen ums Leben gekommen und 24 weitere verletzt worden. Zuvor waren schon eine Reihe weiterer medizinischer Einrichtungen im Norden des Jemen angegriffen worden.
Am 19. Februar kehrte ein Team von Ärzte ohne Grenzen in das Krankenhaus von Hajdan zurück. Bis zu 200.000 Menschen in der bergigen Region sind auf die medizinische Versorgung im Krankenhaus von Hajdan angewiesen.
"Die Situation verschlechtert sich im Jemen von Tag zu Tag, und der Bedarf der Menschen an medizinischer Versorgung nimmt immer mehr zu“, sagt Ghassan Abou Chaar, Landeskoordinator im Jemen. „Das nächstgelegene Krankenhaus ist eine zweistündige Autofahrt von Hajdan entfernt, aber in Folge des Treibstoffmangels ist es für die Menschen schwer zu erreichen.“
Vor dem Rückzug aus dem Krankenhaus in Hajdan hatte das Team von Ärzte ohne Grenzen die Notaufnahme, die Entbindungsstation, die stationäre Behandlung und die Krankenwagen unterstützt und allgemeine logistische Hilfe geleistet. Diese Aktivitäten haben die Mitarbeiter nun wieder aufgenommen, die Hilfe für die stationäre Behandlung haben sie noch verstärkt.
In den vergangenen beiden Jahren wurden zahlreiche Gesundheitseinrichtungen im Jemen bei Luftangriffen getroffen. Das Krankenhaus in Hajdan wurde am 26. Oktober 2015 bombardiert, ein Mitarbeiter wurde dadurch verletzt. Diese wiederholten Angriffe haben das ohnehin schwache Gesundheitssystem weiter in Mitleidenschaft gezogen. Die Menschen fürchten sich immer mehr davor, Krankenhäuser aufzusuchen, weil sie Angst haben, dort bombardiert zu werden.
"Wir haben die genaue Lage des Krankenhauses in Hajdan sowie die Wiederaufnahme unserer Arbeit dort an alle Konfliktparteien kommuniziert. Wir fordern nachdrücklich, dass sie die Unversehrtheit der Klinik sicherstellen“, sagt Abou Chaar. „Die Menschen im Jemen brauchen einen sicheren Zugang zu Krankenhäusern und anderen Gesundheitseinrichtungen.“
Ärzte ohne Grenzen leistet medizinische Hilfe in 12 Krankenhäusern und Gesundheitszentren im Jemen und unterstützt 18 weitere Einrichtungen in zehn Gouvernements: Tais, Aden, Al-Dhale, Saada, Amran, Hadscha, Ibb, Hodeida, Abjan und Sanaa.
https://www.aerzte-ohne-grenzen.de/jemen-hajdan-luftangriffe-krankenhaus-wiederaufnahme
and this is the English version:
2.3.2017 – Doctors Without Borders (* A H)
Yemen: MSF Resumes Medical Work in Haydan Hospital
Six months after withdrawing its staff from northern Yemen following the bombing of its hospital in Abs, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has restarted work in Haydan District Hospital in Sa'ada Governorate.
MSF evacuated most of its staff from both Hajjah and Sa'ada governorates following the August 15, 2016, airstrike on Abs Hospital, which killed 19 people and injured 24, and a series of other attacks on medical facilities in northern Yemen.
On February 19, an MSF team returned to work in Haydan hospital, which up to 200,000 people in the area rely upon for medical care.
"The situation is worsening by the day in Yemen and the people's need for medical care keeps rising," said Ghassan Abou Chaar, MSF representative in Yemen. "The nearest other hospital is two hours' drive from Haydan, but with the fuel shortages, people struggle to reach it."
Prior to its withdrawal from Haydan hospital, the MSF team provided support to the emergency room, inpatient department, maternity unit, and referral system, as well as general logistical support. MSF will resume its previous activities and increase its support to the inpatient department.
Over the past two years, many health facilities in Yemen have been hit by airstrikes, including Haydan Hospital itself, which was bombed on October 26, 2015, injuring one staff member. These repeated attacks have put enormous pressure on an already weak health system, while people have become increasingly afraid of visiting hospitals out of fear they will be targeted.
"The restarting of our work in Haydan hospital, as well as its location, have been communicated to all parties to the conflict, and we expect them to respect its integrity," said Abou Chaar. "The people of Yemen need to be granted safe access to hospitals and other health services."
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/yemen-msf-resumes-medical-work-haydan-hospital
2.3.2017 – Gulf Times (A H)
Yemen crisis: Donors must put their money where their mouth is
The failure on the part of the donor countries to provide prompt funding for the relief operations has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
The worsening situation in the country requires intensified efforts to lift the suffering of the civilian population there.
According to United Nations data on the relief situation and the funding allocation for Yemen, as much as $123.8mn has been pledged under the 2017 response plan for those displaced and fleeing from the war. But the donor countries have not fulfilled their commitment. Until early last week (February 21, 2017), only $4.3mn has been provided, less than 1% of the target.
http://www.gulf-times.com/story/534920/Yemen-crisis-Donors-must-put-their-money-where-the
My comment: An article by this Qatari media listing up the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. One paragraph here is odd propaganda anyway: “A report by the International Crisis Group for February said that the atrocities committed by Houthi militants and the Ali Abdullah Saleh militia in Yemen have resulted in one of the most severe humanitarian catastrophes in the world.” Well, the Saudi coalition air raids, in combination with Saudi blockade of most imports, had a 100 times heavier effect on the Yemeni catastrophe than anything the Houthis and Saleh forces could do on the ground. And the report of the International Crisis Group (https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-catastrophe-failing-state)just blames the Saudi coalition and the Hadi government.
2.3.2017 – MONA Relief (* A H)
Film: Your Emergency Aid Implementation Partners in Yemen monarelief.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHKm6gMREaM
2.3.2017 – Oxfam (* A H)
Accountability Review in Yemen: Humanitarian assistance and resilience building - Effectiveness Review Series 2014/15
This accountability review is presented as part of the Effectiveness Review Series 2014/15. The report documents the findings from a review carried out in December 2014 which examines the degree to which Oxfam meets its own standards for accountability.
The project ’Humanitarian Assistance and Resilience Building in Western Yemen’ is a two-year project supporting vulnerable communities in Al-Hodeidah and Hajjah governorates. Oxfam and its partners aim to build resilience and provide humanitarian assistance to men, women and children, contributing to reducing the impact of chronic poverty, natural hazards and conflict.
This assignment examined accountability to partners and communities in terms of transparency, feedback/listening and participation - three key dimensions of Accountability for Oxfam. In addition it asked questions around partnership practices, staff attitudes, and satisfaction (how useful the project is to people and how wisely the money on this project has been spent) where appropriate.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/accountability-review-yemen-humanitarian-assistance-and-resilience-building and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/er-accountability-yemen-effectiveness-review-020317-summ-en.pdf = http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/accountability-review-in-yemen-humanitarian-assistance-and-resilience-building-620200
2.3.2017 – Euronews (* A H)
Film: Hungersnot im Jemen: Alle zehn Minuten stirbt ein Kind
Im Bürgerkriegsland Jemen droht eine Hungersnot. Hilfsorganisationen haben so gut wie keinen Zugang mehr und können die dringend benötigten Lebensmittel den Menschen nicht bringen. Die Lage im Bürgerkriegsland Jemen ist katastrophal. Millionen Menschen hungern.
Hilfsorganisationen wie das Rote Kreuz schlagen Alarm. Sie können die Nahrungsmittel nicht mehr ins Land bringen. Der Hafen von Hodeidah wurde bombardiert und es ist nicht mehr möglich dort Fracht abzuladen.
Der UN-Nothilfekoordinator Stephen O’Brien reist seit Sonntag durch das Land. Er konnte in einzelne Kampfgebiete nicht vordringen. Er betonte: Ich konzentriere mich auf eine einzige Sache. Wo wird humanitäre Hilfe benötigt, wo sind Menschen in Lebensgefahr und wo müssen sie beschützt werden. Wie können wir dafür sorgen, dass wir die nötigen Ressourcen auftreiben und wie bekommen wir Zugang zu den Menschen in Not, damit wir ihnen helfen können.
In dem bitterarmen Land leiden Millionen Menschen an Mangelernährung und sind von der Hungersnot bedroht. Das UN-Kinderhilfswerk Unicef spricht von einer desolaten Lage. Alle zehn Minuten sterbe ein Kind unter fünf Jahren an einer Krankheit, die leicht zu behandeln gewesen wäre.
http://www.aol.de/video/hungersnot-im-jemen-alle-zehn-minuten-stirbt-ein-kind-58b742c9bbbb0a24c08e0be7/ und siehe auch http://mobile.luzernerzeitung.ch/nachrichten/international/Die-Lebensadern-abgeschnitten;art9640,979022
Mein Kommentar: Jemen ist längst kein „Bürgerkriegsland“ mehr. Schließlich ist seit fast zwei Jahren Saudi-Arabien mit seinen Verbündeten an diesem Krieg beteiligt, bzw. ist diejenige Kriegspartei, die bisher am meisten dort angerichtet hat.
28.2.2017 – Save the Children (* A H)
Yemen humanitarian response situation report January/February 2017
General Overview
Since mid-March 2015, conflict in Yemen has spread to 21 of Yemen’s 22 governorates prompting a large-scale protection crisis and compounding an already dire humanitarian crisis brought on by years of poverty, poor governance, conflict and ongoing instability.
The total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance is 18.8 million or 70% of the population, including 10.3 million children.
7,469 people including 4,125 civilians have now been killed, and over 40,483 injured of whom 11,332 are civilians.
Conflict has affected the lives of approximately 3 million internally displaced people and returnees including 1.6 million children. 2 million people remain displaced.
17.1 million people (62% of population) are food insecure including 7.3 million who are severely food insecure.
More than 6.2 million children are in need of protection assistance.
14.5 million people lack clean water and sanitation, including 8 million children.
24.3 million people (90% of the population) lack access to electricity through the public grid.
More than half of the health facilities assessed in 16 of the 22 assessed governorates in Yemen are closed or partially functioning due to the conflict, leaving over 14.8 million people in need of basic healthcare including 8.1 million children
As of 31 January 2017, a total of 18,848 suspected cases of Acute Watery Diarrhea/cholera, including 193 confirmed cases and 99 associated deaths have been reported (11 cholera and 88 Acute Watery Diarrhea). From the suspected cases, 6,335 (or %34) are children below 5 years.
4.5 million children and pregnant and lactating women are in need of nutrition services to treat or prevent malnutrition. This includes 2.2 million children under the age of five who are acutely malnourished of whom 462,000 children are severely acute malnourished.
Approx. 2 million of the 7.3 million school-aged children in Yemen do not have access to education. This includes 513,000 IDP children. According to the Education Cluster, as of December 2016 ,244 schools are totally damaged, 1,224 partially damaged, 144 are currently hosting IDPs and 25 are currently occupied by armed group, while 612 schools have been vacated from IDPs and 8 from armed groups. At least 2,257 schools have been affected by the ongoing conflict.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-response-situation-report-januaryfebruary-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/YEM-cx-15_Yemen_ExternalSitrep_Jan-Feb2017.pdf
31.1.2017 – UN Children's Fund (* A H)
UNICEF Yemen Humanitarian Situation Report (January 2017)
Highlights
The crisis in Yemen gives no respite and children are the most affected. In 2017, UNICEF needs US$236.6 million to provide life-saving assistance to 6.9 million children in the most vulnerable communities.
As famine looms in Yemen, number of children at risk of malnutrition is expected to increase. Currently over 462,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), scaling of nutrition support is urgent and must reach every corner of Yemen.
Increasing fighting in the western coast of the country has forced over 34,000 people to displace to safer locations. Displaced families are being hosted by local families or are concentrated in improvised settlements. Water, food and hygiene items are among the most urgent needs. UNICEF and partners are conducting needs assessments and as much as possible integrating WASH, health, nutrition and protection support in locations where security allows. Access is still restricted in some of the affected districts.
Due to the security situation, at least 28 schools in Al Mukha (Taizz) are closed and some regular programme activities have been suspended.
In response to a potential measles outbreak in Al Maharah governorate,
UNICEF and partners conducted a 6-days emergency vaccination campaign reaching 11,432 people.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs
On 31 January UNICEF launched its Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) appeal. With the ongoing conflict and the deteriorating economic situation putting essential public services on the verge of collapse, humanitarian needs in the country are mounting and children are the most affected. Therefore, UNICEF is appealing for US$ 236.6 million to reach 9.8 million people, including 6.9 million children, with life-saving assistance in 2017.
During the first month of 2017, the situation in Yemen is far from improving. Intense hostilities have been reported in the main fronts, and hostilities have increased worryingly along the western coast, particularly in Dhubab and Al Mukha districts of Taizz governorate. At least 34,000 people been forced to displace, most of them have fled to safer areas in Taizz governorate while smaller groups have moved to locations in Al Hudaydah,3 Ibb, Lahj, Aden and Al Dhale’e governorates. As the situation is likely to continue or further exacerbate, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) will probably increase in the coming weeks.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/unicef-yemen-humanitarian-situation-report-january-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/UNICEF%20Yemen%20Humanitarian%20Situation%20Report%20-%20January%202017.pdf
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
3.3.2017 – Press TV Iran (A P)
Mass rally held in Sana’a against Saudi onslaught on Yemen
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a to express outrage over Saudi Arabia’s deadly military campaign against the impoverished Arab country http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/03/03/512867/Yemen-protest-rally-Sanaa-Saudi-Arabia-aggression-airstrikes
and
3.3.2017 – Nasser Arrabyee (A P)
Huge rally in Yemeni capital Sanaa this afternoon to denounce 2-year of US-backed Saudi war crimes in violation of all human laws (photos)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837709438773571584
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837709285647863808
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837709109877178368
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837708890334769156
2.3.2017 – Saba Net (A K P)
GPC President Saleh calls Yemen sons, army to join front lines to confront Saudi aggression
President of General People's Congress (GPC) party Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday called on the Yemeni people and army to join front lines to confront the barbaric aggression of the Saudi-led coalition, which includes 17 countries including the US, Britain and Israel.
Saleh called sons of Sana'a, all provinces and 400,000 troops to rush to the border front lines, and said the war equation will change for us.
Saleh confirmed that Sana'a is safe, and its men are steadfast and they will protect it and prevent any disruption of security.
Saleh said that everyone will stand strongly to confront terrorism and the aggression to preserve security and stability of all provinces.
Saleh praised the heroic role of the Yemeni people and their steadfastness in front of hunger, airstrikes and siege, vowing that the great victory is very near.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457839.htm and photos: https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837533018738696192
and by Xinhua:
2.3.2017 – Xinhua (A P)
Yemen's ex-president calls army to join Houthis in fighting against Saudis
Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is the main ally with Shiite Houthi rebels, called the Yemeni army on Thursday to join Houthi fighters in border fighting against Saudi forces.
The call, which was aired by Houthi-controlled state media, signaled Yemen's further escalating military tension with neighboring Saudi Arabia, which led a military coalition of mostly Arab countries in support to exiled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against Houthi rebels.
"I call the defense ministry to mobilize armed forces to front lines to reinforce popular forces (Houthis) in border battlefronts against Saudi forces," Saleh said in a speech in a meeting with senior leaders of his former ruling party, the General People's Congress.
In his speech, Saleh also renewed his call to not conduct further peace talks with exiled President Hadi and his government, describing them as "mercenaries."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-03/03/c_136097753.htm
My comment: “the Yemeni national army has stayed neutral”, that’s nonsense. It is divided, fighting either in alliance with the Houthis against the Saudis and their Yemeni allies, or under president Hadi command against the Houthis and the other part of the army.
2.3.2017 – Nasser Arrabyee (A K P)
Yemen tribes of Sanhan Send 1000s of trained fighters to army against US-backed Saudi invaders. March 2, 2017, east Sanaa (photos)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837524248360968192
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837524037106425858
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837523836148961281
2.3.2017 – Al Masirah TV (A K P)
Watch tribesmen of Sanhan sends 1000s of trained fighters against US-backed Saudi invaders. March 2, east Sanaa.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/837414423983714304
2.3.2017– Saba Net (A T)
Police dismantles bomb in Baidha
Police in cooperation with popular forces on Thursday dismantled an improvised explosive device(IED) in al-Raiashiah district of al-Baidha province, a police official told Saba.
The (IED) was planted by unknown people on the main road to Qaivah area in the district.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457752.htm
cp6 Südjemen und Hadi-Regierung / Southern Yemen and Hadi-government
Siehe / Look at cp14
2.3.2017 – Al Sahwa (A)
Sudanese, Emirati forces secure Aden Airport
Sudanese forces have been lately tasked to secure Aden Airport under the supervision of Emirati forces which are responsible for security file in Aden city, particularly Aden Airport since it was liberated almost one year ago.
Government sources ruled out what was reported by media outlets that there were security problems inside the airport.
Eyewitnesses told Alsahwa Net that planes are taking off and landing on a daily basis.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-4582 and photo: https://twitter.com/AAbonacr/status/837346850399272960
2.3.2017 – Almasdar Online (A)
Lahij: Unidentified gunmen murder soldier, another civilian wounded
The source pointed out that the murder’s cause was likely personal.
It is noteworthy that al-Qaeda members have earlier carried out similar operations
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89243
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
2.3.2017 – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (* B P)
Yemen is on the Brink
It turned out – who knew? – that dialogue was not the answer to all of Yemen’s problems. Just weeks after the National Dialogue Conference was over, the Houthi militia went on to attack groups allied with President Hadi.
This was the starting shot in an escalating conflict that has already had enormous costs – today, ten million of Yemen’s 25 million people are either completely or very nearly dependent on humanitarian aid in order to meet minimum food requirements.
The roots of this conflict can be traced back to regional differences between the north and the south of Yemen that have never been sufficiently addressed.
The clan, which is geographically centered in northern Yemen, have mobilized against what they believe to be neglect from the governments who have robbed them of governmental resources and access to the same benefits afforded to other groups in society.
Perhaps more importantly: the clan is of the view that, under the influence of Saudi Arabian Wahhabism and Arab Salafism, the government seeks to wipe out their form of Islam.
The Houthi movement is a separatist organization that is calling for more regional autonomy and a renegotiation of the regional borders within the country. Specifically, they want borders that provide their areas with direct access to the Red Sea.
In these areas, it is in practice entirely possible for groups in Yemen to reach a consensus. But the Houthis have another non-negotiable demand: to retain their militia even after the conflict is over.
This is the central problem in Yemen today. But it also illustrates a more general problem, one that is becoming more pertinent as the Norwegian authorities increase their focus on so-called fragile states in aid and development policy.
Yemen is characterized by a total lack of an effective government. Ever since Max Weber, political scientists have highlighted the monopoly of violence as a fundamental aspect of modern states. A modern state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a territory.
A large number of groups in Yemen, including the Houthis, have enough military power to challenge the state. The state is thus little more than yet another armed group in society.
For as long as this is the case, it will remain impossible to build lasting peace in the country. The conflict in Yemen is therefore not a question of religious, ethnic, or regional divisions. These divisions are what we may call epiphenomena – they are by-products of the conflict, not the cause.
In this, Yemen illustrates an extensive problem with what are now referred to as fragile states. Fragile states are characterized as states that are involved in armed internal conflict, or states where there is a high underlying probability that conflict will break out.
The reasons for this are to be found in the county’s political development.
Peacekeeping operations can solve a fundamental problem in fragile states: commitment problems.
A fundamental challenge in countries like Yemen is that there is no reason why the Houthis should trust the government or any other groups in the country. They may well be willing to sign a peace agreement, but how can the Houthis, and all the other groups, trust that the government will continue to honor this agreement five, ten or 20 years down the line?
After they have handed in their weapons, they have no guarantees that the government will not simply tear the agreement apart.
Peacekeeping operations play an important role in fragile states, because they can guarantee through force of arms that peace agreements are complied with. No dialogue process can achieve that. The UN is therefore yet again, for Yemen and other fragile states around the world, the last, best hope – by Håvard Mokleiv Nygård
https://blogs.prio.org/2017/03/yemen-is-on-the-brink/ = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-brink
My comment: In such a confused political situation as the author states for Yemen, it certainly is impossible to solely blame one side for the conflict, as the author does here. There were many other reasons for a failure of the dialogue process, president Hadi, his own corruption, his policy trying to nobble his political foes like the Houthis, but even more, the whole construction of the transitional process which had been imposed on Yemen by foreign forces. - And, another thing, easily forgotten when the Houthis always are labeled as "rebels" by Western propaganda speech: they are a ruling force, i. e. by themselves a part of the state, since more than two years now.
cp7a Saudi-Arabien, Emirate und Iran / Saudi Arabia, Emirates and Iran
2.3.2017 – Pars Today (A P)
Iran weist Äußerungen des VAE-Staatssekretärs als haltlos zurück
Irans Außenamtssprecher, Bahram Ghassemi, hat die jüngsten Äußerungen des Staatssekretärs im Außenministeriums der Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate(VAE), Mohammed Anwar Gargash, als haltlos bezeichnet.
Ghassemi sagte heute, Aggressoren, die militärisch gegen das unterdrückte Volk im Jemen vorgehen, haben keine Errungenschaften außer der Stärkung des Terrorismus gehabt. Ihr Vorgehen hat zudem dazu geführt, dass sich nun Terroristen in Teilen des Jemens niedergelassen haben. Sie seien damit ür all die Verbrechen, die dort begangen wurden, verantwortlich.
Es sei bedauerlich und verwunderlich, dass ausgerechnet ein Land, das in den vergangenen zwei Jahren die Infrastruktur von Jemen fast gänzlich zerstört hat, dort Kriegsverbrechen begangen hat und eine mittelbare oder unmittelbare Rolle bei der Belagerung des Volkes vom Jemen spielte, nun anderen Ländern die Einmischung in innere Angelegenheit dieses Landes vorwirft.
Mohammed Anwar Gargash hatte am Dienstag in einer Rede in der 34. Sitzung des UNO-Nenschenrechtsrats in Genf dem Iran vorgeworfen, Waffen an die den Houthi-Kräfte im Jemen geliefert und damit Saudi-Arabien provoziert zu haben.
Iran hat mehfach Waffenlieferungen an die Houthi in Jemen dementiert.
Remark: English reporting YPR 273, cp7a.
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
Siehe / Look at cp1
2.3.2017 – Bloomberg (* A E P)
Saudi Data Show Economy Struggling as Lending Growth Slumps
Credit growth falling as companies cut back on investments
Growing caution seen in lower import demand, bank claims
Data released this week by the Saudi central bank show how the economy is still struggling to gain momentum amid low oil prices.
The International Monetary Fund in January slashed its forecast for Saudi economic growth this year to 0.4 percent from 2 percent. The government says gross domestic product will likely expand by more than 1 percent. The following four charts illustrate key takeaways from the central bank’s data for January:
Reserve Burn Accelerates
Net foreign assets, though still above $500 billion, are shrinking as the government uses savings to plug a budget deficit that reached $79 billion last year -- $107 billion if delayed payments to contractors are included.
Less Government Borrowing
Slowing Credit Growth
Bank claims on the private sector -- largely composed of loans, advances and overdrafts -- grew 1.8 percent in January compared to a year earlier. That’s the lowest year-on-year growth since February 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Weaker Import Demand – by Vivian Nerein
2.3.2017 – Arab News (A P)
Saudis, Indonesians sign agreements to strengthen ties
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1061906/saudi-arabia
Saudi Arabia to open 3 Arabic-language institutes in Indonesia
Saudi Arabia is planning to establish Arabic-language institutions in the three major Indonesian cities of Makassar, Medan and Surabaya, said Saudi Ambassador Osama Mohammed Abdullah Al-Shuaibi.
The envoy said the goal is to help Indonesians improve their Arabic-language skills, and the institutions would have no radical influences.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1061901/saudi-arabia and look at this https://twitter.com/JosephJo1221/status/837389892497854465
My comment: Indonesia, world’s greatest Mulsim nation, is a victim of Saudi Wahabisation since decades: look at cp1
cp9 USA
Siehe / Look at cp1 , cp14
2.3.2017 – CFR Blog (* A B P)
The (Not-So) Peaceful Transition of Power: Trump’s Drone Strikes Outpace Obama
[Note: This post was updated to reflect additional strikes in Yemen in on March 2, 2017.]
As a candidate, President Donald Trump was deeply misleading about the sorts of military operations that he would support.
but nonetheless the White House is considering deploying even more U.S. troops to Syria, loosening the rules of engagement for airstrikes, and increasing the amount of lethal assistance provided to Syrian rebel groups.
By at least one measure at this point in his presidency, Trump has been more interventionist than Obama: in authorizing drone strikes and special operations raids in non-battlefield settings (namely, in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia).
From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved 30 drone strikes or raids in 41 days—one every 1.4 days.
Thus, people who believed that Trump would be less interventionist than Obama are wrong, at least so far and at least when it comes to drone strikes. These dramatically increased lethal strikes demonstrate that U.S. leaders’ counterterrorism mindset and policies are bipartisan and transcend presidential administrations. As I have noted, U.S. counterterrorism ideology is virulent and extremist, characterized by tough-sounding clichés and wholly implausible objectives. There has never been any serious indication among elected politicians or appointed national security officials of any strategic learning or policy adjustments – by Micah Zenko
http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2017/03/02/the-not-so-peaceful-transition-of-power/
Remark: For the newest raids, look at cp14.
2.3.2017 – DPA (* A P)
Bericht widerspricht Trumps Aussagen zu Einsatz im Jemen
Ein Einsatz von US-Spezialkräften im Jemen mit mehreren Toten hat nach einem Medienbericht den Geheimdiensten keine wichtigen Erkenntnisse geliefert - entgegen einer Aussage von Präsident Donald Trump. Das berichtete NBC unter Berufung auf anonyme US-Regierungsmitarbeiter. Bei seiner Rede vor dem Kongress hatte Trump seine erste genehmigte Anti-Terror-Aktion als "hocherfolgreich" bezeichnet. Laut NBC fanden sich auf den sichergestellten Datenträgern aber bislang keine verwertbaren Informationen. http://www.idowa.de/inhalt.usa-bericht-widerspricht-trumps-aussagen-zu-einsatz-im-jemen.7f51caad-c502-47a2-b4fd-2d6439ed7484.html = http://www.bild.de/news/aktuelles/news/bericht-widerspricht-trumps-aussagen-zu-einsatz-50669722.bild.html
2.3.2017 – Süddeutsche Zeitung (* A P)
Trump preist getöteten Soldaten - doch Fragen zum Jemen-Einsatz bleiben
Bei seiner Rede vor dem Kongress hatte der US-Präsident die Witwe eines Soldaten adressiert, der beim ersten von Trump angeordneten Anti-Terror-Einsatz in Jemen getötet worden war.
Recherchen von NBC nähren nun Zweifel an Trumps Behauptung, bei dem Einsatz seien Geheimdienstinformationen gewonnen worden.
Der Vater des getöteten Soldaten verlangt von Trumps Regierung, den Tod seines Sohnes nicht zu instrumentalisieren.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/anti-terror-einsatz-trump-preist-getoeteten-soldaten-doch-fragen-zum-jemen-einsatz-bleiben-1.3402466 und von Der Standard http://derstandard.at/2000053465535/Geheimdienst-Trumps-toedlicher-Jemeneinsatz-brachte-nichts
2.3.2017 – DPA (A P)
Bericht widerspricht Trumps Aussagen zu Einsatz im Jemen
Ein Einsatz von US-Spezialkräften im Jemen mit mehreren Toten hat nach einem Medienbericht den Geheimdiensten keine wichtigen Erkenntnisse geliefert - entgegen einer Aussage von Präsident Donald Trump. Das berichtete NBC unter Berufung auf anonyme US-Regierungsmitarbeiter. Bei seiner Rede vor dem Kongress hatte Trump seine erste genehmigte Anti-Terror-Aktion als "hocherfolgreich" bezeichnet. Laut NBC fanden sich auf den sichergestellten Datenträgern aber bislang keine verwertbaren Informationen.
Mein Kommentar: Es gibt aber wieder auch Berichte, dass es doch größere Erkenntnisse gäbe, s. im Folgenden.
2.3.2017 – CNN (* A T)
US tries to ID hundreds of al Qaeda contacts thanks to Yemen raid
Several US officials told CNN Thursday that the US is now taking action to locate and monitor hundreds of people or "contacts" found as part the intelligence retrieved during the deadly raid last month in Yemen targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Some of these people are believed to be in the West, but not in the United States
The government is taking action to find and monitor these AQAP-linked individuals because of the threat they may pose to Europe, the officials added.
The fact that officials said they are actively pursuing leads uncovered from the raid indicates that the intelligence was indeed actionable despite some media reports to the contrary.
The terabyte's worth of intelligence gathered from computers and cell phones is now being reviewed at the National Media Exploitation Center outside Washington, which analyzes documents, electronic media, cell phones, video and audio tapes seized on overseas missions.
Defense officials have told CNN that information pertaining to the location of safe havens, explosives manufacturing, training and targets was acquired in the January ground operation – By Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/yemen-raid-al-qaeda-intelligence-contacts/
1.3.2017 – New York Times (* A P)
Devices seized in Yemen raid offer some clues to Al-Qaida tactics
Computers and cellphones seized during a deadly special operations raid in Yemen in January offer clues about attacks Al-Qaida could carry out in the future, including insights into new types of hidden explosives the group is making and new training tactics for militants, according to U.S. officials.
But it is still unclear how much the information advances the military’s knowledge of the plans and future operations of Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, although it may give a glimpse of its evolving tactics, the officials said.
The Trump administration has been eager to defend itself against assertions that the raid of an Al-Qaida safe house, in which a member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 was killed, was a failure because little meaningful intelligence material was seized. A military investigation was also ordered to determine whether women and children died in the raid.
Commanders have said the potential of recovering a trove of new information about the group and its operations justified the risks to the American commandos. even as the White House and Pentagon stoutly defend the mission, influential members of Congress are increasingly asking questions about what went wrong and why. “Given the public’s concerns about the raid’s costs and other media reports about the raid, the administration has an obligation to disclose support for this claim,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of half a dozen members of the Intelligence Committee interviewed for this article.
Even supporters of the White House position say the information recovered thus far is not conclusive. “I believe the material is valuable, but having said that, of course, a lot of it depends on how it plays out over time,” said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who is on the committee.
Administration officials said Trump was highly sensitive to reports that the mission had yielded little, and there was a scramble before his speech Tuesday night to come up with a way of defending it, including having Owens’ widow, Carryn Owens, in the gallery. She received the most sustained applause of the evening – By Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger
1.3.2017 – NBC (* A P T)
Officials: Still No Actionable Intel From Yemen SEAL Raid
The Pentagon says Navy SEALs scooped up laptops, hard drives and cell phones in last month's Yemen raid, but multiple U.S. officials told NBC News that none of the intelligence gleaned from the operation so far has proven actionable or vital — contrary to what President Trump said in his speech to Congress Tuesday.
A U.S. intelligence official told NBC News that the Trump administration continues to call the mission a success because "they have become locked into a narrative that no evidence and no one in the Intelligence Community can corroborate." The official said that Sen. John McCain publicly disputed the success of the raid because the Defense Department has briefed many in Congress on what actually occurred during the raid.
Asked to compare the materials gathered in the 2011 SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden to the materials in the Yemen raid, the official said, "There is no comparison in either quality or quantity. There is no amazing laptop that we got, or thumb drive that reveals something big. No map to Zawahiri kind of thing."
"But it's also important to note that we didn't expect to gather anything like that. This was a house where some bad guys were supposed to be. We didn't get the guys we wanted and the ones who were there were clearly ready for us."
The Associated Press quoted a senior U.S. official as describing a three-page list of information gathered from the compound, including information on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's training techniques and targeting priorities. Pentagon officials confirmed that to NBC News, but other U.S. officials said the information on that list was neither actionable nor vital.
One senior Pentagon official described the information gathered as "de minimis," and as material the U.S. already knew about – by CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, WILLIAM M. ARKIN and KEN DILANIAN
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officials-still-no-actionable-intel-yemen-seal-raid-n727866
2.3.2017 – Fars News (* A K P)
Trump’s Political Theater: Escalation of Yemen War Can’t Be Papered Over by Made-for-TV Moments
President Donald Trump has given an executive order to significantly escalate the dirty war on Yemen, especially to put ground forces into a conflict environment, where both civilians and service members can die.
This is not the first time that the US Army has raided Yemen. For years, the United States has been taking military action against the country on the pretext of fighting Al-Qaeda, predominantly through drone strikes and airstrikes. Long before Trump decided to join the Saudis in the conflict, the Obama administration was busy killing civilians there. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism puts Obama’s killings at ten times the number of Bush administration drone assassinations. According to the bureau, the Obama death toll included thousands of civilians at wedding parties, funerals, and more mundane activities.
With President Trump now joining the circle of war-criminals-in-chief, there will be no trial in The Hague. This is the third opportunity to hold a murderous president to account for killing civilians and acts of official assassination that are patently illegal under International Law. But why prosecute Trump for what Bush and Obama got away with?
That the raid “worked” is perhaps the greatest myth of all. It was a botched raid, no more than a tactical pause in an ongoing proxy warfare. On the very morning of his political theater at the Congress, Trump was clumsily trying to pass off the failures of the mission onto the US Army and the Defense Department in an interview with Fox News. Twelve hours after he shifted blame for what went wrong, he gave a theatrical performance in front of Congress that attempted to hog the credit!
It is silly to argue that the botched raid has set off a political firestorm back in the US. No one is going to criticize the process that the Trump administration has used to approve the criminal escalation of the conflict. Nothing is politically toxic about America’s involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen. America owns the war and the escalation – and the consequences. The Americans had all the answers during the Obama administration.
- Even at the United Nations no one (except for a few members) is going to question the illegality of escalation, much less take a very different path against the United States and Saudi Arabia. It marks such an incredible betrayal of the international community and the awesome responsibility that they must shoulder, especially in the UN Charter sphere. A world body that passes the buck is not one we can trust to lead our world or keep us safe.
This is an accurate recounting of the real situation in Yemen – destroy them and don’t help them, also destabilize and spread extremists to everywhere. Far from bringing “freedom and democracy” to that country, the US-backed conflict has sowed chaos
In light of the January 29 raid and his controversial Muslim ban, however, it is evident that President Trump wants to play a significant role in the instability of Yemen
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951212000976 and see also http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-claims-about-yemen-raid-run-conflicting-evidence : US voices blaming Trump’s “distasteful” theater.
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
2.3.2017 – MbKS15 (A K)
#RSAF ZK620/8021 EF Typhoon returning back to #BAE Warton after a shakedown flight, Mar. 01 — by: @Michaelstix (photos)
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/837231738879377408
My comment: British-Saudi complicity in photos.
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
3.3.2017 – New Straits Times (A K P)
Defence Ministry pans allegations of army's involvement in Yemen war
KUALA LUMPUR: The Defence Ministry has dismissed allegations that Malaysian Armed Forces personnel were involved in military operations and the war in Yemen.
In a statement, the ministry’s office said the claims were untrue, slanderous, baseless, and with negative intent to tarnish the good name of the ministry, the Armed Forces and Malaysia.
“The Defence Ministry’s Office views this allegation very seriously.
“As minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein mentioned before, our Armed Forces personnel have never been involved in any Saudi Arabian military campaign against the revolt in Yemen,” the ministry said.
The ministry further explained that the deployment of Armed Forces personnel to Saudi Arabia was firstly to prepare themselves to face any possibility, including moving the remaining Malaysians in Yemen, if the need arises.
“This is because there are Malaysians who are still in Yemen at this point. The mission to move them is a manifestation of the government’s commitment to help Malaysians who are in distress in a country that is at unrest,” it said in the statement.
Secondly, the ministry said the Armed Forces had been invited by Saudi Arabia to take part in a military exercise in the Northern Thunder, which was meant to foster unity among Muslim countries, and not to focus on the military operations in Yemen.
It went on to state that the training was meant to give exposure and experience of a military operation in an environment very much different from Malaysia – By MELISSA DARLYNE CHOW
2.3.2017 – AP (A K P)
ABU DHABI HOSTS MILITARY DRILL AMID YEMEN WAR, IRAN TENSIONS
A choreographed military exercise in the capital of the United Arab Emirates drew hundreds of cellphone-filming onlookers Thursday - but they weren't the only intended audience for the re-enactment of a hostage rescue.
While hosting some 5,000 American troops, the UAE seeks to send a message to Iran that it remains capable of defending itself and launching assaults with its forces.
The Emirati forces are now battle-hardened from the Saudi-led war in Yemen and the experience gained while serving in the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.
Thursday's maneuvers, called Union Fortress, took place along Abu Dhabi's seaside corniche.
It featured fighter jets, helicopters and a mock seaborne hostage rescue performed by Emirati troops – by Jon Gambrell
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ABU_DHABI_MILITARY_EXERCISE
2.3.2017 – Lowy Institute (* B P)
Oman: A kingdom with no successor
Under Sultan Qaboos Oman came to be known for stability, relative religious tolerance and a market-friendly course. And although Western-oriented, the nation’s neutrality also saw Oman grow into an unlikely soft-power player which facilitated contacts between the United States and Iran that made the 2015 nuclear deal framework possible. Indicators of this small nation’s success take many such unexpected forms - in a country that lacked phones in 1970, the once-sleepy Salalah now boasts half a dozen 3D cinemas.
Notwithstanding this success, the Sultan himself points to the fragility of Oman’s position in the region’s turmoil. All de facto powers of the state, from the important to the obscure, are concentrated in this 76-year-old. His roles range from the prime ministership across key portfolios to command of the military down to patronship of eccentric royal interests.
A serious car crash in Salalah involving the Sultan in 1995 briefly raised the spectre of the unclear royal succession. That brief glimpse of disorder pales in comparison to the present. As Oman walks a diplomatic tightrope between the regional powerhouses of Saudi Arabia and Iran and facilitates peace talks, a small but steady stream of casualties is filling Omani hospitals.
The violence across the border in Yemen could reach Oman just as it is destabilised, not only by an ambiguous succession but by doubts over the country’s governance as a whole. In a region beset by war and growing extremism the viability of a relatively moderate and pro-Western state should be a matter of importance to anyone with an interest in the future of the Middle East – by Alexander Balas
2.3.2017 – Arab News (A P)
France on Wednesday condemned the recruitment of child soldiers by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
“France calls on all parties to the Yemen conflict to abide by international law, which prohibits the use of children in armed conflicts,” said a statement by the French Foreign Ministry.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1061916/middle-east and https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-4581
My comment: One of the biggest arms sellers speaking.
1.3.2017 – Sudan Tribune (A K P)
Sudan’s military participation in Yemen war “big mistake”: al-Mahdi
The Leader of the opposition National Umma Party (NUP) al-Sadiq al-Mahdi has urged the government to pull out the Sudanese troops participating in the war in Yemen describing the move as “big mistake”.
Sudan participates with over 850 troops in the Saudi-led "Decisive Storm" coalition against the Iranian-allied Houthi militants in Yemen.
In an interview with the BBC Arabic TV on Tuesday, al-Mahdi said: “Sudan enjoys strong relations with the two conflicting parties and [therefore is qualified to] mediate to stop this sectarian war that would yield nothing but the destruction of Yemen and its people”.
“Sudan’s involvement in the war in Yemen is a very big mistake,” he added.
The veteran leader pointed that the warring parties in Yemen “feel they were embroiled [in this war] and we should assist to drive them out of this dilemma instead of participating in it”.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article61774
cp13a Flüchtlinge / Refugees
Siehe / Look at cp1
3.3.2017 – International Organization for Migration (* A H)
Some 273,780 people are displaced in Yemen’s Taizz Governorate, according to IOM’s most recent Task Force on Population Movements (TFPM) report. This places it among the top five internally displaced persons (IDPs) hosting governorates in the country.
For almost 20 months, Taizz has been the centre of intensive ground clashes, military confrontations and aerial strikes between battling groups in Yemen. The clashes have led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people both within and outside the governorate.
Following mass displacement from Al Mokha, a major port city in Taizz, in February, IOM initiated its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) to monitor their movement and humanitarian needs. So far, a total of 34,920 individuals have been reported as displaced from Al Mokha, according to the DTM. IOM is currently preparing its response for the newly displaced families from Al Mokha.
“Using the DTM to collect data on the vulnerabilities of the displaced population and their host communities is essential to our work, if we want to plan an effective, efficient and impactful humanitarian response,” said Laurent de Boeck, IOM Yemen Chief of Mission.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/displacement-spikes-yemen-s-taizz-governorate-clashes-intensify-al-mokha-city = http://www.iom.int/news/displacement-spikes-yemens-taizz-governorate-clashes-intensify-al-mokha-city
cp13b Wirtschaft / Economy
2.3.2017 – Accuracy (* B E)
Breaking the Yemen Central Bank: Is Saudi Arabia Using Starvation as a Weapon?
“Now what we’re seeing is another layer of actually using starvation as a weapon: The Saudi government — with U.S. government support — has effectively eliminated the Central Bank of Yemen. This has been the only institution standing between hundreds of thousands — millions, really — and the prospect of famine.
“Clearly the IMF could not have carried out the action it did — cutting off Yemen from the bank that held its foreign exchange reserve — without U.S. government approval.” See report from the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies: “Yemen Without a Functioning Central Bank: The loss of basic economic stabilization and accelerating famine.”
Porter added: “An on-going major under-reported story of the Saudi attack on Yemen is that it could not have happened without the active logistical support of the U.S. — i.e., refueling of planes in flight.
“But now, it’s not even enough to stop the bombing, The primary danger is not the immediate bombs. It’s the lack of food and medicine and fuel — and now taking away the capacity of people in Yemen to purchase those necessities.” – by GARETH PORTER
2.3.2017 – Oil Price (* A E)
Yemeni Oil Reserves Under Dispute As Civil War Rages On
A Yemeni economic expert from the region contends that French Total’s operations in the Kharkhir region amount to stealing on behalf of Saudi Arabia and ousted president Mansour Hadi – who, as the internationally recognized leader of Yemen, likely believes his actions are within his range of powers.
As the Yemen civil war carries on, Yemen’s oil reserves are becoming a specific point of tension between Yemen’s ousted Sunni leaders and their Saudi backers, and the Shi’ite Houthis and their Iranian backers.
“Saudi Arabia has set up an oil base in collaboration with the French Total company in the Southern parts of Kharkhir region near the Saudi border province of Najran and is exploiting oil from the wells in the region," Mohammad Abdolrahman Sharafeddin told Fars News Agency of Iran on Tuesday. "Sixty-three percent of Yemen's crude production is being stolen by Saudi Arabia in cooperation with Mansour Hadi, the fugitive Yemeni president, and his mercenaries.” – By Zainab Calcuttawala
1.3.2017 – World Food Programme (* A E H)
Yemen - Shipping Update (1 March 2017)
Al Hudaydah Port:
5 vessels operational at port quaysides (4 commercial + WFP charter vessel MV Daytona Beach) 2 vessels at anchorage (all commercial) 11 vessels expected to call (all commercial)
Al Saleef Port:
2 vessels operational at port quaysides (all commercial) 2 vessels at anchorage (all commercial) 5 vessels expected to call at Al Saleef Port (all commercial)
Ras Issa (oil terminal in Red Sea):
1 vessel operational at port quaysides (all commercial) 0 vessel at anchorage 0 vessel expected to call at Ras Issa
Aden :
9 vessels operational at port quaysides (8 are commercial + WFP charter Vessel VOS Apollo) 5 vessels at anchorage (all commercial) 4 vessels expected to call at Aden Port (all commercial)
Situation at Al Hudaydah
There are currently 5 vessels discharging at Al Hudaydah port carrying commercial cargo (3 carrying steel and 2 carrying wheat) totaling 73,303 mt.
Currently, there are 2 vessels at anchorage awaiting berth totaling 35,518 mt (23,071 mt of Steel and 12,447 mt of MoGas).
WFP charter vessel MV Daytona Beach, carrying 20,000 mt bulk wheat, berthed in Al Hudaydah Port. Discharge commenced on 1 March 2017 14:45 and is expected to complete discharge (14,000 mt bulk wheat) by 3-4.March 2017. Therefore, the vessel will proceed to Aden to discharge 6,000 mt of bulk wheat.
PIL container vessel Kota Anggun was granted UNVIM clearance to call at Al Hudaydah with 95X20' WFP oil shipment on board. The vessel is still awaiting final Coalition warship clearance to proceed from the holding area to anchorage.
There are 11 vessels expected totalling 114,365 mt: 23,870 mt steel, 30,250 mt wheat, 19,000 mt cement, 30,630 mt soya, 8,086 mt MoGas and cars (weighing 2,529 mt) and 1,965 containers.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-shipping-update-1-march-2017 = http://www.logcluster.org/document/wfp-yemen-port-situation-update = http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/port_situation_1march2017.pdf
22.2.2017 – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (A E)
Yemen: Cash and Market Based Response (January-December 2016)
http://reliefweb.int/map/yemen/yemen-cash-and-market-based-response-january-december-2016 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/a3_yemen_cmwg_en_22022017_0.pdf
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
Siehe auch / Look also at cp1, cp9. The Washington Post on the newest raids, cp1
3.3.2017 – Reuters (* A K T)
Zeugen - USA greifen erneut Al-Kaida-Ziele im Jemen an
US-Truppen haben offenbar erneut Ziele der radikalislamischen Al-Kaida im Jemen angegriffen.
Die Soldaten seien in das Dorf Wadi Jaschbum in der Provinz Schabwa vorgerückt und hätten sich mit mutmaßlichen Extremisten ein halbstündiges Gefecht geliefert, berichteten Zeugen am Freitag. Dabei seien auch Drohnen und Apache-Kampfhubschrauber eingesetzt worden. Während des Einsatzes habe es zehn bis 15 Luftangriffe gegeben. Einige Zivilisten seien verletzt worden. Auch in der benachbarten Provinz Abjan berichteten Bewohner von Gefechten zwischen US-Soldaten und Al-Kaida-Kämpfern.
http://de.reuters.com/article/jemen-usa-al-kaida-idDEKBN16A17L
Mein Kommentar: Reuters auf Deutsch berichtet über diese direkten Militäreinsätze, wie auch die Washington Post (siehe cp1), während Reuters auf Englisch berichtet, die USA würden in Abrede stellen, dass direkte Militäreinsätze durchgeführt wurden.
3.3.2017 – AFP (* A T)
USA attackieren zweiten Tag in Folge Al-Kaida-Stellungen im Jemen
US-Kampfjets haben am Freitag den zweiten Tag in Folge Al-Kaida-Stellungen im Jemen bombardiert. Nach Angaben von Stammesvertretern trafen US-Kampfflugzeuge noch vor Sonnenaufgang drei Häuser im Jaschbam-Tal im Süden des Landes, darunter das des Al-Kaida-Befehlshabers der Provinz Schabwa, Saad Atef. Dabei habe es Tote gegeben, darunter auch Frauen und Kinder.
3.3.2017 – Neue Züricher Zeitung (* A K T)
Militärische Eskalation in Jemen: US-Offensive gegen die Kaida
Die amerikanische Luftwaffe hat in der Nacht auf Freitag ihre Angriffe auf die Kaida in Jemen intensiviert. Am Donnerstag hatten die Amerikaner laut Angaben des Pentagons mehr als zwanzig Angriffe gegen die Kaida in Jemen durchgeführt. Die Offensive ging am Freitag weiter. Lokale Quellen meldeten gegenüber Nachrichtenagenturen den Tod von zwölf mutmasslichen Mitgliedern der Kaida auf der Arabischen Halbinsel.
Während bei der letzten Operation rasch Meldungen von getöteten Zivilisten die Runde machten, die in Jemen Entsetzen und Wut auslösten, herrschte diesmal zunächst Unklarheit über zivile Opfer. Auch waren wenig Informationen über die getöteten Kaida-Mitglieder erhältlich – von Monika Bolliger
3.3.2017 – Reuters (** A K T)
U.S. wages second day of strikes on al Qaeda in Yemen
The United States carried out a second day of air strikes against al Qaeda in Yemen on Friday, U.S. officials said, in the latest sign of increasing U.S. military focus on a group whose strength has grown during Yemen's civil war.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said at a news briefing that the United States had carried out more than 30 strikes over the past two days in Shabwah, Abyan and Al Bayda provinces.
The U.S. military did not disclose how many al Qaeda fighters were killed on Friday although Reuters reported that Thursday's strikes, using manned and unmanned aircraft, left at least nine militants dead.
The U.S. military did not rule out further strikes in the days ahead.
"I don't want to telegraph future operations but this is part of a plan to go after this very real threat and ensure they are defeated," Davis said at a Pentagon news briefing.
Residents told Reuters on Friday that U.S. air strikes were accompanied by gun battles, which they thought involved U.S. soldiers on the ground in Yemen.
The Pentagon denied U.S. involvement in any ground combat and it was unclear if one of the United States' Gulf allies might have been engaged in gun battles – By Phil Stewart, Mohammed Mukhashaf
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKBN16A0K0
3.3.2017 – Reuters (* A K T)
Pentagon confirms new U.S. strikes in Yemen, but says no U.S. raids
The Pentagon confirmed a new wave of strikes on Friday in Yemen against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula but a spokesman denied reports that American forces had been engaged in ground combat or conducting raids.
"I know there have been reports of firefights, raids, there have not been any that U.S. forces have been involved in -- not since the one you know about," Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman told a news briefing, adding that since Thursday there had been about 30 U.S. strikes in total against the group.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-usa-pentagon-idUSKBN16A23U
3.3.2017 – Reuters (* A T)
U.S. hits al Qaeda in Yemen with new wave of strikes
The United States carried out another wave of strikes against al Qaeda in Yemen overnight, residents and U.S. officials said on Friday, in the latest sign of increasing U.S. military focus on a group whose strength has grown during Yemen's civil war.
A day after U.S. forces carried out more than 20 air strikes in Yemen, residents reported another U.S. assault in the Wadi Yashbum village in the southern Shabwah province including about 10 to 15 air strikes.
Residents said some of the strikes hit civilian homes and a number of civilians were among the wounded.
About three hours later, residents in the Jabal Mugan area of neighboring Abyan province also reported air strikes.
Residents also cited ground battles involving American soldiers and al Qaeda militants but two U.S. officials told Reuters the latest operations did not involve ground combat.
"None of our troops were involved in a firefight over the last period of darkness," one of the U.S. officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity – By Mohammed Mukhashaf and Phil Stewart
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKBN16A0K0
My comment: According to the article, they did not hit Al Qaeda but civilians.
2.3.2017 – Reuters (* A T)
U.S. pounds al Qaeda in Yemen with more than 20 strikes
The United States said it carried out more than 20 precision strikes in Yemen targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on Thursday, in what appeared to be the first major operations against the group since a January raid by U.S. commandos.
The Pentagon said the strikes, which were first reported by Reuters, targeted al Qaeda militants, heavy weapons systems, equipment, infrastructure and fighting positions.
They were carried out in the Yemeni governorates of Abyan, Al Bayda and Shabwah.
"The strikes will degrade the AQAP's ability to coordinate external terror attacks and limit their ability to use territory seized from the legitimate government of Yemen as a safe space for terror plotting," Navy Captain Jeff Davis said, using an acronym for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The U.S. military did not estimate the number of militants killed in the strikes, but residents and local officials in southern Yemen said that at least nine suspected al Qaeda militants died in two separate incidents.
They said four men believed to belong to al Qaeda died in a strike on a building in al-Saeed, an area of Shabwa province home to the al-Awaleq, the extended clan of Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant and U.S. citizen killed in by U.S. drone in 2011.
Another five suspected al Qaeda fighters died when a missile fired by a drone struck a vehicle carrying weapons while traveling on a road between al-Wadie district and the area of Moujan, in Abyan province, some 40 km (25 miles) away, according to a local official.
In a separate incident, residents and local officials in the Gulf of Aden town of Shuqra in southern Yemen also reported air strikes in an adjacent mountain area where hundreds of al Qaeda militants are believed to be based.
They said they heard loud explosions early on Thursday morning in al-Maraqisha, a rugged mountainous area where al Qaeda militants took refuge last year after they were driven out of Yemeni cities they had captured earlier.
There were no immediate details available on damages or casualties caused by those strikes - By Phil Stewart and Mohammed Mukhashaf
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKBN1691MC
3.3.2017 – NBC (A T)
Regional Al Qaeda Leader Killed In Yemen Airstrike
The brother-in-law of a regional Yemeni al Qaeda leader confirmed to NBC News that the al Qaeda leader was killed overnight in a U.S. airstrike, one of a wave of strikes in Yemen that began Thursday.
Osama Haidar was in a car in Abyan province with several other men when their car was struck by either a drone or a plane, said his brother-in-law , Aly Mohamed Somly, via phone from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. "I found out today that he and four others were hit ... and killed," said Somly.
"The car belonged to al Qaeda," said Somly. He named one of the other dead men as Radwan al Naqib.
Yemeni media described Haidar as the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in a portion of the governorate of Aden.
http://www.nbcnews.com/card/regional-al-qaeda-leader-killed-yemen-airstrike-n728846
3.3.2017 – Defense One (* A P T)
Escalation in Yemen; Drone strikes soar under Trump
About those 20-plus airstrikes on Thursday: An unnamed defense official told the Washington Post “there was a total of 25 strikes by manned and unmanned aircraft, far more attacks in a sing
What occurred Thursday: A man the Post reports is the “head of the government’s special forces media office in Aden, described a multi-pronged air assault, which he said involved not only aircraft but also attacks from U.S. ships off Yemen’s coast. In one instance, a car was struck near an area of Abyan province called Mowjan, killing all five passengers, he said. Senior AQAP figures were thought to be among the dead.” The Post writes that it appears to be too soon for a wider casualty count, “but local news media reported that ‘hundreds’ of militants were slain.”
What’s behind this? There is, of course, that late January SEAL raid worth flagging in this context.
But perhaps more to the point, the Post reports “that the military had been granted temporary authority to conduct intensified air operations against AQAP in some areas of Yemen. The granting of that authority for what is known in government jargon as an ‘area of active hostility’ typically enables the military to launch strikes without a more lengthy approval process managed by the White House.”
Granting these new authorities is hardly new, writes the Post. Something similar happened ahead of the “multi-month air campaign against the Islamic State last year” in Libya. More to the story—including a bit more on some recent reports of U.S. troops landing in Yemen by helicopter, but who reportedly departed without firing a shot—here.
One more thing: WaPo’s Thomas Gibbons-Neff highlights another obstacle in the way of OPSEC for American special operators in Yemen. The culprit here: footwear – by Ben Watson
http://www.defenseone.com/news/2017/03/the-d-brief-march-03-2017/135869/
Remark: The Washington Post article in cp1.
2.3.2017 – CNN (* A T)
US launches airstrikes in Yemen
Multiple locations were struck with the US military targeting militants, equipment, infrastructure, heavy weapons systems and fighting positions in the Abyan, Shabwa and Baydha regions.
Two US officials told CNN that manned and unmanned aircraft were used and that the military assesses that al Qaeda personnel were killed.
"The strikes were conducted in partnership with the government of Yemen," US Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement.
He added that they aimed to degrade the terror group's "ability to coordinate external terror attacks and limit their ability to use territory seized from the legitimate government of Yemen as a safe space for terror plotting."
The strikes are the first ones to target the Yemen-based terror group since the deadly January raid in Baydha
A US defense official told CNN, however, that the latest strikes had been planned for some time and were not the result of intelligence the US obtained from the January operation, which yielded multiple terabytes of data gathered from the AQAP site – By Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/us-airstrikes-yemen-al-qaeda/index.html
2.3.2017 – Buzzfeed (* A T)
The US Launched Twenty Strikes Into Yemen In The Span Of A Few Hours
The US military struck at al-Qaeda militants and camps in Yemen, signaling the US will continue the fight in that war-torn country despite the fallout from a botched Navy SEAL mission.
Two US defense officials told BuzzFeed News that the strikes had been planned months before the Jan. 29 raid and that it did not appear that intelligence gleaned from last month’s raid was part of the overnight strikes. Rather the strikes were part of a long-planned campaign to go after the terror group, which some defense officials believe is the largest threat to Western allies, having planted operatives across Europe.
The 20 strikes, conducted over a several-hour period beginning 3 a.m. local time, targeted AQAP’s “military, equipment and infrastructure,” according to a Defense Department statement.
Targets of the strikes included militants, equipment, infrastructure, heavy weapons systems and fighting positions.
The Pentagon did not offer any specifics, however, about the targets or the success of the strikes, or say whether they had been carried out by warplanes, drones or cruise missiles
The strikes were spread across three provinces, Abyan, Shabwah and Bayda, the last being the same place where US Navy SEALs raided a suspected al-Qaeda compound – by Nancy A. Youssef
2.3.2017 – US Dep. of Defense (* A T)
Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook on USS Mason
Press Operations
Release No: NR-083-17, March 2, 2017
U.S. forces conducted a series of precision strikes in Yemen against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, in the early morning of March 2 (Yemen time). More than 20 strikes targeted AQAP militants, equipment and infrastructure in the Yemeni governorates of Abyan, Al Bayda and Shabwah.
The strikes were conducted in partnership with the Government of Yemen, and were coordinated with President Hadi. The Government of Yemen is a valuable counter-terrorism partner, and we support its efforts to bring stability to the region by fighting known terrorist organizations like AQAP.
The strikes will degrade the AQAP's ability to coordinate external terror attacks and limit their ability to use territory seized from the legitimate government of Yemen as a safe space for terror plotting. Targets of the strikes included militants, equipment, infrastructure, heavy weapons systems and fighting positions.
AQAP has taken advantage of ungoverned spaces in Yemen to plot, direct, and inspire terror attacks against the United States and our allies. U.S. forces will continue to work with the Government of Yemen to defeat AQAP and deny it the ability to operate in Yemen.
2.3.2017 – Gregory D Johnsen (A K T)
One of the US strikes in Yemen targeted the house of Abdalilah al-Dhahab brother of the two targets of the SEAL Raid (photo)
https://twitter.com/gregorydjohnsen/status/837359309772189697 referring to:
2.3.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K T)
US aircraft bombed a house in Al Bayda province, no casualties
Local residents said that fighter is believed to be a US drone launched an air strike on Thursday, at the home of a tribal leader Abdul Ilah al-Dhahab, a close associate of al-Qaida, but the strike missed the house without causing aerial bombing victims.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ar&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.almasdaronline.com%2Farticle%2F89237&edit-text= http://www.almasdaronline.com/article/89237 and just a photo of a donkey killed at this raid: https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837316220143689729
3.3.2017 – Press TV Iran (A P T)
US raids in Yemen meant to hit Houthis not al-Qaeda: Analyst
An author and journalist believes that the recent drone strikes in Yemen indicate that Donald Trump is a warmongering US president, and that there has been no evidence so far that his claim about wanting to smash terrorist groups is being fulfilled.
“The Pentagon claims that it is going after al-Qaeda and we had a raid about a month ago at a supposed al-Qaeda village that did nothing more than massacre civilians, cause a lot of destruction, destroy the village and gain nothing,” Stephen Lendman told Press TV in an interview on Friday.
He also called the recent mission a “total fiasco” and a “disaster”, noting that the death toll of innocent civilians in Yemen just goes without mention in US media.
The analyst further highlighted the fact that the United States is using Saudi Arabia as a “proxy force” in Yemen.
Therefore, he said, maybe the US raids are intended to go after the Houthi fighters, because it does not make sense that Washington targets al-Qaeda terrorists who are being used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
My comment: No, I do not think this. If the US would have wanted to target the Houthis, they had done it, and they would not have droned in this region. Lendman of course is right when he states that the US anti-terror policy is highly inconsistent when fighting against terrorism and having an alliance with the greatest sponsor of terrorism. But this is no news anyway; they do so since decades.
2.3.2017 – AFP (*A T)
Vier mutmaßliche Islamisten bei US-Drohnenangriffen im Jemen getötet
Bei US-Drohnenangriffen im Jemen sind am Donnerstag mindestens vier mutmaßliche Al-Kaida-Kämpfer getötet worden. Nach Angaben aus jemenitischen Sicherheitskreisen griff eine Drohne am frühen Morgen eine Gruppe von Männern an, die sich vor dem Haus eines Al-Kaida-Kämpfers im Jaschbum-Tal in der Provinz Schabwa versammelt hatten. Dabei seien vier von ihnen getötet worden.
Bemerkung: Es waren mehr Angriffe. Wie fast immer sind die englischsprachigen Berichte besser.
2.3.2017 – Terror Monitor (* A K T)
#AlQaeda In The Arabian Peninsula (#AQAP) Claims To Have Thwarted An Attempted #US Landing Operation In #Abyan (text in image, Arabic)
https://twitter.com/Terror_Monitor/status/837372994636767234
and
2.3.2017 – Hakim Almasmari, Yemen Post (* A K T)
2nd #YemenRaid conducted by #US ground troops this morning in #Yemen region Abyan accompanied by 100+ UAE & local forces, official tells me.
https://twitter.com/HakimAlmasmari/status/837293409090035712
2.3.2017 – Josephjo1221 (A K T)
Remnants left by American soldiers last night in Abyan while attempting landings in Abyan Coast (photos)
https://twitter.com/JosephJo1221/status/837339573294411777 and https://twitter.com/JosephJo1221
My comment: That is a claim by Al Qaida; US media do not mention this attempt, which sounds quite dubious. All the stuff at the shore could have been photographed anywhere at any time.
and more photos:
2.3.2017 – Thomas Gibbons-Neff (A K T)
Images circulating today of SOF boot prints in Yemen may seem trivial, but just show how easy it is to be compromised in these situations (photos)
https://twitter.com/Tmgneff/status/837524081301868545
2.3.2017 – Nasser Arrabyee (* B T)
Trump helping Qaeda/ISIS in Yemen more blindly than Obama
US President Donald Trump has helped Yemen Qaeda/ISIS by his failed commandos raid on one of its strongholds in Al Bayda south east of the country late January.
Recruitment now is more, support from inside and outside is more. Support with money and weapons from Saudi Arabia in particular is more than ever before.
Although, 7 members,at least, of this government are designated by US Treasury Department as global terrorists.
The boss of the men killed in the raid (Qaeda/ISIS operatives&leaders) is Naif Al Qaisy who has been directing Qaeda/ISIS operations against Houthis for about two years now from Riyadh.
Al Qaisy is the ruler of Albayda State ( as called by Qaeda/ISIS).
Earlier last year, Saudi-backed exiled president Hadi appointed Mr Al Qaisy as the governor of Albayda, making it easier for him to send money and weapons from Riyadh.
Mr Abdul Wahab Al Humaikani, is from Albayda also but another tribe. From Riyadh, he is overseeing the Qaeda/ISIS operations against Houthis. Al Humaikani is one of the 7 members of Yemen exiled government despite the fact that they are global terrorists blacklisted by US Treasury Department.
Shortly after the Trump failed commando raid, two officials at least from Yemen exiled government confirmed that Trump made a big mistake by killing their men.
General Muhsen Khusruf, from Hadi army, said in media statements that the men killed had been a part of the "legitimate" government, a part of the "resistance" against Houthis.
Trump failed by sending his men to death, and destroying his advanced helicopters and weapons. He could have asked his Saudi ally to hand over the men, better than risking commandos life.
Obama was seen to support his enemy, Qaeda/ISIS by supporting Saudi Wahabi regime, the spirit of these terrorist groups.
Qaeda/ISIS is the big winner from US-backed Saudi aggression on Yemen. Not only because of exploiting the chaos to further expand and recruit but also it received direct and indirect support (weapons and money) from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and United States.
At least 7 members of the government of the exiled President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi are designated by US Treasury Department as global terrorists and commanders of Qaeda/ISIS.
Naif Al Qaisy, Hassan Abkar, Abdul Wahab Humaikani, Abdul Majid Al Zandani,Said Saleh Al Omgi, Mohammed Saleh Al Omgy, and Abdullah Al Ahdal.
Some of these men are senior officials and holding posts in the Saudi-backed government of Yemen, the so-called internationally recognized government based in Riyadh and some of them are field commanders fighting in Yemen with Saudi forces against Houthis – by Nasser Arrabyee
http://narrabyee-e.blogspot.de/2017/03/trump-helping-qaedaisis-in-yemen-more.html
cp15 Propaganda
3.3.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat ( A P)
Houthi Militias Appropriated the Sum of YR 981 Billion in 2016
Militias running an insurgency in Yemen have reportedly received as much as Yemeni Riyals 581 billion added to an outstanding YR 400 billion in oil payments, during 2016, Saudi state-owned news agency SPA reported.
Despite astronomical funds unwarrantedly acquired by Houthi militiamen and loyalists backing ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, not a single account of expenditure was registered towards health care and services in coup-held areas.
The disregard for sustaining genuine public services in areas controlled by the insurgency reflects the reality of putschists’ determination to bring about the demise of Yemen as well as its people.
My comment: That’s nice propaganda, but that these areas are affected by a destructive Saudi aerial war, seems to be of no importance.
2.3.2017 – Arab News (A P)
Saudi Arabia, Malaysia to establish ‘King Salman Center for Global Peace’
Wide-ranging talks in Kuala Lumpur between Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak have stressed the need to find solutions to the crises in Syria and Yemen, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The two countries also announced the establishment of an international center for peace and harmony that will carry the name “King Salman Center for Global Peace.”
In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the two countries reiterated the urgent need to find solutions to the conflicts in the Middle East, and expressed concern over “the growing Iranian interference in the internal affairs of the Arab countries.”
The joint statement covers political, commercial and cultural issues that were discussed during King Salman’s four-day visit to Malaysia.
Regarding the proposed King Salman Center for Global Peace in Malaysia, the statement named the stakeholders in the project, which are: The Saudi Ministry of Defense, the Center for Security and Defense at the Malaysian Ministry of Defense, the Malaysian University of Islamic Sciences and the Makkah-based Muslim World League (MWL). The statement also said that Saudi Arabia and Malaysia have identical views on key issues in the Middle East region. The two sides also stressed the importance of maintaining the unity of Yemen, and of achieving its security and stability, as well as the importance of coming up with a political solution to the Yemeni crisis, based on the Gulf initiative, outputs of the Yemeni national dialogue and UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
The statement said that the Kingdom and Malaysia “lend all support to the legitimate authority in Yemen, and to the efforts exerted in this regard, as well as facilitating access of aid to all regions of Yemen.”
The two countries expressed deep concern about Iranian interference in the internal affairs of countries in the region, emphasizing “the need for Iran to commit to the principle of good neighborliness and respect for the sovereignty of states.”
In the field of defense cooperation, the statement said: “The two sides agreed to strengthen military cooperation, develop training and joint exercises and exchange military experience.”
The Kingdom and Malaysia have been on the same page over the need to address common security issues, including those posed by Daesh and other terrorist groups.
Malaysia and Saudi Arabia share a strong commitment to countering extremist ideologies and misconceptions about Islam, which are contrary to the moderate and peaceful nature of this world religion.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1061896/saudi-arabia
My comment: This article really is a bad propaganda joke. The Malaysian prime minister was sponsored with US $ 1 billion by the Saudis (he himself, not the state). – „announced the establishment of an international center for peace and harmony that will carry the name “King Salman Center for Global Peace”: That’s Orwellian; who has brought less “peace and harmony” than the Saudi kings? Of course, Malaysia shares the Saudi anti-Iranian paranoia, as one example of Saudi “peace and harmony”, and the Saudi view on Yemen, where the Saudis demonstrate their great love of “peace and harmony” on a daily basis. – This ominous” the proposed King Salman Center for Global Peace” has the best stakeholders you can find for “Global Peace”: “stakeholders in the project, which are: The Saudi Ministry of Defense, the Center for Security and Defense at the Malaysian Ministry of Defense […]” – “Malaysia and Saudi Arabia share a strong commitment to countering extremist ideologies and misconceptions about Islam, which are contrary to the moderate and peaceful nature of this world religion”: Wouww; what is the most “extremist ideology and misconception about Islam”, being “contrary to the moderate and peaceful nature of this world religion”? Exactly: Saudi Wahabism. Will the Saudis finally combat it??
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
3.3.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by#Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen 2/3/2017 (full list)
https://www.facebook.com/551288185021551/photos/a.551858951631141.1073741828.551288185021551/783531478463886/?type=3 and http://www.lcrdye.org/lcrd/Eng/PageDetails?id=1665 (http://www.lcrdye.org/userfiles/files/%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AC%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%B2%D9%8A/Reports%20center/Daily%20reports/2017/3/2%20Mar,%202017.pdf ) and some listed by Yamanyoon: http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=66409&lang=en
2.3.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by#Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen 1/3/2017 (full list)
https://www.facebook.com/551288185021551/photos/a.551858951631141.1073741828.551288185021551/783152171835150/?type=3 and http://lcrdye.org/lcrd/Eng/PageDetails?id=1663
3.3.2017 – Hussain Albukhaiti (* A K PH)
Seems #Saudi #UAE CO use more #Brazilian cluster bombs yesterday bfr midnight on Albarakah district n #Saada N #Yemen 5kild10injurd inc kids (photos)
https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/837687664400826369
Pics of #Brazilian cluster bombs used again by #Saudi #UAE CO on Albarakah area, poorest district of #Saada city #Yemen 5kild10inj inc kids (photos)
https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/837692000472289280
and more photos:
https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/837687664400826369
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837663052698877953
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837665354017034240
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/837704871365251072
https://twitter.com/A_mtrz/status/837676052306620416
https://twitter.com/A_mtrz/status/837698311041781760
and films:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKM43mYQiE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YZXFOsb5K0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bws4REB2x-Y
3.3.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
Jawf: Saudi American Raid Hits Outskirts of Al Ghayl District
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=66468&lang=en
3.3.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
Aggression Kills a Girl, Injuries Five, Including a 70 Year Old Woman
Initial toll reports the death of one girl and injury of another five, most of them women, on Friday as a result of a hostile raid waged by the Saudi American aggression on a civilian house in Hayrna region, Hajjah governorate.
The raid bombarded a citizen’s house in Hayran region, resulting in the killing of Fatima Ala Allah Abkr, whom is a 22 year old. Another four women are now suffering injuries, including a women aged 70 years old. A 19 year old young man is also among the wounded.
All of the victims are of the same family. They are as follows:
1. Fatima Mohamed Nasser Hardi (70 years old)
2. Aish Ala Allah Abkr Hayran (19 years old)
3. Aisha Hamd Ala Allah Abkr (19 years old)
4. Munerah Hamd Ala Allah (10 years old)
5. Fatima Hamd Ala Allah (13 years old)
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=66439&lang=en = http://newnewss.net/?p=3162
and with somewhat higher figures, but only giving these five names:
3.3.2017 – Legal Center (A K PH)
3-3-2017
#Today
At the early morning of Friday, the warplanes of #Saudi_led_coalition launched (1) airstrike that targeted the public houses of the civilians (Ali & Abdullah Hayran) , the airstrike killed (1) woman and (1) child, injured (7) others including women and children, also many livestock had killed at this area, the destruction of many civilians' houses in #Hayran district, #Hajja (photos)
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=783646888452345&id=551288185021551 = https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1645712635724724
and films:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBR0qDgqDzw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uogkWlDjWGM
3.3.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
US-Backed Saudi Warplanes Wage Int. Banned Cluster Bombs on Saada
Warplanes of the US-backed Saudi aggression recently intensified bombardment on residential areas in various Yemeni governorates, and used international banned cluster bombs on Saada governorate as well as districts of Hajjah governorate.
The hostile fighter jets dropped on Thursday cluster bombs on a number of residential neighborhoods in Saada. In addition, two other raids hit Al-Matajrf region in Dahir district, security source reported.
In Hajjah governorate, at least ten air strikes targeted districts of Haridh and Medi, two of them cluster bombs.
In the capital Sana’a, the Saudi American aggression waged two raids on Sawad region, while another three struck Hyss district, Hodeidah governorate.
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=66409&lang=en
2.3.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
Saada: One Killed, Two Injured by Saudi American Cluster Bombs on Baraka Region
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=66400&lang=en
2.3.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Haja: Coalition warplanes pound Houthis reinforcements
The fighter jets of the Saudi-led Arab Coalition launched on Thursday five air raids on Houthi-Saleh militants in Harad city of Haja governorate, northwestern Yemen.
The Media Centre of the pro-government Fifth Military Region posted on Facebook that the air raids targeted Houthi reinforcements and other gatherings.
“The aerial bombardment resulted in the destruction of ammunition stores and military equipment”.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89259
2.3.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi fighter jets launch strike on Sana'a
The US- Saudi aggression warplanes on Thursday waged a strike on Ma'en district of Sana'a province, a local official told Saba.
The strike hit Aviation Faculty, causing heavy damage to the Faculty and citizens' houses the official added.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457751.htm
My comment: How often did they already target the Aviation Faculty? I don’t know – very often. What still should be there?
1.3.2017 – Yemen Post (A K)
Night ATTACKS: Saudi Airstrike rocks heart of #Yemen capital #Sanaa shaking homes & waking up 100,000s sleeping children.
https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/837024895003410433
1.3.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi aggression wages raids on Dhamar
The US-Saudi aggression warplanes launched on Wednesday air strikes on Dhamar province, a military official told Saba.
The official added the aggression warplanes targeted al-Maidan area in Utmah district with two air strikes.
1.3.2017 – Almasirah TV (A K PH)
Film: The devastation caused by the Saudi American aggression in Marib, Serwah
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457718.htm
cp17a Kriegsereignisse: Küste / Theater of War: Coast
2.3.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Al Mocha: pro-government forces thwart Houthis attack, bomb sites
A military source said that the pro-government forces have been fighting fierce battles against the Houthi-Saleh militias in the outskirts of Mawzei district, in coincidence with artillery and missile shelling exchanged by both sides in northern al Mocha district western Taiz city, southwestern Yemen.
The source told Almasdaronline that the pro-government forces thwarted on Thursday violent raids waged by the Houthis on al Khazan mount eastern al Mocha.
The source added that the pro-government forces also waged a counter attack on Houthis sites on the road leading from eastern al Mocha to Khaled camp, and the battles were still flaring (06:00pm).
The source pointed out that three pro-government soldiers were killed and seven others wounded, while eight Houthi militiamen were killed and 11 others wounded.
Meanwhile, the Saudi-led Arab Coalition fighter jets launched about 10 air raids on the Houthiss sites in northern al Mocha, and destroyed reinforcements coming from the al Khocha district, which resulted in casualties, according to the source.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89255
2.3.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Pro-government forces expand military operations under coalition aerial cover
Under an aerial cover from the warplanes of the Saudi-led Arab Coalition, the pro-government forces expanded on Wednesday the military operations against the Houthi-Saleh forces in Mawza district in western Taiz governorate, southwestern Yemen.
A source in the field told Almasdaronline that the pro-government forces seized new sites around the main road leading from eastern al Mocha to the Khaled ben al Walid camp.
The pro-government forces shelled the sites of the Houthis and allied forces in the outskirts of Mawza and near Khaled camp, according to the source.
Meanwhile, the engineering teams are going on clearing the landmines planted by the Houthis in the remaining areas in eastern al Mocha.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89245
2.3.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Houthis bombing kill a child, injure two during pro-government forces festival
A child was killed and two other civilians injured on Wednesday in a missile shelling launched by the Houthis-Saleh forces on al Khayami village in al Maafer district western Taiz, southwestern Yemen.
A local source told Almasdaronline that the Houthis and allied forces have fired a Katyusha rocket on al Khayami village, which resulted in the killing of the 12 year-old Amro Ziad Sultan and the injury of two others.
The shelling was launched while the pro-government forces were celebrating the graduation of the second batch forces of the 35 Armored Brigade, according to the source.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89244
2.3.2017 – MbKS15 (A K PS)
#UAE Oshkosh M-ATV & AJBAN 440A vehicles patrol the port city of Al Mokha, #Yemen (photos)
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/837245887998996480
My comment: They might do, but these photos actually tell nothing (could be in Argentine or Russia or where ever as well).
1.3.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Army kills some Saudi-paid mercenaries in Mocha
Some Saudi mercenaries were killed on Wednesday in Mocha district of Taiz province, a military official told Saba.
The army and popular forces carried out a qualitative military operation in the eastern Mocha district, causing the killing and injuring a number of Saudi-paid mercenaries.
The two armored vehicles, heavy and medium firearms were also seized in the military operation by the army and popular forces.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457714.htm
cp17b Kriegsereignisse: Sonstige / Theater of War: Other
3.3.2017 – Yemen Conflict Map (A K)
A map of the control of the Directorates Hajjah, Which contains 31 Directorate
Last Updated: March 3, 2017
https://twitter.com/YemConfMaps/status/837692237790199808
My comment: Hajjah province, Northwestern Yemen, at the coast, in the north: Saudi Arabia. Red: Hadi forces. Green: Houthi / Saleh forces.
3.3.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
a woman has been suffering injuries due to fire waged by Saudi-paid mercenaries in Kidha region, Mafar district, Taiz governorate.
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=66409&lang=en
3.3.2017 – Yemen Conflict Map (A K)
Map of control of directorates Jawf province. Black lines are the boundaries of districts
https://twitter.com/YemConfMaps/status/837692237790199808
Last Updated: March 3, 2017
My comment: Jawf province, northern Yemen, in the north: Saudi Arabia. Red: Hadi forces. Green: Houthi / Saleh forces.
https://twitter.com/YemConfMaps/status/837670677415088128
1.3.2017 – Xinhua (A K)
Saudi army, Yemen's Houthi fighters trade artillery shelling on border
Fierce border battles erupted again on Saudi-Yemeni border Wednesday between the Saudi military forces and Yemen's Shiite Houthi fighters, a military official in the Yemeni capital told Xinhua.
The official, on condition of anonymity, said the two rival forces traded artillery shelling in Muthalath area of Shada district in the Yemeni far north border province of Saada, which is the main stronghold of Houthis, and the Saudi areas off Saada.
The Saudi artillery attack was covered by heavy air strikes from Saudi-led coalition warplanes against Houthi military sites.
Saudi residents near the Saudi border areas said on social media that many artillery shells fired by Houthis landed near their residential quarters, and the powerful explosions of the shells rocked the whole region.
No casualties were reported yet, but the official, who is monitoring front lines between both rival forces, said there were dozens of killed and injured from both sides without specifying exact number.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-03/02/c_136095013.htm
1.3.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Al Bayda: six women and children wounded in Houthis bombing
Three children and three women were wounded on Tuesday in shelling launched by the Houthi-Saleh militiamen on residential neighborhoods in al Zahir district in Al Bayda governorate, central Yemen.
The 14 year-old Salim Saleh was also injured by a Houthi sniper shot in the same district, according to the source.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89223
Houthi / Saleh reports:
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=66432&lang=en
https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2017/03/02/1343936/yemeni-forces-fire-missiles-at-saudi-targets
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457749.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457750.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457761.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457766.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457772.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457722.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news457709.htm
Pro Hadi / Pro-Saudi reports:
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89248
http://almasdaronline.com/article/89224
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
2.3.2017 – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (A)
Desert Locust Bulletin 461 (February 2017)
General Situation during February 2017 Forecast until mid-April 2017
The Desert Locust situation improved during February. Intensive control operations reduced infestations along the Red Sea coast in Saudi Arabia and locusts declined on the coast of Sudan as vegetation dried out.
http://reliefweb.int/report/saudi-arabia/desert-locust-bulletin-461-february-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/DL461e.pdf
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-273-yemen-war-mosaic-273
Jemenkrieg-Mosaik 1-273 / Yemen War Mosaic 1-273:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose oder / or
http://poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm
Der saudische Luftkrieg im Bild / Saudi aerial war images:
(18 +, Nichts für Sensible!) / (18 +; Graphic!)
http://poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm und / and http://yemenwarcrimes.blogspot.de/
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