US escalating Yemen war – Saudi war in Yemen illegal – US drone war under Trump – Yemen’s shameful war – Hitting Iran where it does not hurt – Human Rights watch 2016 report – Yemen Al Qaeda – A lot of propaganda – Air raids – and more
Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Klassifizierung / Classification
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp2 Allgemein / General
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
cp4 Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
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
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
cp9 USA
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
cp11 Deutschland / Germany
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms trade
cp13b Flüchtlinge / Refugees
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp15 Propaganda
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
Klassifizierung / Classification
***
**
*
(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
1.4.2017 – Moon of Alabama / Linke Zeitung (** B K P)
USA wollen Krieg gegen den hungernden Jemen eskalieren
Der Krieg gegen den Jemen wurde begonnen, um die Männlichkeit der saudischen Prinzen zu zeigen. Na gut, das war wohl nicht der angegebene Grund, aber es ist der einzige, der einen Sinn ergibt. Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika beteiligen sich an dem Krieg, weil … eigentlich weiß es niemand:
An dem Morgen vor zwei Jahren, an dem diese Neuigkeit vom Nationalen Sicherheitsrat (NSC) auf die Website des Weißen Hauses gestellt wurde, wurde General Lloyd J. Austin, Befehlshaber des U.S. Central Command, über die Ziele der Unterstützung der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika befragt. Seine verblüffende Antwort ist noch immer die genaueste Charakterisierung von Seiten eines US-Regierungsvertreters: „Ich kenne zur Zeit nicht die besonderen Ziele und Absichten der Kampagne der Saudis, und ich müsste diese kennen, um die Wahrscheinlichkeit des Erfolgs beurteilen zu können.“ Abgesehen vom Abwurf von Waffen mit einem skrupellosen Mangel an Unterscheidungsvermögen und Verhältnismäßigkeit hat es den Anschein, dass es bis zum heutigen Tag keinen eindeutigen Ziele und Absichten gibt.
Die Saudis behaupten, dass ihre Koalition in den zwei Jahren dieses Kriegs 90.000 Bomben abgeworfen hat.Das sind 123 Bomben pro Tag. 5 Bomben pro Stunde ohne jeglichen guten Grund. Und ohne jeden Nutzen für sie. Die Houthi/Saleh-Allianz, die gegen die Saudis kämpft, behauptet 176 AFVs, 643 MRAPs, 147 MBTs, 12 Apaches, 20 Drohnen und 4 Flugzeuge zerstört zu haben. Zusätzlich wurden 109 taktische Raketen abgefeuert. Viele dieser (sicher übertriebenen) Houthi/Saleh-Erfolge erfolgten auf saudischem Boden. Seine Wüste im Süden schützt Saudiarabien nicht, sondern öffnet es für Angriffe.
Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika stellen Planung, Aufklärung, Betankung in der Luft und die Munition für die Bombardierungen der Saudis zur Verfügung. Ohne die Unterstützung der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika würde es diese Krieg gar nicht geben!
Die UNO behauptet, dass die Zahl der Toten dieses Kriegs lediglich 5.000 betrage. Andere sprechen von 7 – 8.000. Diese Zahlen sind lächerlich. Ein einziger Angriff der Saudis, ein „Doppelschlag“ auf eine Begräbnishalle in Sanaa, tötete über 800. Die wirkliche Zahl der Toten in diesem Krieg liegt jetzt wahrscheinlich jenseits der 100.000. Besonders im Nordwesten des Jemen an der Grenze zu Saudiarabien wurde jede jemenitische Stadt und Ortschaft in Ruinen gebombt. Wo sind die Menschen, die dort gelebt haben?
Die Saudis haben einfach der UNO gedroht, sie würden alle Zahlungen für alle Hilfsprojekte einstellen, falls sie sich nicht ruhig verhält. Die UNO ging in die Knie.
Der Jemen hungert. Sogar schon vor dem Krieg wurden 90% der Grundnahrungsmittel des Jemen importiert. Seither haben die Saudis sämtliche Nahrungsfabriken, Hühnerfarmen und Häfen bombardiert. Alle größeren Brücken wurden abgeschnitten. Es gibt keinen Weg mehr, um Nahrung in die Hauptstadt Sanaa und die anderen Gebiete zu bringen, die die Saudis belagern. Unzureichende offizielle Hilfelieferungen laufen noch immer über den Hafen Hodeida an der westlichen Küste. Der Hafen wird von der Houthi/Saleh-Allianz kontrolliert, die die Saudis eliminieren wollen. Der Hafen wird jedoch auf der Seeseite blockiert. Marine und Luftwaffe der Saudis zerstören alle Schiffe, die versuchen hinein oder heraus zu fahren. Einige offizielle Hilfsschiffe dürfen passieren, haben aber Probleme mit dem Entladen. Alle großen Kräne im Hafen sind durch Luftangriffe zerstört worden.
Dennoch – um absichtlich alle 17 Millionen Jemeniten mit „unsicherer Nahrungsversorgung,“ das heißt extrem hungrig und nahezu verhungert, auszuhungern, muss der Hafen völlig geschlossen werden. Aus diesem Grund planen die VAE und die Saudis, ihn zu erobern und zu besetzen. Die Kämpfe um den Hafen werden einen guten Vorwand bieten, ihn so lange zu schließen, bis in Sanaa niemand mehr am Leben ist.
Das Pentagon verlangt jetzt freie Hand, um den Saudis zu helfen, den Hafen von Hodeida zu erobern und zu besetzen. Warum würden die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika das machen? Nun – der Grund ist mindestens so gut wie der, der vor zwei Jahren angegeben wurde:
„Wenn nicht bald Entscheidungen getroffen werden,“ sagte der höhere Regierungsvertreter, „dann fürchten wir, dass die Situation im Jemen eskalieren könnte, und unsere Partner trotzdem ihre Aktion durchführen. Und wir hätten keinen Durchblick, und wir wären nicht in einer Position zu verstehen, was für Auswirkungen das auf unsere Antiterrorismusoperationen hat.“
Wenn also die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika nicht „helfen” (sprich organisieren), die letzte Nahrungsquelle für die von den Saudis belagerten Millionen zu schließen, dann könnten sie vielleicht nicht begreifen, was das bedeutet.
Nun, das ist ein wirklich guter Grund, um Soldaten ins Land zu schicken! „Wenn wir das nicht machen, werden wir die Konsequenzen nicht herausfinden, und das ist etwas, was wir wissen wollen, stimmt´s?“
https://linkezeitung.de/2017/04/01/usa-wollen-krieg-gegen-den-hungernden-jemen-eskalieren/
Original English version:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/03/us-to-escalate-its-two-years-war-on-starving-yemen.html
3.4.2017 – The Nation (** A K P)
Trump’s Generals Are Considering a Wider War in Yemen
A humanitarian crisis already threatens to starve millions. Deeper US involvement in the civil war will only make it far worse.
The Trump administration is sending signals that it is interested in getting more involved in the Yemen war. Those American voters who saw Trump as an isolationist or antiwar candidate appear to be in for a set of big disappointments. The Yemen conflict is a civil war, with Saudi Arabia and its allies giving air support to the rump government of Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi in the south, which is seeking to dislodge from northern Yemen the rival government run by the Houthi militia. The war has created a humanitarian crisis in the country, pushing millions to the brink of hunger, and there is no universe in which further American involvement will redound to Washington’s credit. Trump’s interest is driven in part by Saudi propaganda that the Houthis are Iran-backed.
Last week, General Joseph Votel testified for the Pentagon before Congress, insisting that Yemen is key to US security.
Overall, there is a key contradiction in US policy toward AQAP, inasmuch as the Houthis are sworn enemies of the Sunni extremists. In contrast, the Saudi-led coalition has either willy-nilly permitted or has turned a blind eye to Al Qaeda territorial advances in southern Yemen. The coalition appears to have no scruples about recruiting tribal figures with an Al Qaeda past. By crippling the Sana government and supporting the Saudi-led continual and massive bombardment of the country, the Pentagon has actually given Al Qaeda free rein.
Votel’s testimony comes in the context of a reevaluation of the US military role in Yemen, provoked in part by a memo by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
For the past two years, the Obama administration had kept US support to a low level, mainly logistics and advice on targeting. McMaster and Mattis appear to feel that Iran has become too powerful in Yemen as a result. The next big push by the Saudi coalition will be on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, which is in Houthi hands and is key to supplying the capital. The Trump administration appears to be considering more extensive military help to the Saudis in this battle. Hodeida is also, however, how millions of Yemenis get their staples, and the United States could be signing on to an artificially produced famine.
Both McMaster and Mattis are Iraq War veterans, and both were conditioned by that experience to see rising Iranian soft power in the region as a major threat to the United States.
The US officer corps was sometimes not well informed about Iraqi dynamics and came to see all the Shiite militias as Iranian cat’s paws, even though the Mahdi Army of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took a stance of Iraqi nativism generally hostile to Iran. In any case, it was, ironically, Bush administration policy in Iraq that ensconced the Shiites in power and gave Iran an opening to gain powerful new friends in the region.
It is worrying that Mattis appears so obsessed with conspiracy theories about Iran that he believes Tehran created ISIL (the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or Daesh) as a pretext for a more robust Iranian intervention in Iraq. In fact, of course, ISIL is a vehicle for some disgruntled hyper-Sunni Iraqis who believed Iran was colonizing their Iraq. ISIL has repeatedly massacred Shiites and has attacked and threatened Iran.
McMaster and Mattis may be reading Yemen through an Iraq-Iran lens. That would be a mistake.
Iran may have sent the Houthis small sums of money, but most of the movement’s arms are American, from Saleh-controlled depots, and most of its support is rooted in north Yemen resentment of growing Saudi and Wahhabi hegemony, not only among Zaydis but also among some Sunni tribes (most Yemeni Sunnis dislike Wahhabism). The Saudi air campaign, which has often indiscriminately targeted schools, hospitals, cultural institutions, and key civilian infrastructure such as bridges and ports, has made Riyadh thoroughly hated in the north.
For American officers shaped by the Iraq War to project their conspiracy theories about Iran’s role in Baghdad onto the Yemen civil war would be a blunder of huge proportions. It was, after all, not Iran but the policies of the US occupation authorities that led to the creation of ISIL, as a Sunni backlash to their mismanagement of Iraq.
Compounding the regional chaos by blundering into rugged, little-understood Yemen essentially as a military auxiliary of Saudi Wahhabism will worsen, not improve US security – by Juan Cole
https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-generals-are-considering-a-wider-war-in-yemen/
3.4.2017 – 21th Century Wire (** B K P)
The U.S. Has No Legal Standing in Its Involvement in the War on Yemen
Yemen is proving what should be clear by now: President Trump may never come good on his bold campaign promise of less senseless wars overseas. Watch as Trump defers to ‘the Generals’ to double-down on a bad Obama bet.
On its face, the joint Saudi-US War on Yemen is illegal under both US and International Law (see US legal analysis below).
With that in mind, shouldn’t every person in the US, from the Obama Administration forward and including the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the CIA and so on, who has been involved in prosecuting this illegal, undeclared war of aggression – be indicted and charged with high crimes?
Is the United States not a nation of laws, as so many politicians and pundits proudly proclaim to their public over the airwaves each and every day?
Or is Washington DC merely a nation of self-inflated, self-reverential hypocrites?
“In a nutshell the Saudis, Emiratis and the USA are inflicting a war of genocide against the Houthis,” – (University of Illinois Professor of International Law, Francis Boyle)
So what is the Trump Administration’s solution to this collapsing situation? Of course, more sanctions.
Because this war was initiated under President Obama, left-leaning and liberal media outlets and Democratic Party operators were bound to an unofficial regime of silence on the issue of Yemen – hence, almost zero media coverage an commentary in throughout 2015-2016. It was sufficient to focus only on Syria, and even then to streamline all mainstream media talking points with the foreign policy directives from US State Department. With Syria, just look at the media coverage over the last 6 years and overlay it with the US State Department and British Foreign Office narratives. Totally seamless.
For the US political right-wing and the Pentagon-oriented news outlets like CNN, the War on Yemen was simply reduced down to a binary argument, blaming the entire affair on Iran, claiming that the “Iranian-backed Houthis” were to primary antagonists. By framing it in the Iran-centric geopolitical context – and no the true context of US-Saudi aggression and a battle to control some of the region most lucrative untapped oil and gas reserves – it served to somehow justify the organized, international crime which has been taking place.
Since the War on Yemen began in March 2015, rather than reporting on the carnage and pressuring the US government to recuse itself from its daily military role backing of Saudi Arabia, the mainstream media foreign policy gatekeepers and CFR members like CNN’s Fareed Zakaria have instead opted to ignore the conflict as much as possible, opting instead to continue pushing more fake news and extravagant lies spun regarding Aleppo along with other aspects of the other illegal US operation arming international terrorists in Syria.
In short, all the establishment and Deep State players; in Washington, the UNHRC (bought-off by Saudi Arabia), the mainstream media, Hollywood, and across the billion dollar think-tank industrial complex – have all colluded through their collective inaction and media censorship – in perpetrating an long-running and obvious international crime against humanity in Yemen.
The following is a professional analysis, from a US legal perspective. The case is clear, and non-contestable under the current provision in both US and international law… - by Patrick Henningsen
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/04/03/illegal-the-u-s-has-no-legal-standing-in-its-involvement-in-the-war-on-yemen/ = http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-has-no-legal-standing-in-its-involvement-in-the-war-on-yemen/5583366 und in einer (sehr schlechten) deutschen Übersetzung: https://de.southfront.org/die-usa-vertreten-keinen-legalen-standpunkt-was-ihre-anteilname-an-dem-krieg-im-jemen-betrifft/
3.4.2017 – 21th Century Wire (** B K P)
The Moral Case for Restraint: U.S. Should Stop Supporting the War in Yemen
The problem is that Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen compromises both U.S. interests and its moral standing. Our interests are harmed because undermining the Houthis and contributing to the power vacuum in the country has benefitted the position of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which happens to share Saudi distaste for the Houthis.
The Saudis succeed in garnering U.S. support in part by characterizing the war as a fight against terrorism. But the Saudis and al-Qaeda are actually in an awkward alliance in this fight, making U.S. help even more misguided.
As for our moral standing, by supporting Saudi Arabia’s military action, we are a party to serious war crimes and are indirectly at fault for the devastating humanitarian crisis the people of Yemen now face.
The Saudi intervention clearly violates the just war tenet of jus ad bellum. That tenet dictates that nations not only have a just cause for going to war but also resort to military force only after all other options have been exhausted. Despite Saudi claims to the contrary, the intervention is clearly not a case of self-defense. The notion that Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East (kept afloat primarily by Saudi funds), represents a military threat to Saudi Arabia is absurd. And to argue Saudi bombs are justified to prevent future terrorist attacks is to argue for preventive war, which violates just war theory and the UN Charter.
The Saudis insist that their actions are legal because the legitimate Yemeni government invited military intervention. But the Hadi government hardly deserves the label legitimate. Hadi was elevated to the presidency after serving in Saleh’s autocratic regime as vice president. Once president, Hadi used his position to consolidate power against the Houthis and Saleh loyalists all while misappropriating billions of dollars. A better description would be to call the Hadi government a tool of Saudi Arabia, since Saudi Arabia not only brokered the deal that allowed him to replace Saleh but also enabled him to return to Yemen after the Houthis drove him from the country. Arguing that the Saudis are responding to a call for help is essentially to argue that the Saudis asked themselves to intervene in Yemen.
So, if Saudi Arabia’s argument for intervention is weak, what’s the U.S.’s excuse? Any claim that this is a part and parcel of the war on terror is dubious, considering the bombing of Yemen is, if anything, bolstering Islamic extremists. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia itself is a major exporter of the kind of jihadist ideology that drives groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Even if it were about countering terrorist groups, if the threat to Saudi Arabia from Yemen is remote, the threat to the United States is certainly too small to justify violating the rules of war, international moral norms, and common decency.
Beyond placating overexcited Saudi fears of a U.S. strategic tilt towards Iran, there simply is no moral, legal, or strategic justification for what the U.S. is doing in Yemen – by Trevor Thrall & John Glaser
3.4.2017 – Antiwar (** AS K P)
Does It Matter Who Pulls the Trigger in the Drone Wars? We’re allowing a mindset of “anything Trump does is wrong” coupled with lightening-speed historical revisionism for the Obama era to sustain the same mistakes in the war on terror that have fueled Islamic terrorism for the past 15 years. However, there may be a window of opportunity to turn the anti-Trump rhetoric into a review of the failed policies of the last decade and a half. Now there has been a change. Trump in mid-March granted a Pentagon request to designate certain areas of Yemen as “areas of active hostilities.” Trump is expected to approve the same new policy for parts of Somalia. That would shift more decision making for drone strikes from the Oval Office to the Pentagon.
The issue being raised by Trump’s opponents some is that the new policy will kill more civilians as it will be carried out by an unfettered military instead of a “restrained” executive, and that those deaths will lead to more radicalization of more Muslims, which will impede America’s strategic progress toward, it’s unclear, maybe a world without radicalized Muslims.
Such twisted logic is based on an almost insta-nostalgia that ignores President Obama approved 540 drone strikes killing 3,797 people in nontraditional war zones. No one knows how many of those bodies were civilian, although for the record the US says it was precisely 324. The analytically conservative Council on Foreign Relations, however, assesses drone strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan killed 3,674 civilians as of 2014.
Bottom line: There are already a lot of bodies out there under a policy of “restraint.”
It is important to note Trump’s change in policy focuses only on who makes the decision to pull the trigger in places already under American attack, him or generals in the Pentagon. The killing itself is ongoing, seamless, and happening today as it happened six months ago (in fact, civilian casualties rose during the last months of the Obama administration, suggesting changes in US rules of engagement predateTrump.) It is unlikely the people on the ground know or care which official in Washington decided to blow away a vehicle with their brother in it. The idea that it matters a whit in terms of radicalization whether the thumbs up or down is rendered by Trump, Obama, or a general would be comical if it was not horrible.
An odd sense that all this killing globally is something new and damaging to America was captured in a letter some three dozen former members of America’s national security establishment (including Bush and Obama-era staff) to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis stating “even small numbers of unintentional civilian deaths or injuries – whether or not legally permitted – can cause significant strategic setbacks,” increasing violence from militant groups and prompting others to reduce collaboration with the United States. The letter claims that pre-Trump, public confidence and belief in legitimacy were important facets of US policy.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union appeared to wake from a long slumber,claiming with Trump’s decision to slide sideways the kill decision, “the limits of war as we know it could virtually dissolve. At stake is no less than the global legal framework that protects life and preserves international peace and security.”
At that point one must sit back and ask: Seriously? Who besides presidents Obama and Trump has endorsed that framework and under what set of laws is it legal?
No matter who pulls the trigger – Bush, Obama or Trump – civilian deaths are not accidental, but a policy of preventable accident. The new drone rules under Trump are simply another example. – by Peter Van Buren
3.4.2017 – Deutsche Welle (* B K P)
Kommentar: Die Schande Jemen-Krieg
Vor zwei Jahren eskalierte mit dem Eingreifen Saudi-Arabiens ein Stammeskonflikt im Jemen zum offenen Krieg. Heute hungern dort zwei Drittel der Menschen. Wegsehen geht nicht mehr
Das reichste Land der arabischen Welt bombt das ärmste Land der Region in die Steinzeit. Seit zwei Jahren geht das so. Westliche Staaten sind willige Helfer: Die USA tanken die Kampfjets der von Saudi-Arabien angeführten Koalition in der Luft auf. Sonst könnten die ihre Ziele im Jemen gar nicht erreichen. Großbritannien und die USA verkaufen Waffen - sogar international geächtete Streubomben. Seit Beginn der Angriffe summieren sich deren Waffenlieferungen an das Wüstenkönigreich auf gut fünf Milliarden Dollar.
Immer mehr US-Hilfe für Saudi-Arabien
Dass die Bomben viel zu oft auch Zivilisten töten, tut der Waffenbrüderschaft keinen Abbruch. Im Gegenteil: Gerade erst haben die USA angekündigt, ihre saudischen Verbündeten im Jemen stärker unterstützen zu wollen. Das vermeintliche Ziel: Den iranischen Einfluss im Jemen zurück zu drängen. Der Haken: Teherans Einfluss auf die Huthi-Rebellen ist längst nicht so groß, wie Saudi-Arabiens Propaganda glauben machen will. Die Huthis im Jemen sind nicht mit der Hisbollah im Libanon zu vergleichen, sie sind keine Befehlsempfänger Teherans. Wäre das so, hätten sie beispielsweise auf die Warnung aus Teheran gehört, die Hauptstadt Sanaa nicht einzunehmen. Sie haben sich nicht abhalten lassen.
Mehr als rethorische Unterstützung bekommen die Rebellen aus dem Iran kaum. Und auch wenn alles andere im Jemen knapp ist: An Waffen herrschte kein Mangel. Die Huthis konnten sich in den Armeedepots bedienen. Sie sind verbündet mit dem früheren Präsidenten Saleh – von Matthias von Hein
http://www.dw.com/de/kommentar-die-schande-jemen-krieg/a-38245472
and the (longer) English version:
1.4.2017 – Deutsche Welle (** B K P)
Opinion: Yemen’s shameful war
Two years ago, a tribal conflict in Yemen widened into a full-scale war after intervention by Saudi Arabia. Today, two-thirds of the population is starving. The world can no longer look away,
The richest country in the Arab world is bombing the poorest country back into the Stone Age - a situation that's been ongoing for two years now. And Western countries are willing assistants.
US increasing assistance to Saudi Arabia
The fact that the bombs far too often claim civilian lives appears to be of no concern to the military partners. Just the opposite: The US has now announced plans to strengthen its cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the Yemen conflict. The supposed goal is the suppression of Iran's influence in Yemen. But Tehran's influence on the Houthi rebels is not nearly as big as Saudi Arabian propaganda would have us believe. The Houthis in Yemen cannot be compared with Hezbollah in Lebanon; they are not there to carry out Tehran's bidding. If that were true, they would have respected Tehran's warning to stay out of the capital, Sanaa, instead of going in and taking over the city.
The Houthi rebels are getting little more than rhetorical support from Iran. And even if everything else is in short supply in Yemen, there appears to be no shortage of weapons. The Houthis were able to help themselves to supplies at the army's depots, based on their alliance with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The Houthis are not in need of weapons deliveries from Iran. Nor are they even possible: The ports are blocked by the Saudi coalition. And that's also one of the reasons why, according to UN information, there are some 7 million Yemenis who don't know where their next meal is coming from.
Escalation won't bring peace
The current military escalation will not lead to a turnaround in the war, much less bring peace.
What the country needs is a national reconciliation conference - with no prerequisites, and no outside interference. And what the region needs is a security structure that meets the needs of both Saudi Arabia and Iran. That might go some way to alleviating Saudi Arabian politicians' paranoia - bordering on obsession - regarding Iran's supposed growing influence in the region – by Matthias von Hein.
http://www.dw.com/en/opinion-yemens-shameful-war/a-38250609
8.3.2017 – Just Security (**A B K P)
Hitting Iran Where It Doesn’t Hurt: Why U.S. Intervention in Yemen Will Backfire
Eagerness to get at Iran, however, has blinded administration officials to the perils of further entanglement in Yemen’s conflict. Characterizing an attack on the Houthis as a blow to Iran grossly misunderstands the conflict dynamic. Though the Houthi movement certainly has limited ties to Iran and has benefited from small-arms shipments, the Houthis are not an Iranian proxy force that follows Iran’s marching orders. Iran’s small stake in Yemen means that it has little to lose from “being put on notice,” while U.S. entrapment in Yemen’s civil war would benefit Iran substantially.
The Houthi movement, once poised to wring significant concessions from a Yemeni central government severely weakened by the uprising in 2011 and 2012, has vacillated between incompetence and malevolence since seizing San’a in September 2014. Its grab of power has mixed human rights violations with administrative ineptitude and political intransigence.
Yet the Houthis bear all the hallmarks of a loose-knit, militarized organization attempting to prosecute parochial concerns, not the Yemeni wing of an Iran-constructed “Shia crescent.” The movement has come a long way since the 1990s, when it began as a populist movement in the Sa’dah governorate, wreathed in the language of Zaydi-Shia revivalism and best known for running a summer camp. In the unsettled period between revolution and civil war, before the Houthi putsch garnered the international community’s ire, Iranian influence was easily discounted. While some tried to intimate a religious link, perpetuating the stereotype that Shias worldwide are latent Iranian agents, the Zaydi tradition is a distinct sect within a non-monolithic Shiism, one inextricably tied to the Yemeni northwest. As provincial populists will, elements within the movement condemned Iranian attempts at outreach, as they did other foreign meddling. Even after a steadier relationship materialized, Iran found that its limited assistance provided only limited leverage; reports have indicated that the Houthis stormed San’a against the explicit advice of Iranian agents.
Painting the Houthis as an Iranian proxy, however, remains a favorite talking point of the Saudi government to bring Washington to its defense. But this projection ignores the party to which Houthi considerations truly bend: former President Saleh.
Given this reality, the US is primed to expend significant resources, and possibly American lives, to hit Iran precisely where it doesn’t hurt. It will do so in a country whose residents already suffer mass malnutrition and oncoming famine resulting, in part, from ongoing US support for the Saudi-led coalition.
Years from now, U.S. officials will look back ruefully on the U.S. role in Yemen’s devastation – under both the Trump and Obama administrations. And that’s before miring the U.S. military in a civil war that cannot be won on the battlefield.
Expanding support to the Saudi-led coalition, up to and including an on-the-ground military campaign, will not only continue to implicate the US in the coalition’s violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. It will negate entirely the political solution, however elusive, toward which U.S. Ambassador Matthew Tueller and others at the State Department are working tirelessly.
Rather than ratcheting up U.S. military involvement in the Yemeni civil war, the Trump administration should follow the lead of its diplomatic officers and commit to the UN peace process – by Kate Kizer
https://www.justsecurity.org/38543/hitting-iran-doesnt-hurt-u-s-intervention-yemen-backfire/
? – Human Rights Watch (** B K)
Yemen Events 2016
The Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s aerial and ground campaign against Houthi forces and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh continued in 2016.
Dozens of coalition airstrikes indiscriminately or disproportionately killed and wounded thousands of civilians in violation of the laws of war. The coalition also used internationally banned cluster munitions.
Houthi and allied forces committed serious laws-of-war violations by laying banned antipersonnel landmines, mistreating detainees, and launching indiscriminate rockets into populated areas in Yemen and southern Saudi Arabia, killing hundreds of civilians.
None of the states’ party to the conflict carried out meaningful investigations into their forces’ alleged violations.
The Saudi Arabia-led coalition killed several dozen civilians in three apparently unlawful airstrikes in September and October 2016
Airstrikes
Cluster Munitions
Human Rights Watch has documented the coalition using internationally banned cluster munitions in at least 16 attacks that targeted populated areas, killing and wounding dozens.
Landmines
Houthi and allied forces laid numerous landmines, including banned antipersonnel mines, in Yemen’s southern and eastern governorates of Aden, Abyan, Marib, Lahj, and Taizz since the beginning of the current conflict. Landmines have killed and wounded dozens of civilians, including children.
Indiscriminate Attacks
Before and since the coalition air campaign, Houthi and allied forces have used artillery rockets in indiscriminate attacks in the southern cities of Aden, Taizz, Lahj, and al-Dale’a.
Attacks on Health and Restrictions on Humanitarian Access
Human Rights Watch has documented numerous airstrikes that unlawfully struck or damaged health facilities in Yemen.
Children and Armed Conflict
Among repeated violations against children by parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch has documented 58 apparently unlawful coalition airstrikes that killed at least 192 children, and multiple airstrikes that struck or damaged schools. The Houthis have also endangered schools and used child soldiers.
Terrorism and Counterterrorism
Both AQAP and armed groups loyal to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for numerous suicide and other bombings that killed dozens of civilians.
Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances
After Houthi and allied forces seized control of the capital, Sanaa in late 2014, they cracked down on dissent.
Women’s Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity
Women in Yemen face severe discrimination in law and practice.
Accountability
None of the warring parties carried out credible investigations into their forces’ alleged laws-of-war violations in Yemen.
Key International Actors
The US has been a party to the conflict since the first months of fighting, providing targeting intelligence and in-air refuelling.
The UK was “providing technical support, precision-guided weapons and exchanging information with the Saudi Arabian armed forces,
Foreign governments have continued to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/yemen
Hate Speech (not rated B T)
New report: AQAP functions as a death squad for hire
In a new paper released by HSI, Martin Jerrett and Mohammed al-Haddar argue that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, functions as a death squad for hire, harnessed by the Sana’a government against opposition forces.
The paper – available as a downloadable PDF file – argues three main points. First, that the bulk of AQAP attacks have been against alternative power structures to those established and supported on the ground by Sana’a authorities. Second, that AQAP personnel are given license to operate and recruit by Sana’a and are not seriously interdicted in their movements or are given safe houses and safe passage across the country. And, third, that AQAP functions as an executive, if extra-judicial, arm of the state.
“While it operates in the so-called ungoverned spaces, it serves as an adept proxy security enforcer for Sana’a”, Jerrett and al-Haddar writes. “The benefits for the state are evident, as using AQAP provides the convenience of plausible deniability of the group’s actions”.
They continue: “The degree to which the lower ranks of AQAP are wittingly involved in this prescribed role as state enforcer, and the degree to which AQAP is its own entity, remain open questions. There is an element of the conspiratorial to such questions, but Yemeni politics has a long history of complexity and nuance that is often beyond the comprehension of Western observers, as first noted by Paul Dresch in his discussion of the Yemen civil war in the 1960s”.
Jerrett has worked on Yemeni issues since 2009, and served as a political officer with the United Nations from 2014 to 2016, advising on South Yemen. Al-Haddar comes from Hadramawt in southern Yemen. Since 2009, he has been authoring a blog covering South Yemen politics and history.
https://www.hate-speech.org/new-report-aqap-functions-as-a-death-squad-for-hire/
https://www.hate-speech.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/From-Global-Insurgent-to-State-Enforcer.pdf
My comment: For me, the download did not work. “Sana’a” and “Sana’a government” is extremely misleading. It’s the Hadi government at Aden.
cp2 Allgemein / General
27.3.2017 – ABC News (* B K P)
Film: The war in Yemen explained in 200 seconds: Planet America
The war in Yemen just marked its second anniversary. "What war" you ask? Here's Planet America's Chas Licciardello to explain how the war is causing one Yemeni child to die of malnutrition every 10 minutes, and what America's role in the conflict is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyWJfqpx370
27.3.2017 – Zainab Rights (B K P)
Film: Yemen Crisis explained in under 7 minutes.
Although the conflict has claimed thousands of lives, a majority being women and children, and driven the nation into famine, lack of basic necessities and food shortages, Yemen is largely a mystery to the Western world due to a lack of coverage in the West. Here's what you need to know about what's happening there for over two years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=Q3gKz-5SyPs&app=desktop
Comment by Judith Brown: This has a major error in the dialogue. It says the Houthis did not take part in the national dialogue in Yemen. This is absolutely untrue. The Houthis were there at the beginning and were still at the table on the day that Saudi started bombing. They stayed there in spite of the fact that two of their representatives were assassinated during the course of the dialogue. Also representatives of the south were also at the NDC although they were not the hard core secessionists. The Houthi and southern representatives voted as a bloc on most issues in the NDC negotiations. And at the end, it was the federal plan that both the Houthis and the secessionists objected to - they both saw themselves as marginalised by the way the federal plan was imposed on them - that led indirectly to violence. So I don't know who wrote this but they are clearly not Yemen experts as this is a fundamental error.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10155379218678641
1.4.2017 – UNOPS (* A H K P)
UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM): Operational Snapshot, March 2017
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/un-verification-and-inspection-mechanism-yemen-unvim-operational-snapshot-march-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Operational%20Snapshot%20March%202017.pdf
My comment: A glimpse at the Saudi blockade.
3.4.2017 – Lobelog (* B K P)
No Happy Ending For Devastated Yemen
Somewhere there may be hopeful signs about the stalemated war in Yemen, some optimistic visions about the country’s future, but if so they were not discernible at a well-attended conference in Washington on March 31.
Diplomats, government officials, relief workers, Yemeni politicians and representatives of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund painted a dim picture of a country facing famine, a country with no money to import food or medicine, a country with no prospects for relief unless its warring factions find the political solution that has eluded them for years.
Several participants predicted that the situation will become even worse if, as expected, the Saudi Arabia–led military coalition supporting the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, tries to capture the key port of Hodeidah, which is held by the rebel group known as Houthis.
An assault on Hodeidah “is very likely to happen, and it could have disastrous consequences for the population,” said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, United Nations special envoy for Yemen. Cheikh Ahmed, who presided over fruitless peace talks for three months last summer, described himself as “like a surgeon in an operating room and the patient is bleeding–you have to stop the bleeding” before anything else can be accomplished.
Unless the warring factions come to a “political consensus,” he told participants in the conference, sponsored by the Middle East Institute, “Yemen risks becoming a failed state.”
In many ways, other panelists said, it already is.
Some analysts believe that the bottleneck at Hodeidah is not the result of Houthi control of the city but of a naval blockade imposed by the Saudis and their partners to ensure that military supplies from Iran do not reach the Houthis. That assessment reflects the complicated nature of the war, in which some participants have interests beyond the fate of Yemen itself.
The Saudis, who in their fear of Iranian encroachment on the Arabian Peninsula have been bombing rebel forces for two years–to no apparent effect other than civilian deaths and infrastructure destruction–“would be the first to say that they are eager to get out of that situation,” said Anne Patterson, who was assistant secretary of State for Near East Affairs at the end of the Obama administration. She said Saudi Arabia is trapped in “a vicious cycle that is very expensive for them and very cheap for Iran,” an assessment shared by other participants, who said that Iranian support for the Houthis is limited but has a disproportionate benefit for the Tehran regime because the air war is draining the resources of its biggest regional rival, Saudi Arabia – by Thomas W. Lippman
http://lobelog.com/no-happy-ending-for-devastated-yemen/
My comment: The Hadi government’s ambassador hardly is an enrichment of such a conference, spreading the well-known propaganda of his government and contributing nothing else.
3.4.2017 – Fars News (* B K P)
Terror in Yemen: Saudis Delight in Blood and Pain - Without a Redeeming Feature
Whether in the streets of Europe or in Yemen, it is Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism that has draped nations in suffocating fear. It is Saudi Arabia again that has held a faith ransom and forced 1.6 billion Muslims to think themselves in negation of one another and beyond the world altogether. Saudi Arabia’s behavior in Yemen – and in Syria - is the very definition of terrorism.
To substantiate:
1- According to a report by the Food Security Information Network (FSIN), there is an increasing risk of famine across Yemen. The report says food crisis has notably deteriorated, adding that conditions will further worsen in 2017 because of the Saudi-led war, drought, macro-economic collapse, and blockade. FSIN, which is co-sponsored by the United Nations food agency, the World Food Program, and the International Food Policy Research Institute, says there is a growing demand for humanitarian aid.
On the third year of the illegal Saudi offensive, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund also reports that over 17 million people, which equals to 65 percent of all Yemeni households, are food insecure, meaning that they cannot afford feeding themselves and their children adequately.
2- According to a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state, Saudi Arabia is the world's largest source of funds and promoter of terrorism, the Salafist-Wahhabi jihadism that is the ideological basis of terrorist groups ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and suchlike: “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIL, and other terrorist groups. The kingdom allied to the US has spent untold millions promoting Wahhabism, the radical form of Sunni Islam that inspired various terrorist groups and that now inflames ISIL."
With that in mind, anyone whose major concern is the sanctity of human life is in effect, by leaving Saudi-led, US-backed war crimes unchecked, ensuring death by famine in Yemen. This dirty war is pitiless, and if the international civil society itself does not stop the Saudi-led violence and war crimes, then it will have it done. They will be complicit.
The problem of Yemen is equally exacerbated by Western governments’ control of the “fakestream” media. This runs counter to their obligation to promote truth, independence in the media, regional peace, and global security. The biggest problem is the lack of information of the real situation on the ground and the fact that many journalists avoid speaking out because they fear retaliation from their governments which are arming and supporting the Saudi-led campaign.
Nonetheless, the international civil society cannot and should never stomach these crimes without offering resistance.
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960113000551
My comment: Iranian author and evident anti-Saudi; but, the combination of Yemeni famine, Saudi Wahabism and terror is simply correct.
1.4.2017 – Activist4you (* B H K P)
Der saudisch-amerikanische Krieg im Jemen im dritten Jahr
Massenmord, breitflächige Zerstörung und Hunger.
Am 26. März 2017 jährte sich der Beginn des saudisch-amerikanischen Krieges gegen den Jemen zum zweiten Mal. Saudi-Arabien begann die Operation „Decisive Storm“, nachdem Anfang 2015 der von ihm und den USA nach dem Aufstand von 2011 an die Macht gebrachte Präsident Abded-Rabbo Mansour Hadi gestürzt worden war und die oppositionelle Ansar Allah-Bewegung – hier besser bekannt als Houthis – die Macht übernommen hatte. Saudi-Arabien betrachtet die Houthi-Bewegung als ein Instrument der „iranischen Expansion.“ Es will mit dem Krieg erreichen, dass der bei der großen Mehrheit der Jemenit/inn/en extrem unbeliebte ex-Präsident Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi wieder eingesetzt und der Status quo ante, in dem Saudi-Arabien immer ein Wörtchen bei den jemenitischen Angelegenheiten mitzureden hatte, wieder hergestellt wird. Der Krieg soll außerdem dabei helfen, den regionalen Rivalen Iran zu schwächen und Saudi-Arabien zur regionalen Führungsmacht aufsteigen zu lassen. Nachdem sein Regime-Change-Projekt in Syrien gescheitert ist, ist es für Saudi-Arabien um so wichtiger, den Krieg im Jemen für sich zu entscheiden.
Wer sind die Houthis ?
Die Houthis waren eine der wenigen Kräfte, die sich durch den Befriedungsprozeß nicht hatten kooptieren lassen. Sie hatten die anti-IWF-Proteste organisiert und fanden breite Unterstützung in der jemenitischen Bevölkerung. Sie sind gut organisiert, bewaffnet und verfügen über eine kohärente, auf dem Islam basierende Widerstandsideologie. Sie stehen der regionalen „Achse des Widerstandes“ – bestehend aus dem Iran, Syrien, der libanesischen Hizbollah und dem palästinensischen Widerstand – nahe. Sie haben zwar Beziehungen zum Iran, sind aber keineswegs dessen Marionetten, nicht einmal besonders enge Verbündete. Seit Kriegsbeginn sind sie stärker als jemals zuvor geworden. Viele der Jemeniten, die ihnen zuvor mit Ablehnung gegenübergestanden hatten, unterstützen sie nun aus Empörung und Zorn über die saudisch-amerikanische Aggression.
Die USA und das UK morden mit
Der Verlauf des Krieges Experten der UNO gehen davon aus, dass keine der beiden Seiten den Krieg gewinnen kann. Es besteht eine militärische Patt-Situation. Die UNO versuchte zwar mehrfach, den Krieg durch Verhandlungen zu beenden, doch sie scheiterte an der Unnachgiebigkeit Saudi-Arabiens. Dieses fordert den Rückzug der Houthis aus allen Gebieten, die von ihnen kontrolliert werden sowie deren Entwaffnung, also die bedingungslose Kapitulation. Kein einziger der international vermittelten sieben Waffenstillstände trat tatsächlich in Kraft.
Eine humanitäre Katastrophe
In den medizinischen Einrichtungen des Landes wurden bisher mehr als 10.000 Tote und über 42.500 Verletzte gezählt. Die Dunkelziffer ist wesentlich höher, da nur noch weniger als die Hälfte der medizinischen Einrichtungen in Betrieb sind und sehr viele Jemeniten sterben ohne, dass ihr Tod registriert wird. Drei Millionen Menschen sind innerhalb des Landes auf der Flucht – von Petra Wild
2.4.2017 – The Maritime Standard (* A E H P)
ADEN PORT ‘FULLY READY TO RECEIVE CONTAINERS AND OTHER CARGO TRAFFIC’
The port of Aden has issued a statement stating that it is now ready to take on the role of Yemen’s primary gateway, meeting the logistics needs of the war-torn country. In the statement, senior management indicated that Aden Container Terminal has increased its storage space to allow the port to receive more containers and as a result it now has “the full ability to cover Yemen’s traffic effectively.”
The statement continued: “As a result of the stabilisation of security in Aden and the abolition of all the checkpoints that had been developed after the war to cover all the liberated areas, the terminal was able to handle about 270,000 teu in 2016.”
The Aden Container Terminal has agreed with the World Food Program to provide special warehouses to store relief items and has the ability to make similar arrangements with other relief organisations as required. Other cargoes transported by general cargo and bulk ships, such as steel, wood, cement and wheat, including relief materials, can be handled in Ma’alla Wharf while Aden Gulf Marine Terminal, a specialised bulk grain and edible oil terminal, can accommodate the largest ships calling at any terminal in Yemen.
The statement continued, “Some companies have been able to enter into bilateral agreements with the owners and operators of grain silos in Aden, allowing them to unload relief shipments of wheat into their silos for the purpose of packaging or grinding to be ready for consumption.”
http://www.themaritimestandard.com/aden-port-fully-ready-receive-containers-cargo-traffic/
My comment: Goods delivered to Aden port hardly will get to Houthi-held northern Yemen, but will be hold back.
Comments by Haykal Bafana: No, you're not.
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/848491260902035456
Aden port remains a nest of competing Yemeni factions & AQ/ISIS terrorists. UN foreign staff will be a kidnap bonanza.
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/848493834531164161
If a Hodeidah alternative is needed, Al Mahrah, #Yemen via Oman or Al Wadi'a in Hadhramaut via Saudi Arabia are much better options.
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/848494154241933312
And the UN should consider this scary major fact : Not even Saudi Arabia or UAE dare to set up their embassies in Aden. They KNOW it's bad.
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/848495513460756480
2.4.2017 – WNA (B K P)
Red, White and Blue dawn in Yemen– by Anthony C. LoBaido
http://www.wnd.com/2017/04/red-white-and-blue-dawn-in-yemen/
My comment: More mystery than facts.
1.4.2017 – Middle East Institute (not rated B K P)
The Yemen Conflict in Perspective: Geopolitical and Humanitarian Challenges
This event is being livestreamed. Watch the webcast here.
Yemen is gripped by clashes between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces, interference by regional actors, and a failure to complete the political transition following the 2011 uprisings against then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh. This instability has created an opening for the militants of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and a devastating humanitarian impact.
How can international engagement take into account the domestic and geopolitical forces at work, secure a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and combat the extremist threat? What are the challenges faced by humanitarian aid organizations that operate in Yemen, and how can the international community confront the coming challenge of reconstruction and repair of the damaged country? This Middle East Institute half-day conference will examine the regional dynamics surrounding the conflict and the economic situation inside Yemen.
http://www.mei.edu/events/yemen-conflict-perspective-geopolitical-and-humanitarian-challenges
31.3.2017 – Critical Threats (A K)
Gulf of Aden Security Review
The U.S. conducted six to eight strikes targeting AQAP in one week.
The first group of pro-Hadi government fighters from Mokha district in western Taiz governorate completed their training on March 30. The fighters will join Hadi government forces in an ongoing offensive to seize al Hudaydah port from the al Houthi-Saleh bloc. Emirati advisors trained the “Sons of Mokha” at Assab military base in southern Eritrea. Hadi government forces claimed to advance toward the border of Khawkah district in southern al Hudaydah governorate on March 30.
26.3.2017 – BBC News Service (* A K)
Film: 'We stayed to survive and bear witness'
On March the 26th,2015 Saudi planes carried out their first raids against rebels on Yemen's capital. Sanaa resident, Haykal Bafana, reflects on life in the city.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03p3rp0?ocid=socialflow_twitter
26.3.2017 – Social News (* B K)
Yemen, chronicles of an humanitarian catastrophe
Even though some of the Arab leaders took initiative to control this situation, the initiatives raise a key question: what has already been done by them? Did they step forward to save common people or to support the coalition government? In this case, Houthis supporters clearly speak out that “Saudi Arabia and others coalition supporters are not reliable in case of Yemen rather they are fighting to institute coalition government, due to their airstrike million of Yemeni lose their life and remaining are flee from their residence”. Hadi’s supporters counterattack that they are satisfied to receive support by Saudi Arabia, most especially dealing with food support, fresh water supply, and other basic facilities.
In statements, a war conflict cannot bring peace, rather it can just destroy hope. It represents for us “a dish of demolition” through the cost of humanity. In front of the humanitarian catastrophe taking place in Yemen right now, here is the humanity for which our civil society are shouting for establishing human rights? Some initiatives have been taken to control this situation. More than 70 humanitarian organizations have been working to help those people seriously affected and victims of this civil war, however, the effort is not enough until children are still starving, elderlies are still dying. Even though some Arab leaders pretend to be acting to face the situation, they’re not taking part beside civilians, but supporting one competition or another. It is an obvious fact that the Arab States, the UN, the United States, Russia and our civil society should care about Yemen and make a perfect follow up strategy to establish peace and security in the country through roundtable discussion among the parties engaged in the civil war. Media can play a pivotal role by printing and broadcasting regular articles, ‘Talk Show’ so that the world would be more conscious about the fact which is still going on before our eyes in a silent mood – by Tanjil Hossein
http://www.socialnews.it/home/yemen-chronicles-of-an-humanitarian-catastrophe/
Remark: Overview, bad English.
26.3.2017 – Nicholas Kristof (A P)
Saudi Arabia is also blocking journalists (including me) from getting to Yemen and covering Saudi crimes against humanity there.
https://twitter.com/NickKristof/status/845996025622007809
12.3.2017 – Global Greens (A P)
3.1 Conflict in Yemen
Proposed by: Scottish Green Party
Preamble:
Yemen is experiencing a devastating conflict which has seen at least 10,000 people killed since March 2015, and millions left homeless and hungry.
Current Global Greens policy, agreed in Dakar in 2012, states that we seek to curtail the power of the military-industrial- financial complex in order to radically reduce the trade in armaments, ensure transparency of manufacturing and remove hidden subsidies that benefit the military industries. This global arms trade that we seek to restrain is fuelling the conflict in Yemen. Weapons manufactured in countries across the world being are being used in attacks on Yemeni civilians.
Both sides to the Yemen conflict have repeatedly violated the laws of war. Houthi forces and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have been laying landmines, firing indiscriminately in civilian areas, and arbitrarily arresting and detaining perceived opponents.
Airstrikes by Saudi Arabia are responsible for the majority of casualties and have hit numerous civilian targets, including but not limited to weddings, funerals, schools, factories, hospitals, markets, mosques and food storage units. The Saudi-led coalition has also designated entire cities military targets.
Despite this, arms sales to Saudi Arabia from countries such as the UK, US, Germany, Italy, Canada and France have continued if not increased over the course of the conflict. Such exports are in breach of the international Arms Trade Treaty which entered into force in December 2014. Ninety-one states have ratified this treaty to regulate global arms exports, and a further 42 states have signed but not ratified it.
Ordinary Yemeni citizens are bearing the brunt of the war and as a result of the conflict, Yemen is now facing a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions. Parties to the conflict have been blocking critical food and medicine supplies from reaching citizens, and shortages have pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. It is estimated that over 19million people - 80% of the population – are in need of aid.
Operative Text:
This Global Greens Congress:
Reiterates the need to curtail the power of the military-industrial- financial complex in order to radically reduce the global trade in arms, appeals to all countries to respect the international Arms Trade Treaty and specifically calls for the suspension of all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other belligerents for use in Yemen.
Supports the United Nations call for an independent international investigation into human rights abuses and violations of humanitarian law by all sides. · Supports international and local efforts to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Yemen
Recognises the immense efforts of Yemeni civil society and community groups, especially those led by youth and women, to rebuild peace and social cohesion at a local level.
https://www.globalgreens.org/Liverpool2017/Resolutions/3.1-Conflict-in-Yemen
9.2.2017 – Occhi della Guerra (* B K)
La tragedia dello Yemen
Guerre dimenticate, morti che non fanno notizia, distruzioni e disperazioni purtroppo concrete e reali. L’accusa lanciata da Fausto Biloslavo a fine dicembre 2016 su Gli Occhi della Guerra è più che mai attuale in riferimento al conflitto civile che dal marzo 2015 insanguina lo Yemen e sinora ha causato oltre 16mila morti, di cui almeno 10mila civili, e oltre 3 milioni di sfollati su una popolazione di poco superiore ai 25 milioni di abitanti, devastando in maniera sistematica un Paese già da tempo classificato tra i più poveri del pianeta. Un conflitto che è tornato improvvisamente all’attenzione dei media internazionali per pochissime ore nella giornata di domenica 30 gennaio, quando nel corso di un raid dei Navy Seals contro una base di Al Qaeda le forze armate statunitensi hanno subito la prima perdita dell’era Trump e nel quale, mentre vi si ode l’eco lontana del visa ban imposto dalla Casa Bianca, è oggigiorno letteralmente insabbiata l’Arabia Saudita, ambiguo alleato di Washington che il neo-Presidente sembra destinato a rivalutare.
http://www.occhidellaguerra.it/la-tragedia-dello-yemen/
Remark: Overview, Italian.
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
3.4.2017 – Fatik Al-Rodaini (A H)
@monareliefye distributing food aid funded by anonymous Kuwaiti donor to vulnerable families in Sana'a. Thank u guys 4 your support (photos)
https://twitter.com/Fatikr/status/848847390044028928
https://twitter.com/Fatikr/status/848850288538783749
https://twitter.com/Fatikr/status/848888516566290432
film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCgrIfywG-E
3.4.2017 – Qasim Al-Shawea (A H)
Huge thanks to especial team of @YourAbility_org who are working at the ground n Yemen& provided food,clothes for displaced & poor families (photos)
https://twitter.com/Living_Yemen/status/848969578260680704
2.4.2017 – TRT (A H P)
Teachers in Yemen protest over unpaid wages
Educators have staged a protest in Yemen’s southern city Taiz as the war-shattered country has not paid their salaries.
Unpaid teachers demonstrated in Yemen’s southern city of Taiz as the war-shattered country facing an economic collapse is unable to pay salaries to educators and other government employees.
Abdel Rahman al Moktary, the head of the Teacher's Union in Taiz, said educators are struggling to feed their families.
“We have not been paid for seven months and everyone is suffering from the war, the siege, lack of electricity and other services.”
http://www.trtworld.com/mea/teachers-in-yemen-protest-over-unpaid-wages-328689 and film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di9su1WSG1Y
2.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A H)
Cholera epidemic kills three children in Hajjah
Three children have died of Cholera in Hajjah governorate this week, director of the Health Office in Hajjah Ayman Madhkoor said, pointing out that nine others were also inflicted with the epidemic.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5565
2.4.2017 – Soraya Tebbani (A H)
Please it is An EMERGENCY !!!! (see image)
https://twitter.com/2flamesburning1/status/848671268144599040
1.4.2017 – UNICEF (A H)
Look at photo here!
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/photos/a.961595153893515.1073741828.961126490607048/1324527264266967/ taken from UNICEF report: http://files.unicef.org/yemen/Yemen2Years-children_falling_through_the_cracks.pdf
1.4.2017 – Your Abilities (A H)
Film: Maysa, suffering from cancer, cannot get medical treatment
https://twitter.com/YourAbility_org/status/847959754571960320
30.3.2017 – UN Development Programme (* A H)
Clearing the way for aid and reopening of schools, hospitals in Aden, Yemen
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has cleared more than 650 truckloads of debris from the streets of Aden, Yemen, in the last three months to help humanitarians deliver aid and keep basic services functioning.
Under a project supported by the Government of Japan, a further 700 truckloads of debris and waste will be cleared by the end of April.
UNDP has also helped 360 residents – more than half of them women – to earn income and support their families in return for clearing garbage left behind in schools, hospitals, parks and streets after years of conflict, and cleaning the buildings so they can reopen for community use.
Unexploded bombs and other weapons buried in the rubble are also being carefully removed through the specialized Yemen Executive Mine Action Center to help keep civilians safe.
UNDP Country Director Auke Lootsma said heavy debris from war-damaged buildings, including concrete, steel and wood, often blocks humanitarian aid reaching vulnerable people and makes it harder for basic services to function.
“Yemen is one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time and millions of Yemenis are without income, food or access to healthcare and other services,” Mr Lootsma said.
“Removing debris and cleaning up public sites not only helps humanitarians deliver aid but also clears the way for services such as basic healthcare and schools to reopen.
“While instability continues across Yemen, we are pushing ahead with this early recovery work where we can. Without aid and basic services, even more vulnerable Yemenis will suffer for longer.”
Aden remains fragile after years of conflict in Yemen, with an estimated 490 buildings destroyed or damaged, including hospitals and schools.
Across Yemen, UNDP is working to restore livelihoods, social cohesion and security and helping to rebuild basic services including through waste management, civil registration and dispute resolution.
UNDP is also helping to clear unexploded bombs, grenades and landmines across the country.
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2017/03/30/clearing-the-way-for-aid-and-reopening-of-schools-hospitals-in-aden.html = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/clearing-way-aid-and-reopening-schools-hospitals-aden-yemen
27.3.2017 – Oxfam America (* A H)
In South Sudan and Yemen, families struggle to survive as hunger haunts them
In Yemen, conflict has caused profound suffering. Nearly 70 percent of the population needs humanitarian aid and seven million people have been pushed to the brink of starvation.
"If the parties to the conflict – and those fueling it with arm sales – continue to ignore Yemen’s food crisis, they will be responsible for a famine,” said Sajjad Mohamed Sajid, Oxfam’s country director there. “All sides to the conflict need to understand that famine is the real enemy of Yemen. Preventing famine must take priority over any side’s military aims. The world cannot wait for famine to be declared in Yemen or it will be too late.”
Ports, roads and bridges, along with warehouses, farms and markets have been regularly destroyed by the Saudi-led coalition, draining the country’s food stocks. The Houthi-led authority is delaying the delivery of life-saving relief, and sometimes detaining aid workers. This, coupled with a flattened economy, has created an abyss of hunger and led 6.8 million people on the brink of famine.
An Oxfam food survey of 2,000 families who have been forced to flee their homes in north-west Yemen, between November and December 2016, found that 85 percent of people were going hungry. The only options they have are to reduce the amount of food they eat or feed what little they have to their children and go hungry themselves. They skip meals and end up buying food of lesser quality, often on credit. Some have no source of food at all and only survive thanks to humanitarian aid and people’s generosity.
One man, Rabii, who fled the fighting with his wife and 11 children, told Oxfam that he has been living in a hut exposed to the elements for two years. Without a source of income, he can’t buy food or medicine for his children.
“At the beginning I had some money by selling the few sheep I had left,” he said. “But for the past six months, I have no money at all. Sometimes the farmers I work with give me some flour, but it’s not enough for my big family.”
Because of the fighting, many farmers can’t get the seeds, fertilizer and fuel for the irrigation they need to grow their crops. As a direct result of the war, cereal production has plunged by 37 percent since 2015.
Before the conflict, about 90 percent of Yemen’s food had to be imported. The fighting has caused a massive disruption in that process, and when food does reach the shops, many Yemenis can’t afford to buy what they need to ensure their family’s wellbeing. The economy has been decimated.
Among those struggling is Yahya, a 45-year-old retired soldier who used to work on farms in the northern part of the country. As food prices climbed, his pension was no longer enough to feed his children.
“I haven’t received my pension for three months now,” he said, noting that he occasionally finds work on farms during the rainy season but the amount he earns—about $6 a day—makes it hard to cover his family’s food needs.
“My youngest son is sick. His body is weak. I went to the hospital and they told me he was suffering from malnutrition. He’s unstable and has to eat healthy food to recover. I’m afraid my little son will die and I would blame myself because I couldn’t buy enough food for him,” Yahya said. “I was even thinking of selling my kidney before I received some humanitarian aid.
https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/in-south-sudan-and-yemen-families-struggle-to-survive-as-hunger-haunts-them/ and for donation: https://secure2.oxfamamerica.org/page/content/emergency_famine/
25.3.2017 – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (A H)
Infographic: Yemen: Organizations 3W Operational Presence (as of 28 February 2017)
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-organizations-3w-operational-presence-28-february-2017-enar and in full http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/3W%20FEB_30_02_2017.pdf
21.3.2017 – Doctors Without Borders (* A H)
“My son is 11 years old and my daughter is five. I haven't seen them since the day I was wounded. Our village is far away from the hospital and it’s difficult for them to come and visit me. I miss them a lot”
– Ghania Abdulla, 25, of Al-Dhale'
Ghania was shot in the leg when she was returning home from the market. She lives in a village in Al-Dhale', occasionally there are skirmishes and violent clashes nearby.
“When I was wounded, I had to walk for 10 minutes until I reached a pharmacy. I asked the pharmacist to take me to the hospital. After that, he took me to the nearest health centre in Qataba, then they referred me to a hospital in Al-Dhale’ and finally doctors recommended that I receive healthcare in MSF's hospital in Aden. It took me 9 hours from the time I was shot until I came here. I was afraid to lose my life and my children. I was crying and asked the help of everyone I encountered to take me to the hospital.”
Ghania was admitted to the MSF Emergency Surgical Hospital in Aden two months ago. She received a gunshot in the left thigh with an open fracture. She also had an open fracture in her wrist, because she fell when she was shot. The doctors cleaned her wound and placed her on skeleton traction. She is still receiving treatment.
MSF Emergency Surgical Hospital receives patients wounded in war and unrest, regardless of their race, religion, or political affiliation. MSF is an international medical humanitarian organisation working in nearly 70 countries around the world including Yemen.
Ghania is among more than 57,000 war wounded and violence victims MSF has treated in Yemen since March 2015. (photos)
https://www.facebook.com/MSF.Yemen/posts/1273394336102185 = https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1324701077582919
16.1.2017 – International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) (* A H)
Film: The ICRC estimates there have been more than 100 attacks on health-care facilities since the conflict began in March 2015. Over 30,000 have been injured – with little or no access to health care.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVHlS_KPsEo
cp4 Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
2.4.2017 – Sputnik News (* B K)
Sheer Barbarism: Thousands of Priceless Artifacts Destroyed in Yemen's Civil War
The Saudi-led international coalition has destroyed more than 2,000 Yemeni cultural and historical sites as well as dozens of museums since their military campaign against the opposition Houthi movement began two years ago in Yemen, Muhannid al-Siyani, head of the General Directorate of Yemeni Museums and Antiquities, told Sputnik.
In an interview with Sputnik, Muhannid al-Siyani, head of the General Directorate of Yemeni Museums and Antiquities, said that in the two years that have passed since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in the country's civil war, more than 2,000 cultural and historical sites as well as dozens of museums had been destroyed throughout the country.
Al-Siyani specifically pointed to the fact that the Saudi-led international coalition was provided with a list of 50 places of cultural importance in Yemen which must be preserved at all cost.
"However, the coalition launched at least ten air strikes on some sites mentioned in the list," he pointed out.
The final data on the damage has yet to be revealed, al-Sayani said, adding that experts are ready to assess the current state of historical monuments in Yemen at any moment.
"First and foremost, some of these objects must be demined, and as for their repair and restoration, it will cost millions of dollars," he said.
According to him, the rest of the artifacts were transferred to a safe place to protect them from air strikes.
Earlier, the UN Security Council issued a resolution on the criminalization of attacks on historical monuments in Yemen.
"This decision will become an important part of the accusations against the ongoing hostilities and the countries that are involved in them. After the stabilization of the situation, Yemen will file a lawsuit with the international court against the countries that conducted these barbaric actions," al-Siyani concluded.
Late last month, Ismail Zaidan, information officer at the Ministry of Education of Yemen, told Sputnik that the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states has destroyed over 2,300 schools in Yemen in the past two years.
The damage suffered by the education process as a result of the aggression against education institutions has reached 2,306 schools and other institutions, which were fully or partially destroyed," Zaidan said.
According to Zaidan, the operation has created $400 million in damages and left dozens of teachers and pupils dead in the wake of the ongoing hostilities.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704021052214587-yemen-war-coalition-museums-damage/
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
4.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
Campaign demanding to release leader of Islah
The family of the high-ranking leader of the Islah party Mohammed Qahtan has called all human rights, organizations, activists and all Yemenis to take part in a campaign demanding to release Qahtan.
The family of Qahtan, who is member of the Higher Board of the Islah Party, called all the Yemeni people to take part in the campaign which will be launched through social media on Tuesday, 8:00 pm.
The campaign, which is arranged to mark the second anniversary of detaining Qahtan from his house in the capital Sana'a on April 4, 2015, has the hashtag of "Free Qahtan".
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5604 and also https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5642
For background information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Islah_(Yemen)
3.4.2017 – Press TV Iran (A P)
Film: Yemeni students mark war anniversary
Students at Sana’a University have organized a three-day event to mark the anniversary of the Saudi-led aggression. The war entered its third year on March 26. Our correspondent Mohammed al-Attab attended the event and filed this report.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/04/03/516621/Yemen-students-war-anniversary-Saudi-Arabia-
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (A P)
Oil minister meets UN Resident Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs
They discussed the progress of humanitarian work and the aspects of cooperation and coordination to alleviate the humanitarian situation aggravated by the continued aggression and siege against Yemen.
The meeting touched upon the threats of the aggression to target the port of Hodeida and its closure which leads disastrous consequences as it is a lifeline for Yemeni people to deliver food and medicine supplies.
The Minister hailed the exerted efforts by the UN official in the humanitarian field in Yemen.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460971.htm
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (A P)
FM discusses with UN Coordinator worsening humanitarian situation in Yemen
The meeting touched upon the issue of salaries and the lack of commitment of the fugitive Hadi and his group to the United Nations and to the Group of 18 sponsors of the process of political settlement, pointing out the need of intervention of the United Nations and international actors to end the suffering of Yemeni employees who are subjected to the policy of starvation by the aggression and mercenaries.
The Foreign Minister highlighted the importance of the safety of the port of Hodeida, which passes through it more than 70% of the humanitarian needs for Yemeni people.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460960.htm
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (A T)
Police kill terrorist in Baidha
A terrorist was killed on Monday while he was trying to plant an explosive device in the district of al-Qarishiya in Baidha province.
A security source told Saba that the incident took place on the main road linking Luqah and Baqart aeas in the district.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460975.htm
3.4.2017 – Josephjo1221 (A P)
Houthi Minister exceeds the powers of Prime Minister Ben Habtoor, and Ben Habtoor cancels that decision! Who will succeed in that? Let us see and you know !! The pride of this government (images)
https://twitter.com/JosephJo1221/status/848869366108213248
3.4.2017 – Nasser Arrabyee (A K P)
Yemenis keep mobilizing fighters against US-backed Saudi invaders. This rally held today in Ibb central Yemen for this purpose (photos)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/848904254219853829
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/848904423329943556
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/848904588463878146
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (A P)
Ministry of Expatriates condemns targeting Yemenis abroad
The Ministry of Expatriates Affairs strongly condemned the targeting of Yemenis abroad and changing Yemeni students' national curriculums in the schools of the Yemeni communities in some foreign countries, in a statement to Saba on Monday.
The ministry also denounced the change of the democratically-elected heads of the Yemeni communities in some countries in the Horn of Africa.
The ministry accused the Saudi-paid fugitive Hadi and his exiled group of seeking to split the national unity.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460921.htm
2.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A T)
Casualties in an explosive device explosion in Ibb city – local source
A local source in Ibb city, central Yemen, said that a number of people were killed and others injured on Saturday afternoon in an explosive device explosion in as it was it idiot is soon the city.
The source told almost an alliance reporter that at least two people were killed and others injured in an explosive device explosion on Maytam Road near to a checkpoint for the Houthis militants in the eastern entrance of the city
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90076
2.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K P)
Tribes in Marib to confront Saudi aggression
Al-Qramish tribes in Marib province held an extended meeting to commemorate the second anniversary of Saudi American aggression on Yemen and affirmed their anti-Saudi steadfastness.
The meeting held under the slogan of "Two Years of Steadfastness in the Face of Aggression."
At the meeting, attended by the leadership of the local authority in Harib al-Qramish district, Sheikhs, dignitaries and the audience of citizens, the participants emphasized on continuing providing front lines with fighters and food convoys until clearing the dust of our homeland from foreign invaders, occupiers and their mercenaries.
Al-Qramish tribes announced high readiness to counter attempts by Saudi-paid mercenaries to progress toward Harib district, vowing to support the military heroes and national committees in different battle fronts.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460827.htm
2.4.2017 – Saba Net (A)
Over 1,000 persons arrested on charges of crimes in Sanaa last year
Sanaa Security services have arrested 1,213 persons on charges of various crimes over the past year in the governorate of Sanaa, a police report said on Sunday.
The report said the security services seized 525 kilograms of Hashish, 52 drugs tapes 82 pieces of arms, 19 pistols, 49 hand grenades and recover six stolen cars, 11 looted cars and two motorcycles.
Those items were seized in security checkpoints in and around the governorate.
The report noted that the number of deaths caused by those crimes have reached up to 117 cases and 406 injured. It said the material losses from those crimes amounted to 242,712 million rails.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460825.htm
3.4.2017 – Gegenfrage (A P)
Jemen bittet EU, Druck auf Saudi-Arabien auszuüben
Der Jemen hat die Europäische Union angeschrieben und bittet den 28-Staaten-Block, Druck auf Saudi-Arabien auszuüben, um den seit über zwei Jahren tobenden Krieg zu beenden.
Jemens Außenminister Hisham Sharaf wandte sich schriftlich an Federica Mogherini, Hohe Vertreterin der EU für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, sowie den maltesischen Außenminister George Vella, dessen Land derzeit den Rat der Europäischen Union stellt. Darin forderte er den Block dazu auf, die von Saudi-Arabien begangenen Menschenrechtsverletzungen zu verurteilen.
Zudem schlug er die Gründung eines unabhängigen Ausschusses vor, der saudische Kriegsverbrechen im Jemen untersuchen solle. Er fügte hinzu, dass der Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen Beschlüsse erlassen solle, die einen friedlichen politischen Prozess im Jemen unterstützen. Zudem müsse Riad dazu verpflichtet werden, den Jemenkrieg zu beenden und die Blockade des verarmten Staats aufzuheben.
http://www.gegenfrage.com/jemen-bittet-eu-druck-auf-saudi-arabien-auszuueben/
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K P)
Parliament calls UN to stop Saudi war crimes against Yemen people
«Das Parlament hat am Samstag die Kriegsverbrechen und Terrorakte streng verurteilt, die von der Saudi-geführten Aggressions-Koalition gegen Jemen und dessen Volk verübt werden, und es hat die Vereinten Nationen angerufen, deren menschenrechtswidrigen Angriffskrieg zu unterbinden.»
The parliament on Saturday strongly condemned war crimes and terrorist acts carried out by Saudi-led aggression coalition against Yemen and its people, calling the United Nations to stop the inhumanity aggression war.
The condemnation came during Saturday session that headed by speaker Yahya Ali Al-Rai.
The council called on the international community and the United Nations to do their duties to stop the Saudi war crimes against humanity and the Yemeni people and lift all-out blockade.
The parliament called on the international community to hold its responsibility toward stopping Saudi aggression war which kills children, women and destroys all-out infrastructures every day.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460766.htm
1.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A)
Fierce battles break out between Houthi militants and gunman in Saref eastern the capital Sana’a – eyewitnesses
Eyewitnesses in Saref area of Bani Hushish district, eastern the capital Sana’a, said on Thursday that the fighting has broken out between the militants of the Houthi group and gunmen from Saref area, and casualties from both sides were reported.
The eyewitnesses told Almasdaronline that the fighting broke out on Wednesday evening, after the Houthis have attempted to seize by force the lands of the people in al Kassarat area near the Community College.
“The gunman forced the Houthis to retreat, after killing one of their militants and holding two others captives”.
"However, the Houthis sent more militants to the area, which led to the outbreak of the fighting again using different types of medium weapons and RPGs".
The Houthis also shelled the residential neighborhoods from the al Taweel mount overlooking the area, while the confrontations were still going on. According to the eyewitnesses.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90034
1.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
YJS shoulders Houthi-Saleh militias responsible for deteriorated health of journalist
The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate has shouldered the Houthi-Saleh militias responsible for the health deterioration of the journalist Tawfeeq al-Mansouri.
In a statement issued on Friday, YJS affirmed that it obtained information that the health of al-Mansouri, who has been detained since June 2015, extremely deteriorated.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5497
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A T)
Two citizens killed in explosive bomb in Ibb
An explosive device exploded in Ibb city, killing two citizens, a security official told Saba on Saturday.
The two men fell killed when the bomb exploded into a car on the public road.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460779.htm
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A T)
Security dismantles bomb in Baidha
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460773.htm and http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460730.htm
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A P)
We will Fight to Defend Hodeidah Port against Occupiers: Asyed Abdulmalik Al-Huthi
Leader of Revolution Asyed :Abdul Malik al-Houthi vowed to defend Red Sea port city of Hodeidah and the country against US-Saudi occupiers, in a live speech aired to the nation late on Friday.
Asyed: al-Houthi called on all Yemeni people, tribes, the army and popular committees to support the coast battle and fight the enemy and Saudi-paid mercenaries.
“The battle is not political, nor internal problem, if so, then the solution will be easy and near.. there will be many opportunities for solutions, but they wanted our Bab al-Mandab Strait,” the leader said in his speech on the special occasion to the Yemenis “Rajab Friday”.
“US, Israel and their tools in the region, led by Saudi regime and the UAE, want to enslave and humiliate the Yemeni people,” Asyed said.
“The most important challenge is that the enemy seeks to target Hodeidah
city and the coast and tries to occupy them..and our responsibility is not to allow it,” said the leader.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460720.htm = http://newnewss.net/?p=4032
3.4.2017 – Anadolu (* A P)
Yemen’s Houthis, allies release detained aid workers
Yemen’s Houthi Shia militia and its allies have released seven employees of the International Medical Corps (IMC), a nonprofit humanitarian organization, who were detained last week in the central city of Ibb, a local activist told Anadolu Agency on Monday.
The source, who spoke anonymously due to security concerns, said the U.S.-based IMC had threatened to halt relief activities in all Houthi-held parts of the city if the seven were not released.
“This pressure prompted the Houthis to release them -- five aid workers and two drivers -- on Sunday evening,” the source said.
“They were first taken to capital Sanaa, where they were released," he added.
Last Thursday, Houthi militants stormed a hotel in Ibb where the IMC employees had been staying, whisking them off to a nearby prison, according to the source.
Abdul Raqeeb Fath, Yemen’s local administration minister (and chairman of Yemen’s Supreme Relief Committee), condemned the abductions.
“Violations perpetrated by the Houthis and their allies against relief organizations have led to some of the latter being shut down,” Fath said.
In mid-March, Doctors without Borders (DWB) was forced to halt its relief work in Ibb due to what it described as an inability to carry out its activities “according to the principles of independence and neutrality," the organization said on its Facebook page – By Murad al-Arifi
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/yemen-s-houthis-allies-release-detained-aid-workers/786980
My comment: It’s evident that local Houthis at Ibb do not care for ordinary people’s needs.
3.4.2017 – Al Araby (* A P)
Yemen's Houthi rebels release detained NGO staff
Five staff members of the International Medical Corps and two contracted drivers were safely released on Sunday, the aid organisation said, a day after announcing their detention by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The seven - all "locally hired" - had been at a hotel in the central province of Ibb when they were detained, the US-based non-governmental organisation said in a statement.
International Medical Corps did not say for how long the aid workers had been held or provide details on the circumstances of their release.
The organisation's website says it has more than 150 local staff in Yemen and that it has operated since 2012 in the war-torn country.
It says its relief efforts provide a lifeline for families in the rebel-held capital and in Ibb, as well as the flashpoint southwestern city of Taiz, and Aden and Lahj in the south.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/4/3/yemens-houthi-rebels-release-detained-ngo-staff
My comment: How stupid you must be to detain these people?
2.4.2017 – Yemen Updates (A P)
#Houthis release the 9 IMC's detained employees (photo of document)
https://twitter.com/yemen_updates/status/848622746938560512
31.3.2017 – International Medical Corps (* A H)
International Medical Corps Staff Detained in Yemen
Five International Medical Corps staff members working to provide lifesaving humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen, along with two International Medical Corps-contracted drivers, were recently detained by rebels in Yemen. We are working to ensure this matter can be resolved as soon as possible.
International Medical Corps has provided humanitarian relief to the people of Yemen since 2012. Despite the ongoing conflict that has caused a steady deterioration of humanitarian conditions across the country since 2015, our relief efforts continue to provide a lifeline for families in Sana’a, Taizz, Ibb, Aden, and Lahj.
About International Medical Corps
Since its inception 30 years ago, International Medical Corps' mission has been consistent: relieve the suffering of those impacted by war, natural disaster, and disease by delivering vital health care services that focus on training. This approach of helping people help themselves is critical to returning devastated populations to self-reliance. For more information visit: www.InternationalMedicalCorps.org. Also visit us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Medium.
https://internationalmedicalcorps.org/international-medical-corps-staff-detained-in-yemen = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/international-medical-corps-staff-detained-yemen
Remark: Earlier reporting and discussion in YPR 288, c02 and cp5.
cp6 Südjemen und Hadi-Regierung / Southern Yemen and Hadi-government
4.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A P)
Hadi discusses with the French ambassador the possibility of Total's resumption of gas export
The Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi discussed on Monday the possibility of Total's resumption of export of the Yemeni gas, which has been suspended since the beginning of the crisis and war in Yemen. During a meeting with the French ambassador to Yemen, Christian Tito, in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Hadi stressed his government's keenness on peace.
On the other hand, the French Ambassador Christian Tito said that his country is closely following the developments in Yemen and the coordination and cooperation between the two friendly countries, as France has been supportive of Yemen and its constitutional legitimacy since the start of the political transformation process in Yemen. http://almasdaronline.com/article/90104
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
29.3.2017 – UN Department of Public Information (* A P)
Press release from the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Mr. Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, 29 March 2017
Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed briefed the Security Council members today on the situation in Yemen and the efforts to continue negotiations on the peace process at a closed-door meeting.
The Special Envoy expressed his deep concern about the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian and economic situation amidst a worrying escalation of military operations. "The only real way to prevent a worsening of the situation is to reach a peaceful resolution to this tragic conflict which has been going on for too long. It is my firm belief that further military escalation and humanitarian suffering will not bring the parties closer together.”
The Special Envoy had presented to the parties a framework that included a set of sequenced political and security measures which were designed to ensure a rapid end to the war, withdrawals of military formations and disarmament in key areas, and the creation of an inclusive transitional government. He urged the Security Council members to put pressure on the parties to engage constructively in discussing the framework. He said "the Government of Yemen should agree to engage in talks based on the framework, and Ansar Allah and the General People's Congress must end their long-standing refusal to undertake serious discussions on security arrangements."
The Special Envoy presented a bleak picture of the current situation. He warned that the impact of the conflict on the economy and food security will be felt long into the future and jeopardise attempts to restore stability.
The Special Envoy reiterated his call to the International Community to speak with a unified, consistent and bold voice to the parties, now more than ever. He concluded by urging the Council to “use all of its diplomatic weight to push for the relevant parties to make the concessions required to reach a final agreement before more lives are lost. We must give peace another chance.”
http://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/E084E9666ADCF0A5C12580F3002DF86B?OpenDocument = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/press-release-un-special-envoy-yemen-mr-ismail-ould-cheikh-ahmed-29-march-2017
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
3.4.2017 – Reuters (A K)
Saudi Arabia increases fighter pilots' pay by up to 60 percent
The Saudi cabinet announced a pay increase of up to 60 percent for air force pilots on Monday, state news agency SPA reported, as a military campaign led by the kingdom in neighboring Yemen entered its third year. The cabinet amended laws pertaining to military officers, allowing air force pilots and weapons operators to receive a 35 percent rise on basic salary, said in a statement. The increase for officers flying fighter jets and operating their weapons systems will be 60 percent, it said.
No reason was given for the move, nor an indication of what their current salaries might be.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-airforce-payrise-idUSKBN1751LP
3.4.2017 – Times of India (* B E H P)
Gulf dreams turn sour: 200 coffins come home every year, Saudis refuse autopsy
An attempt to escape from crushing poverty to greener pastures is sending scores of workers from Telangna into a death trap in the Gulf. The fact that in the last two and a half years, nearly 500 coffins have arrived from various gulf countries holds mirror to the grim reality. While most of the deaths are due to ill-health, road accidents account for some.
Accidental deaths at work place, suicides and murders are among other causes of casualties in the Gulf. The victims belong to all age groups between 20-60 plus. A considerable number of people who die in Saudi Arabia are buried there itself as their families back home consider this as auspicious. The most common cause that is being attributed to the deaths in some of the countries is 'heart attack'. This is because no post-mortem is done. Even suspicious death cases are ascribed to 'heart attacks'. A large number of people from the state go to the Gulf in the hope of making some quick money and freeing themselves from debt burden at home.
A look at the figures from the Shamshabad airport gives us a clear picture of the number of bodies that arrive. As many as 200 bodies arrive every year. The number as of now is 500 in the last two and a half years. Bheem Reddy Mandha, migrant rights activist who gathered the actual figures, said working conditions result in most of the workers suffering from ill-health. While workers in big companies get health cards, the less fortunate ones suffer silently without medical aid and die. In most of the road accident cases, the victims are pedestrians. The migrant workers from the state most often fall victims as they get knocked down by speeding vehicles at places where they are not supposed to cross the roads – by Ch Sushil Rao
30.3.2017 – Toronto Sun (B P)
West still bowing to Saudi Arabia
While many Western nations line up to sign business contracts with Saudi Arabia, they turn a blind eye to its medieval laws and policies.
Saudi Arabia’s excesses could fill a book, ranging from abusing the rights of women, to its mistreatment of foreign workers, to persecution of anyone espousing a non-traditional view of Islam, or daring to have a different sexual orientation from the one sanctioned by the state, under its draconian religious laws.
Yet Western nations continue to reward the oil kingdom.
According to Peter Tatchell, a human rights lawyer who is one of the authors of the UK petition, “The Saudi regime ought to be treated as a global pariah. Its courts sentenced Raif Badawi to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes for the crime of expressing the wrong opinions ... But there is no sign that this sadistic cruelty is disturbing the close and decades-long friendship between London and Riyadh.”
Other human rights abuses are even worse.
It is past time Western leaders had the backbone to stop kowtowing to Saudi Arabia – BY FARZANA HASSAN
http://www.torontosun.com/2017/03/30/west-still-bowing-to-saudi-arabia
cp9 USA
Siehe / Look at cp1
3.4.2017 – Truth Out (* A P)
Congress Members Call Out Trump for Violating War Powers as He Considers Pushing Yemen Into Famine
The White House is scheduled to consider this week a proposal from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to directly engage the US military in Saudi Arabia's war against the Houthis in Yemen, including a planned United Arab Emirates attack on the port of Hodeida.
Former US officials have also warned that this attack could push Yemen into famine
A bipartisan group of House members is demanding that President Trump seek congressional approval before escalating US involvement in Yemen's civil war. Reps. Mark Pocan [D-Wisconsin], Justin Amash [R-Michigan], Ted Lieu [D-California] and Walter Jones [R-North Carolina] are circulating a letter to the president that says, "Congress has never authorized the actions under consideration."
The letter continues: "Engaging our military against Yemen's Houthis when no direct threat to the United States exists and without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers clearly delineated in the constitution … For this reason, we write to request that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) provide, without delay, any legal justification that it would cite if the administration intends to engage in direct hostilities against Yemen's Houthis without seeking congressional authorization."
Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 over President Nixon's veto to make it harder for the president to start or escalate wars unilaterally.
By invoking their war powers, members of Congress can block the president from unilaterally moving to engage in military action.
You can urge your Representative to sign the Pocan-Amash-Lieu-Jones letter here, here, here or here.
I can't promise you that we can stop this catastrophe.
3.4.2017 – The Fiscal Times (A K P)
Trump Is Using Deadly Drone Strikes More Than Obama Ever Did
Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations recently calculated that Obama authorized 542 targeted drone strikes and special ops missions in 2,920 days -- an average of once every 5.4 days. In his first 74 days in office, President Trump has given the go-ahead at least 75 times, or about once a day.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2017/04/03/Trump-Using-Deadly-Drone-Strikes-More-Obama-Ever-Did
3.4.2017 – The American Conservative (* B H K P)
Haley’s Absurd Rhetoric and the Starvation of Yemen
Nikki Haley appeared on Face the Nation yesterday, and she was asked why Trump had proposed cuts to humanitarian aid funding when millions are at risk of starving to death in Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. This is part of her answer:
Famine is something that, when you look at those four areas, we’re extremely concerned about it. The United States has always been the moral conscience of the world.
We are going to continue to express our values and continue to make sure we show that, not just in our words, but in our actions.
Haley failed to explain how stripping funds from U.N. aid organizations that need more funding than they currently have to prevent famine in these countries demonstrates the administration’s supposed extreme concern. Her answer would be laughable if the situation weren’t so serious. The conceit that the U.S. is the “moral conscience of the world” at a time when the U.S. is actively supporting a military campaign that has taken Yemen to the brink of famine is absurd and offensive. Millions of people are being starved by the Saudi-led coalition that our government has actively supported in this war from the start, but Haley didn’t have to address that because she was never asked about it.
As usual, U.S. officials don’t acknowledge our role in wrecking and starving Yemen and are never asked to defend it. Haley was not asked about the U.S. role or our responsibility for helping to create the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. If she had been asked, the moral and strategic bankruptcy of current U.S. policy would be exposed without much difficulty. Failing to ask her about this is an especially regrettable oversight when the decision to support the coalition’s attack on the port of Hodeidah is likely to come later this week. An attack on the port would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis that is already threatening the lives of millions, and the U.N. has specifically warned against taking such action because of the horrible, predictable consequences that it would have. Our ambassador to the U.N. should be made to answer why this administration is getting ready to do something that the U.N. expects will result in disaster for millions of people – by Daniel Larison
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/haleys-absurd-rhetoric-and-the-starvation-of-yemen/
2.4.2017 – Strategic Culture (* B K P)
US to Plunge Into Yemen’s War
The US administration is on the way to escalate its involvement in Yemen – a drastic change of its Middle East policy in an attempt to roll back Iran’s influence in the region.
It wants Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and local Yemeni forces to jointly defeat the Houthis
According to Foreign Policy, the Saudis came away extremely pleased after a series of meetings in Washington in mid-March when Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited the White House.
US State Secretary Rex Tillerson established good, business-like relations with Saudi Arabia in the days he headed ExxonMobil.
Defense Secretary James Mattis is pushing for the president to remove all restrictions on US military support for the Saudi invasion of Yemen
The Washington Post reports that a plan developed by the US Central Command to assist the operation includes other elements that are not part of Mattis’s request.
If approved, the policy would mark a significant shift from counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen and limited indirect backing for Saudi and the UAE war efforts to direct «limited» involvement. As history shows, «limited involvements» often lead to participation in large-scale conflicts of great duration. It’s enough to remember how the Vietnam war started.
The more intensive involvement into Yemen’s crisis should be seen in a broader context of the US policy change in the Middle East. The administration is considering delegating more authority to the Defense Department to conduct anti-terrorist operations overseas, which at the moment require the White House approval.
President Trump has said many times the main enemy is the Islamic State (IS). The involvement in Yemen will divert forces from this mission.
Moscow has never taken sides in Yemen.
All in all, Russia is perfectly fit to play the role of mediator between the warring sides and other pertinent actors.
The war in Yemen is unwinnable; the complicated conflict is caused by many reasons, some of which go back to the ancient history – by ANDREI AKULOV
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/04/02/us-plunge-into-yemen-war.html
2.4.2017 – MbKS15 (A K P)
Gulf States & US Special Oprs train in #EagleResolve17 to improve interoperability and to respond as a combined joint task force (film)
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/848577976694386688
#GCC and #US Special Operators conduct counterterrorism drills as part of the #EagleResolve17 (photos)
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/848560270049988608
My comment: US-Gulf complicity. US drilling US and Gulf soldiers for better fighting in Yemen or against rebels within the own country.
1.4.2017 – Anti Krieg (* B K P)
Bereit für Krieg gegen den Iran?
General Joseph Votel, der Befehlshaber des US-Centcom, sagte diese Woche vor dem Ausschuss des Repräsentantenhauses für die bewaffneten Kräfte, dass die größte destabilisierende Kraft im Mittleren Osten der Iran ist, und dass die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika darauf vorbereitet sein müssen, die iranische Gefahr für die Region mit „militärischen Mitteln“ zu konfrontieren und zu bezwingen.
Kein Zweifel, der Iran ist ein Plagegeist für die Entwürfe der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika für den Mittleren Osten. Kein Zweifel, der Iran ist kein Freund Israels. Aber die größte destabilisierende Kraft im Größeren Mittleren Osten? Das sind die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Wir sind diejenigen, die 2003 den Irak über den Haufen stießen, nicht anders als die rechtmäßige Regierung des Iran 50 Jahre zuvor.
Vergessen wir nicht, dass der Schah 25 Jahre lang (1953-78) ein amerikanischer Verbündeter war. Das US-Militär verkaufte ihm liebend gern unsere höchstentwickelten Waffen, zu denen damals F-14 Tomcat-Kriegsflugzeuge und HAWK-Raketensysteme gehörten. Diese lauschige Beziehung hörte auf mit der iranischen Revolution 1979. Der Verbündete wurde zum Feind, als die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika Saddam Hussein und den Irak in dem blutigen Krieg des Irak gegen den Iran in den 1980er Jahren unterstützten.
Dennoch, ungeachtet all dieser Geschichte, ungeachtet aller Einmischungen Washingtons, aller Waffenverkäufe, ungeachtet all der Invasionen und Sanktionen sind die Iraner die destabilisierende Kraft, diejenigen, die mehr „eingreifende“ militärische Aktion der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika verdienen.
Wenn Amerikas Entwürfe im Mittleren Osten zunichtegemacht werden, schauen amerikanische Generäle nie in den Spiegel, um ihre eigene Schuld und Fehler zu sehen. Stattdessen sehen sie sich um nach neuen Ländern, um denen die Schuld zu geben – und sie anzugreifen. Der Iran ist scheinbar der nächste auf der Liste, ein Land, von dem General Mattis, amerikanischer Verteidigungsminister sagte, dass es „die nachhaltigste Gefahr für Stabilität und Frieden im Mittleren Osten ist.“
Ist jemand für Krieg gegen den Iran? Die US-Generäle sind bereit – von W. J. Astore
http://www.antikrieg.com/aktuell/2017_04_01_bereit.htm
and English version:
31.3.2017 – Bracing Views (* B K P)
Ready for War with Iran?
General Joseph Votel, U.S. Centcom commander, testified to the House Armed Services Committee this week that the greatest destabilizing force in the Middle East is Iran, and that the U.S. must be prepared to use “military means” to confront and defeat the Iranian threat to the region.
No doubt Iran is a pest to U.S. designs in the Middle East. No doubt Iran has its own agenda. No doubt Iran is no friend to Israel. But the greatest destabilizing force in the Greater Middle East? That’s the USA. We’re the ones who toppled Iraq in 2003, along with the legitimate government of Iran 50 years earlier.
Iran/Persia has lived in, and sometimes dominated, the Greater Middle East for 2500 years. By comparison, the USA is a newcomer on the block. Yet it’s the Iranians who are the destabilizers, the ones operating in a nefarious “grey zone” between peace and war, at least according to U.S. generals.
Besides the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which accidentally helped Iran, the U.S. continues to sell massive amounts of weaponry to Iran’s rivals, most especially Saudi Arabia. U.S. military operations in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East have both destabilized the region and created marketplaces for U.S. weaponry and opportunities for economic exploitation by multinational corporations. Let’s not forget that for 25 years (1953-78), the Shah of Iran was an American ally. The U.S. military loved to sell him our most advanced weaponry, which at that time included F-14 Tomcat fighters and HAWK missile systems. That cozy relationship died with the Iranian Revolution (1979); ally turned to enemy as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein and Iraq during the bloody Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
Yet, despite all this history, despite all the U.S. meddling, all the weapons sales, all the invasions and sanctions, somehow it’s the Iranians who are the destabilizing force, the ones deserving of more “disruptive” U.S. military action.
As America’s designs are frustrated in the Middle East, American generals never look in the mirror to see their own faults and failings. Instead, they cast about for new countries to blame — and to attack. Iran is seemingly next on the list, a country that General Mattis, America’s Secretary of Defense, said is “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.”
Anyone for war with Iran? U.S. generals are ready – by W. J. Astore
https://bracingviews.com/2017/03/31/ready-for-war-with-iran/ = http://original.antiwar.com/William_Astore/2017/03/31/ready-for-war-with-iran/
1.4.2017 – Fabius Maximus (* B K P)
Stratfor explains why we are fighting in Yemen’s civil war
Summary: Stratfor explains what’s happening in Yemen, and the reasons for our mad involvement in that civil war. It is important to understand, with rumors swirling that Trump plans to expand our involvement while loosening the rules of engagement (i.e., more civilian casualties). Our involvement will makes it our war, just as our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya made us partially responsible for the devastation of those nations.
Analysis: Operation Golden Spear.
The GCC coalition’s Operation Golden Spear has pushed forward along Yemen’s western coast, moving up from the Bab el-Mandeb strait to Dhubab and on through Mokha. Coalition forces are currently working to establish control over population centers while making sure their flanks are protected. And in reclaiming most of the Taiz coastline, they have nearly achieved their goal. Government forces are now just 80-90 miles (129-145 kilometers) south of the port city of al-Hudaydah, one of the most critical assets under Houthi control.
Whether coalition forces move to actually take al-Hudaydah soon depends on whether the United States will pursue a more aggressive policy in Yemen alongside the GCC.
Why we fight in Yemen.
Despite the fact that nothing has been officially decided in Washington, some Gulf countries are already praising the possibility of greater U.S. involvement in the Yemeni conflict.
Iran’s presence in Yemen is the biggest motivator the United States has for increasing its own role in the country. Though the Houthis are known to have some ties to Iran, concrete evidence of those ties emerged last week.
In fact, as limited as the United States’ role has been up to this point, it has largely been prompted by the desire to ease GCC allies’ concerns about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) struck between Washington and Tehran. The U.S. government wanted to reassure its regional allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, that it was not abandoning them or letting Iran operate with impunity in the region by supporting the Houthis.
Today, two years later, the JCPOA is still very much intact, and even Saudi officials have expressed a desire to keep it in place. Despite pressure on Washington to renegotiate the deal, few regional actors are interested in scrapping it altogether; instead, most just want it policed more stringently. But fears of Iran meddling in a strategic theater such as the Bab el-Mandeb strait are still alive and well, and they could push the United States to immerse itself further in the Yemeni civil war.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2017/04/01/stratfor-briefing-on-war-in-yemen/
1.4.2017 – The Hill (* A P)
Trump signals deeper US involvement in Yemen
Several reports this week said Trump is considering providing assistance for an offensive on a key port held by rebels in Yemen and has already increased intelligence sharing and logistics support.
In addition, Trump is considering allowing an arms sale to the Saudis that Obama blocked and has approved an arms sale to Bahrain, which is part of the Saudi coalition.
Providing a window into the advice Trump is getting, the general under whose responsibility Yemen falls said this week there are “vital U.S. interests at stake” in the country.
But the Democrats and a few Republicans who battled Obama over U.S. involvement in Yemen are vowing to do the same under Trump.
“It sounds like we’ve learned absolutely no lessons from the last 15 years in the Middle East,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. “We’re engaged in a rapid military escalation with no political strategy. This is a recipe for disaster, and I’m prepared to use whatever tools I have at my disposal to try to force Congress to weigh in on this question.”
Trump appears poised to reverse Obama’s rollback of support for the campaign.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has reportedly signed off on the precision-guided munitions sale, with White House approval needed before it’s official – BY REBECCA KHEEL
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/326767-trump-signals-deeper-us-involvement-in-yemen
31.3.2017 – Vice (* B K P)
War Under Trump Means More Troops, More Deaths, and Less Caution
A military analyst explains the differences between Trump and Obama when it comes to conflict in the Middle East.
As with a lot of Trump's worldview, it seemed unclear what he wanted to do in the Middle East.
Two months after he took office, there's a little more clarity: Trump has ramped up the aggression in the global war on terror and shows no sign of slowing down.
I called up Omar Lamrani, a senior military analyst at the geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor to ask about how Trump's military policy differs from Obama's.
Omar Lamrani: Where we do see a difference is in the Trump administration's willingness to be a little bit more aggressive—or less cautious is a better way to phrase it. What we saw in the Obama administration, especially toward the end of his two terms, was the micromanagement of huge military operations in the Middle East and around the globe. Before a US military strike could happen, or before a significant special operations force raid could take place, the last decision was always gonna be on the desk of President Obama. So far what we see from the Trump administration is a far less micro-managing style. Trump doesn't seem to be very keen on being involved in the day-to-day or the week-to-week operations and is giving his generals much more leeway in directing the fight the way they see fit.
Recently Glenn Greenwald wrote an article headlined "Trump's War on Terror Has Quickly Become as Barbaric and Savage as He Promised." There's also a perception among some that the Trump administration has liberated the military from already very loose rules of engagement. Do you agree with these conclusions?
It's a controversial issue because, first of all, the Pentagon is outright denying that their rules of engagement have changed. That's number one. Second of all, it's really hard to know whether they've changed, because the Pentagon does not release the exact rules of engagement for operational security reasons.
Do you think generally Trump will ramp up operations in the Middle East?
I think that that will be true, and we're already seeing it.
According to Airwars, there's been a massive increase in civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria this month. Do you think this could have happened under Obama?
It's entirely possible that this could have happened under Obama administration. Keep in mind that part of the reason why we may be seeing this is the nature of the fight on the ground.
I think it's really dangerous to read too much into the number of civilian deaths and ascribe it purely to Trump's decisions or Obama's. It has more to do with the battlefield and the evolution of the battlefield. Where we do see a difference between the two administrations is that Obama's administration was always very concerned over mission creep – by EVE PEYSER
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/war-under-trump-means-more-troops-more-deaths-and-less-caution
27.3.2017 – Mint Press News (* B K P)
Trump Is Taking The US-Saudi Relationship To The Next Level
Considering the long-standing “special relationship” between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, it’s hard to imagine how the two nations could align even more closely in their policies. But Saudi Arabia’s multiple foreign entanglements that are intended to extend its influence – along with the U.S.’ addiction to Saudi oil – offer Trump the opportunity to prove himself as “a true friend” of the Saudis “who will serve the [Wahhabi] Muslim World in an unimaginable manner.”
However, more seems to be happening behind the scenes. As political analyst Catherine Shakdam told MintPress: “on paper it very much appears as if the Trump administration has given in to Saudi Arabia’s lobbying activities and essentially decided to toe Riyadh’s line against Iran to preserve whatever financial ties exist in between the two allies.”
Yet, with the Saudis “unraveling at the seam,” Shakdam argues that “[Trump’s] stance depends on where the wind will blow next.” This raises the question: could this latest meeting be yet another attempt by Trump to keep foreign leaders – even long-time regional allies – on edge?
Though U.S. foreign policy consistently puts the country’s own interests above any guarantees based on “loyalty,” the long-standing “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. will not be an easy one to shake.
This relationship has dominated U.S. foreign policy interests in the Middle East for the better part of the last century, especially after the 1970s, when U.S.-Saudi relations went to the next level with the advent of the petrodollar system.
This latest about-face from the new presidential administration suggests that its previously aggressive stance on Iran may have been a form of posturing meant to please regional allies like Israel and the oil-rich Gulf monarchies.
War In Yemen Another Key Factor
Though the U.S.’ shifting positions regarding the long-time geopolitical rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is key to gauging Washington’s true intentions in the region, the Saudi conflict in Yemen is another important theater in assessing whether Trump will ultimately emerge as the “true friend” that the Saudis are now expecting.
These increases seem to suggest that Trump is seeking to win the approval of the Saudis – at least on this front. However, several analysts have argued that Trump’s escalation of U.S. involvement in Yemen is unlikely to go any further than it already has. Gregory Gause, a professor of international affairs at Texas A&M University and a Saudi specialist, told Bloomberg that “I do not think that the Trump administration wants to get more deeply involved in Iraq, Syria or other places where the Saudis would want help in turning back Iranian influence.”
Shakdam shared Gause’s perspective, saying “President Trump may agree to a few airstrikes [in Yemen] so that he could score military brownie points with Riyadh, but I don’t expect any real commitment. A lot of [U.S. involvement in Yemen] is military posing.”
Appeasement As Protection – Saudis Could Still Crash The Dollar – By Whitney Webb
http://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-is-taking-the-us-saudi-relationship-to-the-next-level%E2%80%8B/226289/ = http://theantimedia.org/trump-us-saudi-relationship/ and another older article on US-Saudi relations after the visit of the Deputy Crown Prince: http://www.worldtribune.com/report-saudi-deputy-crown-prince-failed-to-sway-trump-white-house/
27.11.2015 – Popular Resistance (** B K P)
US Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since World War II
This study reveals that U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars. The Korean War also includes Chinese deaths while the Vietnam War also includes fatalities in Cambodia and Laos.
The American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also responsible. In the latter wars there were between nine and 14 million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan.
But the victims are not just from big nations or one part of the world. The remaining deaths were in smaller ones which constitute over half the total number of nations. Virtually all parts of the world have been the target of U.S. intervention.
The overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world
Comments on Gathering These Numbers
37 VICTIM NATIONS (from Afghanistan to Yugoslavia; but Yemen has been forgotten by the author! And what about the war victims, de to the US-backed regime change in Ukraine?) – by James A. Lucas
https://popularresistance.org/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-in-37-nations-since-wwii/ = http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051
2.4.2017 – Arab American News (A P)
Yemeni Americans stage New York protest
4.4.2017 – World Socialist Web (* A P)
Al-Sisi in den USA: Roter Teppich für den Schlächter von Kairo
Am Montag rollte das Weiße Haus den roten Teppich für den ägyptischen Diktator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi aus. Sein Treffen mit US-Präsident Donald Trump ist der Höhepunkt eines fünftägigen Staatsbesuchs in den USA, mit dem er Washingtons Unterstützung für sein brutales Regime festigen und sich neue Gelder von der Weltbank und der Wall Street sichern will. Auf der Agenda sind außerdem neue Geschäfte mit transnationalen US-Konzernen, die von der Ausbeutung der niedrig bezahlten und unterdrückten Arbeiter in Ägypten profitieren wollen. http://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2017/04/04/pers-a04.html
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
3.4.2017 – The Independent (* A P)
Metropolitan Police are not investigating Saudi war crimes in Yemen, Downing Street insists
Ahead of the Prime Minister's official visit to Saudi Arabia, a Number 10 spokesperson denied claims the Metropolitan Police were investigating claims of Saudi human rights abuses in Yemen
A Downing Street spokesperson has played down the significance of a report saying Scotland Yard is examining allegations of war crimes by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
The Metropolitan Police do have powers to invest allegations of war crimes, but when when asked specifically about claims that it was, the spokesperson said: “There is no Met investigation. What has happened is that they received an allegation of war crimes. They are now conducting what is known as a scoping exercise, which is a different thing entirely to an investigation.”
The spokesperson also played down the prospect of human rights abuses in Yemen being raised by the Prime Minister on her visit to Saudi Arabia. The talks would mostly focus on defence and trade issues, he said. Yemen war crime allegations were “not on the agenda”, he said.
Responding to the report, The Liberal Democrats’ Defence spokesperson Tom Brake said: "Theresa May has scrubbed human rights from the agenda in a panicked bid to get a trade deal.
"It is well known that Saudi Arabia has repeatedly infringed the rights of its own citizens as well as those in neighbouring countries yet Theresa May is silent.
"Human rights are a core value that we must defend. To ignore them, to sweep them under the carpet to avoid a difficult conversation, is a shameful indictment of how desperate May has become." – by Tom Peck
Remark: Report on Met examination, see below.
3.4.2017 – Stop War (* A P)
Yemen: The savage May-Saudi equation
As Yemen's annihilation continues, Theresa May is reaffirming her support for the brutal Saudi regime
Saudi Arabia’s role in the Middle east is a reactionary and dangerous one. The closeness of some of its key figures to Islamic terrorist groups including ISIS, its abuse of human rights, women’s rights and all forms of democracy, its profoundly conservative religious politics are all nothing compared to the vast profits which have been made since the notorious al Yamamah arms deal sealed by Margaret Thatcher’s son Mark back in the 1980s.
Saudi Arabia is given special treatment rather than being branded an international pariah because it is seen as a key ally of Britain and the US and as a bolster against Iran in the region. They have watched as Saudi military spending has doubled in just over a decade and have seen this as source of support and even stability in the Middle East.
It is exactly the opposite. As we see with the war in Yemen, this is a brutal and oppressive regime which is being backed by its western allies regardless of the outcome - by Lindsey German
http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/2495-yemen-the-savage-may-saudi-equation
3.4.2017 – All Daily News (A P)
Jeremy Corbyn comment on the PM’s visit to Saudi Arabia
Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, commenting on the Prime Minister’s visit to Saudi Arabia, said:
“The Prime Minister should put human rights and international law at the centre of her talks with Saudi Arabia’s government this week.
“Yemen urgently needs a ceasefire, a political settlement, and food aid, not more bombing. British-made weapons are being used in a war which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
“Britain must halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia immediately, throw its weight behind a ceasefire resolution at the United Nations and back a full and genuinely independent investigation of the evidence of war crimes in Yemen.
“As it stands, the British-Saudi relationship is damaging to the people of Saudi Arabia, Britain and the wider Middle East, and helping to export insecurity to the rest of the world.
“Unless the Prime Minister challenges the Saudi regime over its abuses this week, it will be clear she is ready to sacrifice human rights and security on the altar of the arms trade.”
http://all-daily-news.com/2017/04/03/jeremy-corbyn-comment-on-the-pms-visit-to-saudi-arabia/00151753
2.4.2017 – Middle East Eye (* A P)
Theresa May to visit Saudi Arabia in post-Brexit trade push
Theresa May has been urged to raise human rights and the conflict in Yemen when she meets Saudi leaders on Tuesday, after Downing Street confirmed the British prime minister is set to travel to Saudi Arabia this week.
May is understood to be travelling to Jordan on Monday, before flying to Riyadh on Tuesday, where she is expected to meet with King Salman and senior members of the Saudi ruling family.
Middle East Eye understand the visit will focus not just on counter-terrorism, amid claims that Saudi intelligence has potentially saved hundreds of British lives, but will also focus on a closer post-Brexit trading relationship between the two countries.
"To tackle the threats we face from terrorism and from geopolitical instability, we must meet them at their source," May said in a statement. "Jordan is on the frontline of multiple regional crises and I’m clear that by working with them, we are helping keep British people safe.
“Likewise in Saudi Arabia: We must never forget that intelligence we have received in the past from that country has saved potentially hundreds of lives in the UK," she said.
May is expected to use the visit to the Middle East to stress the need for collaboration in the wake of the Westminster attack, while also offering additional humanitarian support to Jordan to help it handle the large number of Syrian refugees crossing its borders.
Much will be made of the fact that May has chosen Riyadh as her first overseas destination after triggering Article 50, the mechanism by which the British government begins the negotiations to exit the European Union.
Saudi Arabia is already the UK’s leading trading partner in the Middle East with annual trade worth $8.2bn a year, Downing Street is expected to stress on Monday.
Saudi Arabia has also invested more than $75bn in the UK economy and government ministers repeatedly note that the relationship helps protect British security.
In December last year, May described the UK as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf’s “partner of choice” during a visit to Bahrain to address the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC). She also used the visit, where she spoke from the deck of a Royal Navy warship, to announce the establishment of the first joint UK-GCC counter-terrorism working group – by Jamie Merrill
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/theresa-may-visit-saudi-arabia-post-brexit-trade-push-530464282
Comments by Hussam Al-Sanabani: It seems UK foreign policy is for sell. For those interested, the auction will be held at Al Yamama Palace in Riyadh next Tuesday.
https://twitter.com/HussamSanabani/status/848660557695774720
The Yemen war will not end easily unless Saudi money ends. Western governments sees it as a source of income, not as a humanitarian crisis
https://twitter.com/HussamSanabani/status/848656629746855936
Comment to Comment by Sidney: Well put. Saudi Arabia spends more per head on its military than Britain, France and the USA combined. Let's follow the money.
https://twitter.com/LondonBrexiteer/status/848667154417319941
3.4.2017 – Amnesty International (A P)
Theresa May must raise 'reckless airstrikes' in Yemen during visit to Saudi Arabia
Responding to news that UK Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Saudi Arabia in the coming days, Allan Hogarth, head of policy and government affairs for Amnesty International UK, said:
“Of course we understand security is an important issue, but during her trip to Saudi Arabia, Theresa May should be telling her hosts that their country's human rights record is totally unacceptable.
"Torture, grossly unfair trials and the use of the death penalty are rampant in Saudi Arabia, while reckless Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen are causing endless death and destruction.
"The security of those Yemeni civilians, who are being killed and injured by these reckless air strikes, must be on the agenda.
"Whatever deals Mrs May secures during her time in Riyadh, there should be one business arrangement that is immediately suspended – the sale of all UK arms to Saudi Arabia that could be used to carry out yet more atrocities in Yemen.
“With civilian deaths in Yemen mounting ever higher, ministers should long ago have halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia – instead they’ve buried their heads in the sand.”
2.4.2017 – The Guardian (* A P)
Met police look at allegations of Saudi war crimes in Yemen
Scotland Yard’s move risks sparking diplomatic row as Theresa May prepares to visit Arab state to talk up closer trade links
Scotland Yard is examining allegations of war crimes by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, the Guardian can reveal, triggering a possible diplomatic row with Britain on the eve of Theresa May’s visit to the Arab state.
The Metropolitan police confirmed that their war crimes unit was assessing whether criminal prosecutions could be brought over Saudi Arabia’s devastating aerial campaign in Yemen.
The force’s SO15 counter-terrorism unit revealed to a London human rights lawyer that it had launched a “scoping exercise” into the claims before Maj Gen Ahmed al-Asiri’s visit to the capital last week.
The revelation comes as May plans to underline Britain’s close relationship with the Saudi royal family on her visit to the Arab state this week, in which tackling the terror threat from Islamic State will be a key factor.
Speaking in advance of the trip, in which she will also visit Jordan, the prime minister said she wanted to “herald a further intensification in relations between our countries and deepen true strategic partnerships”.
She argued that the intelligence relationship with Saudi Arabia had been critical, potentially saving hundreds of lives in the UK, and claimed there were huge possibilities for closer trade links as the UK moves towards leaving the European Union.
May plans to stress the need for collaboration in the wake of the Westminster terror attack, while also pledging humanitarian support to Jordan to help it handle the huge volumes of refugees displaced by the Syrian conflict.
In a letter from a detective inspector in SO15, which has been seen by the Guardian, Scotland Yard said: “I can confirm we have commenced a scoping exercise into the allegations you have raised regarding potential crimes in Yemen, committed by the international coalition who have intervened in the conflict between pro- and anti-government forces.”
Officers are carrying out the scoping exercise to assess whether a full-scale investigation is justified into the war crimes allegations. It is understood that detectives are to examine whether there is an identifiable suspect and, if not, whether there is a realistic prospect of identifying one.
If a suspect is identified, detectives will then consider whether they can make on-the-ground inquiries overseas, although that is likely to prove impossible in Yemen.
Downing Street said Saudi Arabia was the UK’s largest trading partner in the Middle East, with exports of British goods at £4.67bn and services at £1.9bn in 2015.
“As the United Kingdom leaves the EU, we are determined to forge a bold, confident future for ourselves in the world. We must look at the challenges that we, and future generations, will face and build stronger partnerships with countries that will be vital to both our security and our prosperity,” May has said – by Josh Halliday and Anushka Asthana
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/met-police-examine-allegations-saudi-arabia-war-crimes-yemen?CMP=twt_gu and by The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-theresa-may-war-crimes-metropolitan-police-investigate-visit-trade-mission-a7663706.html
Remark: Look at article above; Met will not examine.
3.4.2017 – Green Party (A P)
Green Party: Theresa May must raise war crime allegations during Saudi Arabia visit
Comment: She will never say anything: Saudi Arabia is the #1 client and UK is also providing intelligence to the Saudis, not only weapons. It means they are in this war together against #Yemen
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1325666220819738
2.4.2017 – Saudi War Crimes (A P)
Conference in Britain for Yemen solidarity with follow-UPS | 2 April | The British activists organized a conference of solidarity with Yemen and protest the saudi aggression against American and British complicity as well as the occupation of Bahrain. Participated in the conference that was held yesterday in London gathering of politicians and activists and the British and Arabs to highlight Saudi role in destabilizing the region and ignite fire wars and divisions sectarianism, especially the war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and motives behind continuing it. (photos)
2.4.2017 – Middle East Eye (A P)
UK's Boris Johnson apologises for egg attack on Saudi general
Foreign secretary called Saudi defence minister to 'express regret' after Ahmed Asiri was hit by an egg in London as activists tried to arrest him.
The United Kingdom officially has apologised to Saudi Arabia for what it called "an aggression" against Saudi Major General Ahmed Asiri, who was hit by an egg thrown by activists trying to perform a citizen's arrest in London on Thursday, the Saudi press agency SPA said.
British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson called Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi defence minister, to officially "express his regret for the attack" and "stress his interest in the results of the investigation," the Saudi government reported.
General Asiri is the spokesperson for the two-year long war against the Houthi movement in Yemen and an adviser to the Saudi defence ministry. He was in London to speak at an event organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, when peace activists tried to put him under citizen's arrest for war crimes in Yemen.
An activist can be seen throwing an egg against Asiri in a video of the scene.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/london-apologises-egg-attack-saudi-general-1865522157 and by Saudi Press Agency http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1610721#1610721
My comment: More reporting YPR 288, cp10. – This excuse throws a clear light on the British government. Throwing an egg is a matter to apologize for, throwing bombs killing scores is not.
Comment: You cannot allow this to happen to your best client
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1324567450929615
cp11 Deutschland / Germany
3.4.2017 – Telepolis (* B E K P)
Deutsche Waffen für Arabiens Autokraten
Abgehängt zu werden von der Konkurrenz fürchtet die deutsche Rüstungslobby, zumal sich die europäischen Produzenten teilweise selbst im Wege stehen: Statt ihre Ressourcen zu bündeln, machen sie sich auf dem profitträchtigen globalen Kampffliegermarkt gegenseitig Konkurrenz. Nicht nur das Eurofighter-Konsortium mit Sitz in Hallbergmoos bei München buhlt international um Aufträge, Dassault Aviation aus Frankreich sowie der schwedische Hersteller Saab treten mit eigenen Modellen ebenfalls gegen die mächtigen amerikanischen Wettbewerber Lockheed Martin, Boeing und Northrop Grumman an.
Außerdem versuchte Sigmar Gabriel, eine neue Linie durchzusetzen: Weniger Waffen sollten künftig aus Deutschland verkauft werden, forderte der Vizekanzler gleich zu Beginn seiner Amtszeit. Nur durch Ab-, nicht durch Aufrüstung ließen sich die Krisenherde der Welt mittelfristig eindämmen. Das sei auch deshalb bitter nötig, weil ein entscheidender Grund für die Flüchtlingskrise in Europa die anhaltenden Kriege in Syrien und im Irak seien.
Die Rüstungsmanager hingegen irritiert es wenig, dass der Export von deutschem Kriegsgerät ein halbes Jahrzehnt nach den friedlichen Protesten in Kairo, Tunis und Damaskus wieder vermehrt in die Spannungs- und Konfliktzonen des arabischen Krisengürtels erfolgt. Dabei hatte das EU-Parlament bereits im März 2016 wegen des verheerenden Kriegs im Jemen ein Waffenembargo gegen Saudi-Arabien gefordert. Die Luftwaffe des Königreichs ist nicht nur mit Kampfflugzeugen der Typen Tornado und Eurofighter Typhoon ausgerüstet, die einen hohen deutschen Entwicklungs- und Produktionsanteil haben, sondern bezieht auch Iris-T-Raketen aus dem Hause Diehl.
Die spiegelglatten Lenkflugkörper, die am Stand an der Berlin Air Show ILA in blaues Licht getaucht sind, gelten dank der hoch entwickelten Infrarotsuchköpfe als Wunderwerk der Technik. Schon heute sind Eurofighter- und Tornadokampfjets serienmäßig mit den Geschossen aus dem Diehl-Werk in Überlingen am Bodensee bestückt.
Der Bedarf der saudischen Luftwaffe an den modernsten Kurzstreckenraketen der Welt liegt Militärfachleuten zufolge bei weit über tausend Stück, Tendenz steigend: Da kein Ende der Krisen auf der arabischen Halbinsel in Sicht ist, muss für Nachschub gesorgt sein - schließlich gilt es, sich für alle Eventualitäten vorzubereiten. Dazu zählt auch die Bedrohung durch den Iran, der Israel als zentrale Bedrohung der Hüterin der heiligen Stätten des Islams in Mekka und Medina längst abgelöst hat – von Markus Bickel
https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Deutsche-Waffen-fuer-Arabiens-Autokraten-3673041.html
1.4.2017 – Saudi War Crimes (A P)
#Berlin: 1st April 2017: "Stoppt den Krieg gegen den Jemen" (photos)
https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1657227627906558
Die antiisraelischen Töne auf dieser Demonstration kritisiert von:
3.4.2017 – Hagalil (A P)
Antisemitischer Hass bei Antikriegsdemo in Berlin
Mit antisemitischen Stereotypen in der Rede des Organisators der jährlichen Al-Quds-Demo endete am Samstagabend (1.4.2017) vor dem Berliner Brandenburger Tor ein Aufmarsch, der den Krieg in Jemen thematisierte…
http://www.hagalil.com/2017/04/antikriegsdemo/
Mein Kommentar: Sehr viel Sensibilität zum Thema Jemen würde ich aber von dieser Seite auch nicht gerade erwarten (this was a very British understatement)
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
3.4.2017 – Arab News (A P)
IPU confirms support for legitimacy in Yemen
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) confirmed its support for Yemen’s unity, sovereignty and legitimate leadership, and rejected the coup by the Houthis and ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
This came during the meeting of the Yemeni parliamentary delegation that is taking part in the IPU conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The Yemeni delegation — headed by the vice chairman of Yemen’s Parliament, Muhammad Al-Shaddadi — reviewed the situation in Yemen, including continuous violations against the Yemeni people by Iran-supported rebels.
The delegation said these militias practice terrorism and racist discrimination, Yemen’s official news agency reported.
Al-Shaddadi met with IPU President Saber Chowdhury and Secretary-General Martin Chungong.
They discussed the state of Yemen’s Parliament, which was closed by rebels, who arrested MPs and threatened to kill them.
The Parliament was moved to the temporary capital Aden as a result, but has not yet been established. The Yemeni delegation invited Chowdhury and Chungong to visit Aden.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1078291/middle-east and also look at this March 17 report: http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1603142
My comment: Well, the Yemeni parliament is residing at Sanaa, it regularly meets and is backing the Houthi / Saleh “Salvation” government at Sanaa. “Yemen’s Parliament, which was closed by rebels, who arrested MPs and threatened to kill them” is rather a propaganda bullshit. A few deputies followed “president” Hadi’s call to come to Aden. They hardly can make up any “parliament”, as the greatest part of deputies stayed at Sanaa.
2.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
IPU stresses rejection of Houthi coup
Inter-Parliamentary Union has affirmed its support to Yemen, its unity and sovereignty, expressing rejection to the coup carried out by the Houthi-Saleh militias in Yemen.
This came during a meeting held on Saturday between a Yemeni and international delegations in the Bengal capital, Dhaka in the period from 1-5 April.
The Yemeni delegation headed by al-Shadid reviewed Yemen's situation and continuing violations practiced by the coup militias backed by Iran against the Yemeni people.
The Yemeni delegation also held several meetings with international delegations in which they expressed their support to the legitimate Yemeni government.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5548
My comment: “Yemen” is the Hadi government. The joke of this story is that the Yemeni parliament is backing the Sanaa “Salvation” government and just a handful of deputees came to Aden to back the Hadi government there. They cannot form any “parliament” at all.
2.4.2017 – The News Pakistan (A P)
Military alliance
The announcement by the Foreign Office that Pakistan will be part of the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism, coming just days after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif confirmed that former army chief Raheel Sharif would be permitted to lead the alliance, clearly represents a conscious decision to more closely ally ourselves with Saudi Arabia in the various wars engulfing the Middle East. There are still a lot of questions to be answered. For instance, will we be sending any of our troops to Saudi Arabia or any other Middle Eastern countries? There were recent reports that Pakistani troops would protect Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen; the government response to these reports has been ambiguous. How will this affect our ties with Iran, which views the alliance with suspicion as a sectarian force? These are questions which should have been debated before our inclusion in the alliance was announced and presented as a fait accompli – by Editorial Board
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/195960-Military-alliance
2.4.2017 – Tribune Pakistan (A P)
Is Pakistan willing to jeopardise its relations with Iran for Saudi Arabia?
It was shocking to hear Defence Minister Khwaja Asif proudly confirm that the government has agreed to the Saudi request and will allow former army chief General (retd) Raheel Sharif to command the Saudi-led military alliance of 34 Muslim nations to fight terrorism. However, observers are concerned that the coalition could be used for future conflicts against Iran and its ally Yemen.
The National Assembly had earlier agreed that it would not be in the country’s interest to take sides in the present war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen (Iran’s ally), and had decided that Pakistan would stay neutral in the conflict. Hence, this recent announcement comes as a bolt from the blue. I would like to know how and why the government decided to agree to Saudi’s request without taking the people into confidence. This is a serious matter which should have been debated in Parliament before the decision was taken.
Moreover, Pakistan has the world’s second largest population of Shia Muslims (more than 20%). Our government should have consulted the country’s Shia leaders before giving a no-objection certificate (NOC) to General Raheel to head the alliance.
It is therefore in our interest not to further antagonise Iran. The relations between Pakistan and Iran have recently been strained due to our closeness with Saudi Arabia, but have not yet reached a breaking point. Iran is our next door neighbour and has plenty of natural gas which we urgently require.
In fact, I have a suggestion for both the government and the general. The government should appoint General Sharif as an ambassador at large who can act as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran – By Shakir Lakhani
2.4.2017 – Tasnim News (A P)
Bahrainis Rally in Support of Yemenis
A crowd of Bahraini people held a demonstration to condemn the Saudi-led military attacks that have been targeting Yemeni civilians for two years.
Hundreds of Bahraini protesters, including women, poured into the streets on Saturday night to voice support for the people of Yemen, who have been under unrelenting Saudi-led airstrikes since March 2015.
Urging an immediate end to the massacre of Yemeni people by Saudi Arabia, Bahraini demonstrators were carrying placards that read “Stop Killing Yemeni Children.
https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2017/04/02/1368459/bahrainis-rally-in-support-of-yemenis
My comment: Brave.
1.4.2017 – Ayad (A E P)
#ksa signs economic agreements with Jordan $3.5 billion 4participation in war against#Yemen &hostility against #Iran (photo)
https://twitter.com/maddllock/status/848301068274601984
My comment: Saudi money buys everything, everybody.
1.4.2017 – Middle east Eye (A H)
Kuwaiti woman arrested for filming Ethiopian employee hanging out of window
Maid screams for help before falling from seventh-floor window as employer stands recording it on her phone
Kuwaiti police have detained the woman employer for filming the apparent suicide attempt without trying to rescue her employee, media and a rights group said. (with films)
3.4.2017 – AFP (A P)
EU-Außenminister tagen zu Syrien und Jemen
Als Gast nimmt der Generalsekretär der Arabischen Liga, Ahmed Abul Gheit, an dem EU-Treffen teil.
http://www.stern.de/news/eu-aussenminister-tagen-zu-syrien-und-jemen-7396210.html
Mein Kommentar: Mit dem Gast hat man sich gleich eine eindeutige Kriegspartei (für beide Konflikte) eingeladen.
3.4.2017 – European Union (A P)
Council adopts conclusions on Yemen
Recalling its Council Conclusions of 16 November 2015, the EU reaffirms its serious concern about the situation in Yemen. The ongoing conflict is having devastating consequences for the country and its population. In spite of the international pressure for a political solution to the crisis, the parties to the conflict have failed to reach a settlement and the fighting continues unabated. The number of civilian casualties continues to increase. Yemen's civilian infrastructure and institutions have been heavily affected by the war and are increasingly unable to deliver basic services. The humanitarian situation is catastrophic with 17 million food insecure Yemenis depending on external aid for their survival and 7.3 million people are at serious risk of famine. The situation is especially dire among children with over 2.2. million acutely malnourished. The dramatic economic downturn and the liquidity crisis further aggravate the dire situation.
2. Vulnerable groups, women and children are particularly affected by the on-going hostilities and the humanitarian crisis. The safety and well-being of women and girls is also of particular concern. The EU calls on all parties to the conflict to take all the necessary steps to prevent and respond to all forms of violence including sexual and gender-based violence in situations of armed conflict. The EU also strongly condemns the violations of the rights of the child and continued recruitment of child soldiers and is concerned at children's limited access to even basic health care and education.
3. The EU is likewise concerned at the consequences of the war in Yemen for the region's stability.
4. There can be no military solution to the conflict in Yemen. The crisis can only be solved through a negotiation process, involving all the parties concerned, with the full and meaningful participation of women, and leading to an inclusive political solution.
5. The EU strongly condemns attacks against civilians and renews its urgent call on all parties to the conflict to ensure the protection of civilians and to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including to respect the principles of distinction, proportionality, and to take precaution in the conduct of hostilities. The EU is deeply concerned by the impact of ongoing hostilities, including bombardments, use of cluster munitions and reported use of antipersonnel mines as well as by attacks causing the destruction of civilian infrastructure including schools, medical facilities, residential areas, markets, water systems, ports and airports. Ensuring accountability for violations is an important part of the process to achieve a lasting settlement of the current conflict.
6. The EU reiterates the urgent need to remove obstacles and bureaucratic hurdles preventing the delivery of life-saving assistance and to facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need
7. The EU is ready to increase its efforts to support UN actions in the search of a political settlement
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/04/03-fac-conclusions-yemen/ = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/council-conclusions-yemen-03-april-2017
? – European Union (A P)
Yemen and the EU
Political relations
The European Union enjoys longstanding relations with Yemen, which date back to 1997 when the first official cooperation agreement was signed. This relationship has kept growing ever since. Framework governing the EU – Yemen partnership. Supporting the ongoing negotiations to end the conflict and return to a peaceful transitional process is a key political priority for the EU.
The EU hopes that a new inclusive political agreement brokered by the UN with the support of the International Community will allow Yemenis themselves to re-build their state on civil and democratic along principles accepted by all. The main goal of this process is to respond to the legitimate demands of the Yemenis, who want the establishment of a democratic, modern and civil state that respects and protects the rights of its citizens.
Trade
Development and cooperation
Development cooperation is at the heart of the EU's partnership with Yemen. The current EU support amounts to around €440 million earmarked in the multiannual plan 2016-2020. In addition, the EU's humanitarian office, ECHO, allocated € 120 million in humanitarian aid since the beginning of the conflict. The EU is a lead donor in sectors such as food security, state-building, public health, and humanitarian aid. The EU's support focuses on improving good governance and reducing poverty by stimulating economic growth and developing human capital in order to increase the delivery of basic social services, social protection and job creation.
The EU is also an important donor for civil society.
Governance & justice
Humanitarian aid
https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_en/1877/Yemen%20and%20the%20EU
My comment: The EU is the second largest arms supplier for the destruction of Yemen (from memory: UK, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain; Bulgaria; whom did I forget)?
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms trade
2.4.2017 – MbKS15 (A K P)
ZK620/8021 & ZK621/8022 Typhoon have been delivered to the #RSAF. One more batch to go — 70 delivered / 72 ordered (photo)
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/848441993147633664
Remark: That’s from Britain.
cp13b Flüchtlinge / Refugees
2.4.2017 – Aljazeera (* B H)
Why are African men and women still fleeing to Yemen?
The search for a better life continues to drive people from the Horn of Africa to Yemen.
Conflict has been raging in Yemen since 2015, yet people from Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea remain undeterred to thread on the perilous routes only to encounter dangerous conditions when they get there.
Since 2013, nearly 290,000 refugees and migrants have landed on the Yemeni coast. Nearly 80 percent of these were Ethiopians, and most of the rest were Somalis. Most journey to Yemen in the hope of using it as a transit point, while others look to stay in Yemen, often unaware of the dangers.
Between January 2006 and April 2016, more than 700,000 persons reportedly crossed from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, with Somalis mostly staying in Yemen as refugees and Ethiopians travelling onwards to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
So why are people from the Horn still trying to reach a conflict-ridden country and what should be done to stop them from embarking on such a dangerous journey?
Awareness doesn't change decisions
The Ethiopian state of emergency that was declared October 2016 continues to fuel outward displacement, and Ethiopian asylum seekers interviewed in Yemen, are increasingly referring to the unrest as a key reason for their migration out of the country.
Somalis cited a number of reasons for migrating including economic opportunities, tribal conflict, poverty and hardship and conflict between the government and al-Shabab.
Two reasons for attempting the journey that most people from the Horn share are a sense of responsibility to their families and positive perceptions of migration.
The most common smuggling route to Yemen starts from Djibouti's coast. Most of the asylum seekers, especially Ethiopians, arriving in Djibouti are aware of the ongoing conflict in Yemen, but think it will not affect them. Some think the ongoing conflict and resulting lack of rule of law, will allow them to disembark and transit through Yemen, more easily and without being stopped by local authorities.
A mix of misinformation by brokers and smugglers, political reasons and migration success stories seen on social media and heard through the community grapevine were all significant drivers of migration, even when migrants have some information on the conflict in Yemen.
Once they arrive in Djibouti, many face shortages of water and food and have to resort to begging or working menial jobs to pay for the journey to Yemen.
These are perilous routes run by well-coordinated networks of smugglers. The smuggler networks between the point of embarkation in Djibouti and disembarkation in Yemen are often coordinated in terms of sharing information on when boats would set off and arrive.
Once asylum seekers land in Yemen, they are abducted and taken to smuggling dens for weeks on end, until they pay extortion fees to secure their release. If they are unable to pay, they are beaten, raped, tortured or put to work before eventually being released.
Oftentimes other smugglers would recapture those travelling further north after their release. The threat of abduction and kidnapping for ransom remains significant for those moving, and particularly Ethiopian nationals, who are perceived to be able to pay ransoms more readily than Somalis.
Awareness campaigns are not enough – by Idil Osman
31.3.2017 – World Food Programme (A H)
Infographic: Passengers Transport Overview - Djibouti – Aden - Djibouti, March 2017
The Logistics Cluster continues to coordinate and facilitate passenger movement via sea on a WFP-chartered vessel, which also serves as an emergency rescue and evacuation vessel. Additionally, staff accommodation and cargo transportation on board of the same vessel are facilitated. Since May 2016, a regular schedule and booking system have been in place, with weekly rotations between Djibouti and Aden. The schedule has been designed so as to allow passengers to easily connect with UNHAS flights on Djibouti route to and from Sana’a.
47 rotations with 1052 passengers transported between Djibouti and Aden on behalf of 31 service users (12 UN agencies, 15 INGOs, 3 NNGOs, and media).
45% utilisation rate (maximum capacity 25 passengers per leg/50 per voyage).
Thanks to the contributions received so far, WFP will extend the service until 11 June 2017.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/passengers-transport-overview-djibouti-aden-djibouti-march-2017 and in full: http://www.logcluster.org/document/passengers-sea-transport-overview-march-2017 = http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/passengers_transport_overview_-_march_2017_0.pdf
29.3.2017 – UN High Commissioner for Refugees (A H)
Yemen UNHCR Flash Update, 29 March 2017
After weeks of intense negotiations, UNHCR has reached the embattled district of Mokha in Yemen’s western governorate of Taizz, where hostilities have escalated since January.
Intensified fighting has led to more than 48,000 people being displaced from Taizz in the past six weeks alone, out of a total of approximately 62,000, which included some displacement of 13,900 in Dhamar. Dhamar has since stabilized, yet humanitarian access to Mokha, one of the worst affected areas within Taizz Governorate, has been challenging owing to ongoing clashes and movement restrictions imposed by parties to the conflict.
Fighting is affecting essential services including medical, fuel delivery and water supply and those trapped face serious risks in an effort to reach safety, involving mined roads and ongoing hostilities. UNHCR remains concerned about the plight of these civilians.
18,151 Recently displaced individuals from Taizz have been assisted with NFIs and shelter support
1,991,340 Internally displaced persons (IDPs) since onset of hostilities in March 2015.
1,048,896 IDP returnees since March 2015
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-unhcr-flash-update-29-march-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Flash%20Update%20Yemen%20Situation%2029%20March%202017.pdf
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
Siehe / Look at cp1
3.4.2017 – Almasdar News (* A T)
In pictures: ISIS raid in Yemen leaves scores of Houthi troops dead on the battlefield (+18 graphic)
Amaq Agency posted 13 photos on Monday, showcasing a firefight between ISIS and Houthi forces in Yemen’s central province of Al-Bayda.
The Islamic State raid occurred near the town of Qifah southeast of Sanaa, in the ISIS-held Wadi A’mer area which has come under increasing attacks by Houthi-led fighters.
Along with killing a number of enemy combattants, ISIS destroyed a vehicle and seized a batch of weaponry. The Islamic State recently set up a training camp in the mountanious Bayda region and have since launched a series of hit-and-run attacks in the province.
3.4.2017 – Reuters (* A T)
U.S. carries out additional strikes in Yemen: Pentagon spokesman
The United States has carried out about 20 additional strikes in Yemen against al Qaeda militants since the middle of last week, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters that since Feb. 28, the United States has carried out more than 70 strikes against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) "militants, infrastructure, fighting positions and equipment."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-yemen-strikes-idUSKBN1751XN
cp15 Propaganda
3.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Deputy Crown Prince Stresses Legitimacy of the Coalition in Yemen
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, received a phone call from British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson. The Prince thanked the secretary for his interest, stressing the legitimacy of the coalition’s position in Yemen and the continuous delivery of facts about the situation in Yemen to the world. He also stressed the strong relations between the two friendly countries.
My comment: One small problem: There is no “legitimacy” of the Saudi coalition in Yemen at all.
3.4.2017 – Saudi Press Agency (A P)
Al-Houthi, Saleh Militias Hide their Yemeni Detainees in 480 Secret Prisons
Al-Houthi militias and the forces of the ousted Saleh have set up a total of 480 secret prisons in the Yemeni provinces under their control to hide those Yemeni prisoners, most of whom have been arbitrarily arrested.
According to a recent report by the National Committee for Human Rights in Yemen, the prisoners are subjected to severe forms of torture by burning and manslaughter.
It pointed out that the militias transformed several governmental and civil buildings into detention centers, converting about 227 governmental buildings, 27 medical institutions, 49 universities, 99 schools, 25 sports clubs, 47 judicial buildings and 10 houses to secret prisons.
The report included 16804 cases of arbitrary arrest, torture and enforced disappearance committed by Al-Houthi militias and the forces of the ousted Saleh against civilians and several international organizations, including Amnesty International, have reported in their reports the cases of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance by the militias of Al-Houthis against Yemenis.
Moreover, Al-Houthi militias have kept their secret prisons under tight guard without allowing anyone to enter them except their guards.
Al-Houthi militias also forced 99% of the detainees who were released to write pledges and sign papers preventing a detainee from engaging in any political, human rights, global or social activity or any activity against the idea of armed expansion of Al-Houthi and Saleh militias otherwise that the detainee will be killed as well as his family in addition to the confiscation of his money and property.
http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1611233 and by Asharq Al-Awsat: http://english.aawsat.com/theaawsat/news-middle-east/iran-aligned-putschists-run-480-undisclosed-torture-detention-centers-yemen
My comment: It’s difficult to decide what to do with such an article. There are detentions and torture by the Houthis. By Saudi Press Agency, such reports serve a propaganda goal only. The figures stated here seem to have no real base. – And what is the “National Committee for Human Rights in Yemen”? Google it, look: One match: This SPA statement. This Committee: Hardly more than a quick propaganda invention.
3.4.2017 – Free Beacon (A P)
U.S. Inaction in Yemen Has Emboldened Iranian-Backed Houthi Rebels
The absence of U.S. military assistance to the Sunni Arab coalition fighting the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen has emboldened the insurgent Houthis over the past two years, according to policy experts.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), a Trump ally who has advocated for escalated efforts to roll back Iranian influence in the Middle East, told the Free Beacon in an emailed statement that "Iran isn’t shy about subverting its enemies in the Middle East, and we shouldn’t be either."
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute, said U.S. inaction has bolstered the Houthis and their Iranian backers. He said this effect was on display when Houthi rebels captured Yemen's capital of Sanaa in 2015.
"After a decade of receiving reward after defiance, Tehran calculates it faces no risk of retaliation for its aggression," Rubin told the Washington Free Beacon. "The Revolutionary Guard has defined the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden as its strategic boundaries and it remains determined to follow up its rhetoric with action." – BY: Natalie Johnson
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-inaction-yemen-emboldened-iranian-backed-houthi-rebels/
My comment: The old propaganda story, here from certain US circles.
3.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Yemen: Two Years in Confronting Iran
The Houthis and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s seize of the Yemeni capital Sana’a through the power of arms was the end of the Yemenis’ peaceful uprising and the beginning of the war.
Back then, I had no doubt that it would be a long and harsh war – for a couple of reasons – including that the former president still had control over the armed forces and that Houthis receive instructions form Iran, not to mention the absence of central authority in Yemen and the country’s rough terrains.
Iranians did not hide their involvement in the war, since its early stages, because it saw that it was a regional war. They consider that raging a war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen is part of a geopolitical balance in Syria and Bahrain’s conflicts.
Although many observers denied this probability and mocked it in the beginning, they later admitted the Iranian involvement – Tehran, interestingly, did not conceal that.
Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries have no other option in Yemen but to face the Iranians who are fighting through Houthis and Saleh militias. Also, some Iranian militants were arrested in the fighting zones.
This war is to defend the Gulf countries against Iran’s pursuit to expand and threat its neighbors.
Saleh and Houthis plotted the coup and took over Yemen, arresting the majority of ministers and political leaders.
The only solution for the military coup in Yemen was to respond militarily after the rebels rejected all international mediation and additional concessions granted to them. They insisted on laying hands on the leadership and keeping their weapons – similar to the condition of “Hezbollah” in Lebanon.
Yemen’s war, like other wars in the region, is not a conflict between locals but is funded and plotted by regional forces – Iran on top of them, insisting to expand its power and besieging its neighbors – by Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, the former general manager of Al-Arabiya television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly magazine Al-Majalla.
http://english.aawsat.com/abdul-rahman-al-rashed/opinion/yemen-two-years-confronting-iran and almost the same: http://www.riyadhvision.com.sa/2017/04/05/yemen-and-two-years-of-confronting-iran/
My comment: And the Iran and the “coup” stories again and again. Whom ever the Saudis “confront” in Yemen, it hardly is Iran. – The Yemen war “is not a conflict between locals but is funded and plotted by regional forces – Iran on top of them”: on top by cheerleading? On top by bombing would be more reasonable, Saudi Arabia evidently is winning the palm here.
3.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
Houthi captives: We received training by Iranian experts
Two Houthi fighter, who were captured by the National Army, admitted that they received training by Iranian and Lebanese experts.
Meanwhile, a high-ranking Yemeni 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-5566
My comment: This is a warmed-up propaganda story. Tune: The bad Iranians.
2.4.2017 – Saudi Press Agency (* A P)
Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) on Yemen Holds Press Conference
Mansour Al-Mansour, official spokesman of the Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) on Yemen and legal consultant, held a press conference at King Salman Airbase to announce results of the incident assessment in Yemen.
At the outset of the press conference, Al-Mansour read the following statement:
Regarding the Human Rights Watch's report dated on November, 2015 including that the Coalition Forces launched an air raid on 30, August, 2015 on Sham water filling factory in Hajjah Directorate which resulted in killing 14 laborers and injuring 11 other who were about to finish their night shift and fter reviewing the incident, the JIAT disclosed that, on Monday, 30/8/2015 at 02:30 am and based on intelligence information, a mission of an air support was carried out nearby Hajjah Directorate. The coalition targeted ground defenses which were parked close to the factory. The target was implemented by a laser-guided bomb. Due to weather conditions with existence of some clouds in the target area, the bomb missed the target, falling on the factory's yard, which caused its destruction and some deaths and injuries.
With regard to the above information, the JIAT reached that the coalition air forces targeted a legitimate military target, that's a ground defense. Due to coercive reasons beyond the will, the bomb went off course and fell on the factory unintentionally, he added.
The JIAT urged that coalition forces to apologize this unintentional error and provide assistance to the families of victims. http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1610999 and in a Saudi infographic: (LOL): https://twitter.com/Infographic_ksa/status/848588657770549249
and
2.4.2017 – Gulf News (* A P)
Assessment team clears coalition of wrongdoing in Yemen
Strike on water plant in Hajjah was due to an operational error and the coalition has vowed to assist victims’ families
The Saudi-led Arab Coalition fighting in Yemen has been cleared of intentionally bombing civilian sites in Yemen.
A spokesman for the Joint Team to Assess Incidents in Yemen, Ahmad Mansour, said that coalition fighter jets were targeting an arms depot of Al Houthi anti-air craft missiles in Hajjah when it swerved and hit a water plant on June 30, 2015.
Mansour said the coalition had apologised for the “unintentional” incident and “vowed to provide appropriate assistance to those affected”.
In regards to the alleged coalition bombing of a prison in Hodeidah in October 2015, Mansour said the building was used by Al Houthis to store weapons and to hold meetings.
Mansour also denied that coalition forces targeted a hospital in Hodeida in October 2015.
The target in this area was a weapons silo approximately 500 metres away from the hospital.
Mansour backed up his claim with satellite photos of the damaged areas, pointing out that the hospital and the surrounding buildings were not hit.
He also said reports from the International Red Cross about bombing civilian areas in the Al Houthi stronghold of Saada in November 2015 were false.
My comment: LOL. That’s the Saudi coalition’s own “investigation” team. It’s only purpose is stated in the first sentence: “The Saudi-led Arab Coalition fighting in Yemen has been cleared of intentionally bombing civilian sites in Yemen.” That’s all they had tried, in all cases “investigated” before.
Comment: They have waged an unlawful aggression against #Yemen (which aggresion is legal?), carpet bomb the entire country, take care of investigating any war crime and always clear themselves.
Saudis and friends explained.
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1324831244236569
2.4.2017 – Fuad Rajeh (A K P)
The Saudi-led coalition said today that civilians had been killed in airstrikes in Yemen because of 'bad weather'. Their warplanes missed targets because of bad weather. That was their heroic conclusion. Actually, no one expected Arab Bedouins are so stupid to this degree. Bad weather is their justification for heinous war crimes and breach of international laws?!! Wow!! But honestly, I think blame should not be laid on them in the first place. Complicit West and stupid UN are to blame. The US, the UK and other Western allies of Saudi Arabia and the UN agreed that the Saudi-led coalition investigates its own crimes. Is it logical to ask a criminal to probe their own crimes?!
War crimes in Yemen require an independent international probe. World's bullshit must end.
https://www.facebook.com/fuad.rajeh?fref=nf = https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1325046194215074
2.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Yemeni Diplomat: Washington Aware of Size of Iranian Involvement in Yemen
Yemeni ambassador to the United States Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak confirmed a “radical” change in the United States’ stances on Yemen under the President Donald Trump Administration.
Recent statements made by Washington officials point out a more decisive and focused approach in the Yemen crisis, Mubarak clarified.
The Trump administration is well aware of the depth Iran’s interference in Yemen today, Mubarak told Asharq Al-Awsat in a phone call.
Washington will not allow for Iran to exploit Yemeni territory, so that it becomes a secured arms-trafficking route serving their ends, he added.
A number of reports this week stated that Trump is considering providing assistance for an offensive on the key port of Hodeidah that is held by Iran-backed putschists in Yemen and has already increased intelligence sharing and logistics support.
Iran has long armed, funded and trained militias across the region, both expanding its sphere of influence and securing ground proxies that will eventually serve Tehran’s overall agenda. For example, Tehran arms and funds the Lebanon-based paramilitary militia “Hezbollah.”
The Yemeni diplomat pointed out to clear condemnations issued by Washington against the Iran-aligned insurgency forces fueling Yemen’s civil war.
“Our government recognizes the significance of Hodeidah’s port for aid delivery, and therefore rooting out Houthis will eliminate their destructive meddling in aid distribution,” Yemen’s ambassador said.
My comment: Of course, Trumps new aggressive policy against Iran is hailed by the Hadi government. – The last phrase cited here shows the real aim of the Hadi government: “rooting out Houthis”. All the rest is just pretense: The main blocker of humanitarian aid and supply is the Saudi coalition blockade.
1.4.2017 – The National UAE (A P)
Yemen’s war is a global concern
When the Arab League, gathered in Amman, made its final statement on Wednesday, the members unanimously declared that they "reject any intervention in the internal affairs of Arab countries". There is only one country they were accusing: Iran.
So serious has Iran’s interference in the Middle East become, and particularly in the flashpoint of Yemen, that the United States is considering backing an Arab military plan to retake the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, currently in the hands of the Iranian-backed Houthis. American involvement is necessary and it is in the interests of the US itself, because Iran’s influence in the Yemen war is creating a significant threat not only to Yemen and the Gulf states, but to the wider world beyond it.
An example of this came over the weekend, when Al Qaeda in Yemen admitted carrying out a suicide bombing on a government building in southern Yemen. Before the conflict, the Yemeni government and the US were partners in seeking to rid Yemen of Al Qaeda, which found places to operate in its ungoverned expanses. As the Yemen war has escalated, Al Qaeda have continued to seek to expand their reach. Without a solution, they will continue to grow, seeking to attack targets not only in Yemen, but in the wider world – Al Qaeda has a track record of seeking to target international aviation.
It also appears that the Houthis and their Iranian backers are looking to internationalise the conflict on the western side of Yemen, along the Red Sea coasts. The Bab Al Mandeb is one of the world’s most strategic waterways and a crucial chokepoint for international shipping. In the past few months, anti-ship cruise missiles, sea mines and drone boats have been used there. The US has also warned commercial ships that it believes the Houthis have laid mines around the port of Mokha, which could also pose a threat.
All of which shows why the conflict is Yemen is already an international conflict. The Iranians appear determined to affect the livelihoods of Yemenis, draw in Gulf countries and disrupt global shipping. Only a concerted effort by the Arab countries and their allies internationally, especially the US, can push them out. What happens in Yemen concerns the whole world; it is not a problem for Yemen alone.
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/editorial/yemens-war-is-a-global-concern
My comment: LOL. The country interfering most in Yemen as in other Arab countries certainly is Saudi Arabia. There is a great difference between cheerleading (Iran) and bombing (Saudi Arabia) in Yemen. – And in Syria, Iran is interfering as it has been asked by the legitimate government J J J . The conflict has been internationalized not by the Houthis but by Western powers which support the Saudi coalition in various ways.
1.4.2017 – Middle East Monitor (* A P)
Two years down the line in Yemen, Iran’s failed policies are promoted like a victory
The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen – Operation Decisive Storm – started two years ago. It was an unavoidable option, as gaining full control of Yemen and preventing full Iranian domination there took just a matter of hours, or a few days at most. This is a truth that must not be forgotten, because if the air strikes leading the operation had been delayed for any reason, we can be sure what the outcomes would have been; the legitimate Yemeni government would have fallen for a start, to be replaced by Iranian puppets – the Houthis and supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh – as the de facto leaders of the state. Their influence would have spread all over Yemen. The second outcome would have been a direct threat to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; if the military intervention had failed, it would have allowed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps to establish a new front just beyond the gates to Yemen’s northern neighbour, making them more dangerous than they are now – by Abdulwahhab Badrakhan
My comment: And so on and so on. The standard Saudi propaganda, here in a quite dull and screaming way. This is a translation from Al Hayat, owned by the Saudi crown prince. Any questions? And more of the same here:
1.4.2017 – Media Express (A P)
Yemen’s Problems Exist Outside Their Borders
Bahrain Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa delivered the final statement of the Gulf Cooperation Council Foreign Ministers Session held in Riyadh. He noted that during this meeting the issue of relations between Gulf countries and Iran was discussed and weighed.
Over the past few years, evidence of Iran’s meddling throughout the region has become apparent. Iran is active in Syria, backing Assad’s government, along with Russia; in Iraq, Iran is active with ISIL, which is negatively impacting Iraq’s ability to maintain peace within their borders; and in Yemen, where Iran is providing weapons and troop training to members of the rebel Houthis.
Additionally, Iran has been seen as supporting a variety of terrorist organizations, which also negatively impact its neighbors in the region. While the Houthis might believe they were getting assistance in their fight, they have opened the door to Iran and it will be hard to kick them back out again.
Bahrain’s top diplomat added the Houthis are from Yemen, yet the problem is they are in contact with people outside of their borders.
The impact of Iran in the region is a source of frustration, as there seems to be no clear cut way to address Iran’s influence or to even check it.
https://themediaexpress.com/2017/04/01/yemens-problems-exist-outside-their-borders/
My comment: Might be the best: “Iran has been seen as supporting a variety of terrorist organizations”. – IS, Al Qaeda, AQAP, Al Nusrah had been supported by whom?
2.4.2017 – Al Arabiya (A P)
The demagogic attack on Ahmed Asiri
Some troublemakers recently tried to attack Arab coalition spokesman Ahmed Asiri, the face of tempests and peace, and obstruct his participation at a seminar organized by the European Council on Foreign Relations in London.
Asiri’s reaction was calm and not like some opposing media outlets tried to picture it.
He settled with the security procedure which British authorities usually impose. Reports about disastrous reactions and punches are in fact funny because Asiri is a statesman who’s been trained at military institutions which is based on discipline and respecting authorities and security apparatuses.
Asiri is not an academic lecturer or a mere political commentator but a military figure who knows the meaning of commands and prohibitions and the value of security and legal values.
This attack shows the major role which Asiri performed during the past two years. Asiri has certainly had a significant presence in the world – by Turki Aldakhil, General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel
My comment: LOL. Reporting YPR 288, cp10.
1.4.2017 – Anadolu (A P)
Bahrain has decried an attempt by anti-war demonstrators to perform a citizen's arrest on Maj. Gen. Ahmed Asiri, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi group, during a recent visit to London.
In a statement released Saturday, the Bahraini Foreign Ministry described the demonstrators as a "group of terrorists".
Bahrain has decried an attempt by anti-war demonstrators to perform a citizen's arrest on Maj. Gen. Ahmed Asiri, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi group, during a recent visit to London.
In a statement released Saturday, the Bahraini Foreign Ministry described the demonstrators as a "group of terrorists".
"This was part of desperate attempts by some parties to undermine any political efforts aimed to resolve the Yemeni conflict," the ministry said.
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/bahrain-slams-citizens-arrest-on-saudi-general-in-uk/785673
Comment by Haykal Bafana: HAHAHAAHAhahaha!!!!! The face of tempests & peace????? WTF, ya Saudi Arabia. :-)
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/848585873977475074
My comment: LOL. Reporting YPR 288, cp10.
1.4.2017 – Middle East Monitor (A P)
Interview causes rift between Houthis and ousted Yemeni president
A TV interview which included criticism of the Houthis has caused a rift between the group and their ally, ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Erem news website reported on Friday.
The UAE-based outlet said that the media office of Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi militias in Yemen, contacted Saleh and asked him not to broadcast the interview on his own TV channel, Yemen Today.
Yemeni journalist Nabil Al-Soufi, who works at the channel and is Saleh’s media advisor, interviewed lawyer Nazih Al-Emad, who criticised Saleh and the Houthis and said that both took Yemen into conflict. Al-Soufi posted excerpts from the interview on his Facebook page. This angered the Houthis, who contacted Saleh and asked him not to broadcast it.
According to Erem, Saleh pledged not to broadcast the interview or any other material that criticises the Houthis on his own TV station. The website also claimed that Saleh has smuggled his family to another country due to his increasing fears that the Houthis are planning to get rid of him.
The former president survived an assassination attempt in November last year orchestrated by the Houthis, claimed Erem. This, it added, pushed him to move his family.
The Houthis, it is alleged, uncovered a Saleh-inspired coup plot against them, which prompted them to try to get rid of him.
1.4.2017 – Saudi Press Agency (A P)
Work done by charities operating in Yemen now subject to Houthi human rights violations, reports
Confirmed reports circulating in Aden today proved that work done by charities operating in Yemen is now subject to Houthi human rights violations.
The report, issued by Contacts with Yemen Ulema program in collaboration with the Media Center of the Yemeni Revolution, said that as many as 128 charitable associations in Yemen have incurred grave violations by the Houthi and Ali Saleh allies worth more than $1.5 billion during the period from December 2014 to December 2015.
According to a report of the Orphans Charity Foundation in Sanaa, which was included in the general charities report, the losses dealt by the Sanaa-based organization was estimated to have exceeded $100 million, regardless the harms shouldered by orphans, widows and the needy who were depending to a large extend on its assistance.
Nearly 25,000 Yemeni orphans are now facing dire crises due to the closure of charity organizations, the report said, adding that the stoppage of their education and medical treatment is hard to be calculated in numbers
http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1610662 and
http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302606378
My comment: Ever heard of war in Yemen?
1.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
Yemen Ambassador to Washington: the immunity granted to Saleh was a mistake
The Yemeni Ambassador to Washington Ahmed Awadh Bin Mubarak has said that Yemenis should take lessons from the past, pointing out that granting the ousted Yemeni president an immunity was a mistake.
He also cited that the allowance to the Houthis to be involved in the political process without the transformation into a political party, renunciation of violence and surrendering weapons was the big mistake.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5523
My comment: What ever, the immunity granted to Saleh was part of the GCC initiative, which almost daily “president” Hadi is claiming to be followed. – Excluding a mayor force from the political process never will lead to peace; and just asking one side to surrender weapons, while other are keeping theirs, also never will. The Hadi side claims sole rule.
1.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
UN Envoy: The Arab Coalition has valid concerns about the flow of arms through Hodeidah
The UN Special Envoy to Yemen Esmail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has said that the Arab Coalition has valid concerns about the flow of arms through Hodeidah port which is still run by the Houthi-Saleh militias and illegal taxation of commercial imports by the Houthis.
He said that any military action should take into account the need to avoid further deterioration in the humanitarian situation, expressing concern about the possibility of military action at Hodeidah soon.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5496
My comment: That is what anti-Houthi propaganda made of what he actually said, look at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-un-idUSKBN1722MW
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
3.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by#Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen 2/4/2017 (full list):
2.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by#Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen 1/4/2017 (full list):
1.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by#Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen31/3/2017 (full list):
1.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by#Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen30/3/2017 (full list):
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (* A K PH)
Aggression air strikes target car, kill nine, injure five in Serwah
Nine people were killed on Monday when the hostile aggression warplanes had targeted passengers car in Serwah district of Mareb province.
The aggression targeted the car of Wazea Hasan Rashid Rabie in al-Zaidi village in Serwah district, killing nine citizens, including a woman and five paramedics, and wounding five others, including three children, the General Director of Serwah Moree al-Ameri said in a statement to Saba.
Al-Ameri confirmed that the aggression directly targeted the paramedics during the rescue of the victims, which led to an increase of the number of victims in a deliberately clear war crime.
The aggression also waged an air raid on the house of Sheikh Mohammed al-Zaidi.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460965.htm and https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/saudi-warplanes-kill-8-people-yemen-including-5-rescue-workers/
and
3.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
3/4/2017 On Monday afternoon,
- Saudi Arabia and its alliance launched an airstrike on Sheikh Ali Saleh Al-Zaidi while he was traveling in his car on the highway traveling from Sanaa to #Serwah in #Marib district where the airstrike killed him with his companions and a woman.
- After the first airstrike, medics rushed to the scene to rescue and aid the victims, where the warplane returned to launch a second airstrike that killed (5) people and injured (6) include (3) children
#Killed_names:
-Ali Saleh Alwashash Al-Zaidi age of (45)
- Wazea Hassan Rashed Saeed Rabea age of (30)
- Abdullah Ahmed Abdo Al-Zaidi age of (20)
-Ali Mohsen Rabea age of (20)
-Abdurrahman Saleh Ahmad Al-AMeri age of (22)
- Shihab Rashed Saaid Rabea age of (18)
-Ali Saleh Swailh age of (25)
-Nojod Mogry Saaid Rabea age of (30)
#Injured_names:
- Jabber Faisal Mohammed Al-Zaidi age of (15)
- Faisal Nasser Daraan age of (13) (with photos)
https://www.facebook.com/lcrdye/posts/801779316639102 = https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1658144167814904
and
3.4.2017 – AP (A K)
SUSPECTED SAUDI-LED AIRSTRIKES KILL 8 IN YEMEN
Yemeni security and tribal officials say two airstrikes suspected to be by the Saudi-led coalition fighting rebels have killed eight people, including two women.
Tribesman Muhammad Ali al-Zaidi says the first of Monday's airstrikes targeted a taxi in the Sarawah district carrying a group coming from the capital, Sanaa, while a second raid targeted paramedics coming to the scene, killing five and wounding three.
The security and tribal officials say human remains laid out for several hours because paramedics were scared to return – by Ahmed Al-Haj
My comment: “Suspected”: We try our very best in whitewashing??
and more photos:
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/848925860342239232
https://twitter.com/JosephJo1221/status/848919017679192065
and films:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mft56B1Zwis (Al Masirah TV)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJb2pDuw7U (Yemen Today)
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi warplanes wage 9 strikes on Mokha
The US-Saudi aggression fighter jets launched on Monday nine strikes on Mokha district of Taiz province, a security official told Saba.
The warplanes hit Hawzan area twice and Al Nar Mountain seven times in the district, the official added.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460939.htm
4.4.2017 – Emirati News Agency (A K PS)
Arab Coalition destroys weapon depot in Beihan, Shabwah in Yemen
SHABWAH, 3rd April, 2017 (WAM) -- The Arab coalition jetfighters destroyed on Monday a weapons depot belonging to the Houthi and Saleh militias in the Beihan region of Shabwah Governorate, Yemen.
Yemeni Official News Agency, quoted a local field source as saying that the coalition aircrafts launched several raids on the coup militia sites in the west of the Beihan Directorate and destroyed a warehouse completely.
The Houthi and Saleh militias raided the houses of citizens in the city of Olaya at Directorate of Beihan, where they abducted a number of young people after the injury of some of their gunmen in a bomb explosion in the area.
http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302606795
4.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Houthi casualties in Arab Coalition raids in Mareb, Shabwa and Lahj – source
The fighter jets of the Saudi-led Arab Coalition launched on Sunday a number of air raids on separate sites for the Houthi and pro-Saleh forces in the provinces of Marib, Shabwa and Lahj, according to sources in the field.
A source in Marab city, east of the capital Sanaa, told Almasdaronline that three air raids have targeted the rebels’ sites in Mashjah area northwest of the city.
He added that the aerial bombardment had resulted in the destruction of a rocket launcher in the same area, and the death and injury of a number of Houthi-Saleh militants.
Meanwhile, the Arab Coalition fighter jets launched several airstrikes on Shab Mablaqa area of Bihan district in western Shabwa province, southwest of Yemen, resulting in the destruction of an ammunition depot, a source said.
Almasdaronline reporter said that the fighter jets also launched seven raids on Houthis’ sites and gatherings in Kahbub area north of Lahj province, southern Yemen.
He added, quoting sources, that the aerial bombardment has resulted in casualties among the Houthis and allied forces.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90107
My comment: All these reports are to give the impression that just “Houthis” (what ever this really is) are targeted and hit.
4.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Houthi prominent figure and other militants killed in coalition airstrikes south of Taiz – source
A prominent leader of the Houthi group and other militants were killed Sunday in an airstrike launched by the Saudi-led coalition air force in al Maqatra district in southern Taiz province, southwestern Yemen.
A local source told Almasdaronline that Tareq al Humidi, one of the most prominent Houthi leaders and accused of killing a woman and another man at a checkpoint in al Maqatra, was killed along with other militants by the airstrike.
"Al-Humaidi is accused of other criminal cases, and he was the commander of the militants who blew up Haijat al Abd road".
The coalition fighter jets have launched about seven raids in the area between the provinces of Taiz and Lahj, south and south-west of Yemen, in which dozens of Houthi militants were killed and injured. According to a source.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90108
2.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi warplanes wage 8 strikes on Sana'a
The US-Saudi aggression fighter jets on Sunday launched eight strikes on Sanhan and Hamadan districts of Sana'a province, a security official told Saba.
The fighter jets hit al-Arah area of Hamadan district five times and others three on Raimah Humaid area of Sanhan district.
The strikes caused heavy damage to citizens' properties and farms, the official added.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460839.htm and photo https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1657586591203995
2.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Citizen killed in US-Saudi airstrike on Sa'ada
A Citizen was killed on Sunday in a US-Saudi aggression airstrike on his house in al-Dhaher district of Sa'ada province, a security official told Saba.
The warplanes hit the house one time, killing the citizen.
Moreover, the aggression fighter jets launched three strikes on Burkan area of Razah district and two other raids on al-Malahidh area of al-Dhaher district, causing heavy damage to citizens' properties, the official added.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460853.htm
2.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi fighter jets continue barbaric raids against citizens
The US-Saudi aggression war planes continued heinous strikes against citizens, causing heavy damage to private and public properties in several provinces over the past hours, a military official told Saba on Sunday.
The warplanes waged 12 strikes on Haradh district of Hajja province and three other strikes on Serwah district of Mareb province, as well waged six raids on Kamaran island in Hodeida province.
Moreover, the aggression fighter jets launched a strike on al-Dailami air base in the capital of Sana'a, and waged two other raids on Raimah camp and another one on al-Jaif al-Asfal area of Hamadan district of Sana'a province.
In Sa'ada province, the enemy air forces launched five strikes on al-Sabah area, 13 raids on al-Malahidh district, a strike on al-Hasamah area of al-Dhaher district, as well waged three strikes on Al-Zamah, Al-Hamaqi and Mandabah areas of Baqim district and seven others on al-Amarah and al-Malial areas of Kutaf district, as well as three strikes hit Burkan area of Razah district.
Also, the fighter jets waged a strike on Hasi Salam area and anther one on Jawzan area in Mokha district, as well as two strikes on Khalid camp in Mawza district of Taiz province.
Moreover, al-Rabu'eh area of Asir province was hit by Saudi airstrike, the official added.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460882.htm
2.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Airstrikes hit Taiz
The U.S.-backed Saudi-aggression coalition warplanes launched four raids on Mokha and Moza directorates in Taiz province early on Sunday, an official told Saba.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460820.htm
1.–2.4.2017 – Sanaa at night (A K)
Breaking: #Sanaa under heavy #Saudi bombing right now! Huge explosions are heard in the South are of the capital.
https://twitter.com/HishamAlRadhi/status/848286595363024896
4 airstrikes on #Sanaa North and South (Alhathyly area)
https://twitter.com/Living_Yemen/status/848288612135337984
Saudi coalition now started boming Sana'a the capital of #yemen saudi coalition must be dum they bombed eveything before 100's times
https://twitter.com/maddllock/status/848286425623691264
Now in capital Sana, Yemen, two huge explosions heard as Saudi led jets roar the sky
https://twitter.com/Shuaibalmosawa/status/848285979353985026
12:25 AM 2 airstrikes on Sana'a Intel Airport by the #Saudi led aggression on #Yemen
https://twitter.com/Aawad145/status/848286592313823232
12:29AM 2nd explosion by Saudi jets in Sanaa
https://twitter.com/A7medJa7af/status/848286381260623873
3rd explosion 12:31AM
https://twitter.com/A7medJa7af/status/848287036817715200
12.30 am, #Sanaa. This is what an airstrike does to a city asleep (photo)
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi airstrikes on Mareb
The US-Saudi aggression warplanes waged three strikes on Serwah district of Mareb province, an official told Saba on Saturday.
The strikes hit citizens' houses and farms, moreover, the Saudi-paid mercenaries' artillery shelled various areas in the Same district.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460754.htm
1.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A K PS)
Arab Coalition intensifies strikes on Houthis in Taiz
Air-fighters of the Arab Coalition on Saturday intensified its strikes on sites of the Houthi-Saleh militias in west of Taiz.
The Houthi-Saleh militias bombed populated neighborhoods in east of Taiz, using mortars, tanks and other heavy weapons
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5522
1.4.2017 – Al Masirah TV (A K PH)
Film: Targeting the Saudi-American aggression on solar energy in the farms of citizens in Baqam Saada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPVIw1JnmfU = https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/videos/1657242531238401/
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Saudi warplanes continue brutal strikes against civilians
The US-Saudi aggression fighter jets continued fierce strikes on citizens' properties in several provinces over the past hours, a military official told Saba on Saturday.
Two citizens were killed in a Saudi airstrike on their car in Maqbanah district, and the aggression warplanes waged two raids on al-Barah area in the same district of Taiz province.
Moreover, the enemy fighter jets launched 17 strikes on various areas in Bany al-Harath district in the capital of Sana'a and waged five raids on Sabrah area of Balad al-Raws district of Sana'a province.
Meanwhile, the public road in Burkan area of Razah district was hit by a Saudi airstrike, and the
warplanes waged three strikes on al-Sawah area of Kutaf district and others two on al-Thaban and al-Ramah areas of Baqim district of Sa'ada province as well as another one on al-Talah site in Najran province.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460791.htm
3.4.2017 – Ahmad Alghobary (A K)
Caught on camera 4 days ago ,#Saudi jets dropped cluster bombs on Alaleeb mountains in Boqa' area #Saada #Yemen Shame on #UK & #US
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/849012866481041409 and film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2--wIOewx6w = https://twitter.com/HussamSanabani/status/849026831886032896
and that is how the other side reports it:
4.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Coalition fighter jets target Houthi positions in Saada near the Saudi borders
The fighter jets of the Saudi-led Arab Coalition launched several airstrikes on Sunday on the positions of the Houthi and pro-Saleh militants in Saada province, the stronghold of the group far north of Yemen.
Eyewitnesses told Almasdaronline that two raids have targeted a checkpoint for the Houthi militants in Barkan area of Razih district, near the Saudi border.
According to the witnesses, arms arsenal were likely hit by the airstrikes, and columns of smoke rose from the targeted sites.
It is noteworthy that the targeted sites overlook the Saudi borders.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90106
3.4.2017 – Hona Almasirah TV (A K)
Film: The suffering of citizens in Baqad Saada as a result of the targeting of roads and bridges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG_xXny_dgg
1.4.2017 – Press TV Iran (A K PH)
Film: Yemeni civilians main target of Saudi airstrikes
Saudi Arabia continues its aggression against Yemen claiming more civilian lives in the impoverished nation. According to the UN, over 100 civilians were killed in Yemen mostly by Saudi airstrikes and shelling during the past month alone. Press TV’s Mohammed al-Attab has followed the fate of one the innocent victims of the Saudi aggression and filed this report.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/04/02/516403/Yemeni-civilians-main-target-of-Saudi-airstrikes
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Tens of Saudi paid mercenaries killed in Mokha
The Rocketry forces hit on Monday gatherings of US-Saudi-paid mercenaries in Mokha district of Taiz province, a military official told Saba.
Tens of the mercenaries got killed and injured when the missile units of the army popular forces fired a barrage of Katyusha rockets on the gatherings in southern the district, the official added.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460929.htm
3.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Dozens of mercenaries killed in Medi
Dozens of US-Saudi-paid mercenaries were killed and others wounded when the army and popular forces foiled an attempt of infiltration toward Medi desert in Jizan province, a military official told Saba on Monday.
Moreover, the national forces destroyed two military vehicles of the mercenaries in the operation
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460899.htm
2.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Fierce battles break out Friday night near Midi coasts
Fierce battles break out on Friday evening between the pro-government forces and the forces loyal to the Houthi group and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh western Midi city of Hajja province northwestern Yemen.
A military source told Almasdaronline that fierce battles flared near Midi coasts, and violent explosions were heard in the area due to the artillery shelling of the pro-government forces on the Houthis and allied forces.
“However, no ground progress has been achieved by either side”.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90078
2.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Citizen killed, 3 wounded in Saudi-paid bullets in Marib
One citizen martyred and three others were wounded on Sunday when enemy Saudi-paid mercenaries fired bullets on a market of Harib Bihan area in Marib province, an official told Saba.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460817.htm
1.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
3 children killed in Houthis shelling on residential neighbourhood in Taiz
Three children were killed and four other civilians, including two children, wounded on Wednesday evening when the Houthis-Saleh militants bombed a residential neighbourhood eastern Taiz city, southwest of Yemen.
A local source told Almasdaronline that a shell fired by the Houthis had hit a house near al Askary hospital in al Jahmaliah area.
The Houthis also launched an artillery shelling on the residential neighbourhoods eastern Taiz from their position in Sofital and al Silal hills in al Hawban region eastern the city.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90029
1.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Pro-government forces control farms northeastern al mocha after fighting with the Houthis – source
The pro–government forces seized on Thursday a number of farms northeastern al Mocha district, southwestern Yemen, after fighting fierce battles against the forces loyal to the Houthi group and former president Saleh.
A military source told Almasdaronline that the Houthis have retreated from the coastal areas between al Mocha and al Khokha districts.
Meanwhile, the pro government forces in eastern al Mocha have intensified the artillery and missile shelling on the Houthis sites western Khaled camp and southern Mozza district.
On the other side, the Houthis and allied forces have launched artillery shelling on the residential villages and on the locations of the pro-government forces in Himyar and al Abdalah areas in Maqbanah district.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90033
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Artillery shells Saudi-paid mercenaries in east of Mokha
The artillery of the national army and popular forces shelled the Aggression groups of Saudi-paid mercenaries east of Al-Mokha, a military official told Saba on Saturday.
The shelling left many died or injured.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460729.htm
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Four civilians killed in Saudi artillery attack on popular market in Saada
Four citizens, including a woman, were killed by enemy Saudi artillery attack on a popular market in Monabah directorate of Saada province, the official told Saba on Saturdays.
The official said the attack on al-Rako market and nearby areas caused damage to resident's properties.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460724.htm
1.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Civilian killed in Saudi-paid mercenaries attack on Market, Marib
One citizen was killed and three others were injured on Friday when the US-backed Saudi-paid mercenaries attacked the market of Harib Bihan in Marib province,the official told Saba on Saturday.
The attack damaged the market and shops
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460726.htm
Houthi / Saleh reports:
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460937.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460925.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460923.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460915.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460905.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460904.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460900.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460849.htm
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=69896&lang=en
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460816.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460819.htm
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/04/01/516393/yemen-saudi-snipers-retaliatory
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460720.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460722.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460727.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460728.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460734.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460747.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news460730.htm
Pro Saudi / Pro Hadi reports:
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90105
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90075
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90026
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
3.4.2017 – Epoch Times (A)
Horn von Afrika: Somalische Piraten entführen indisches Schiff
Ein indisches Frachtschiff mit elf Besatzungsmitgliedern wurde am Freitag auf seinem Weg von Dubai zum Hafen von Bossaso im Nordosten von Somalia entführt. Die Piraten fordern Lösegeld. Das Schiff „Al Kausar“ transportierte laut dem Reeder Lebensmittel wie Zucker und Getreide. Es war von Dubai über einen Hafen im Jemen in Richtung Bossaso unterwegs, als die Piraten es überfielen
3.4.2017 – Al Araby (A)
Pirates demand ransom after 'hijacking' Yemen-bound Indian ship
An Indian commercial ship was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia, according to a former government anti-piracy official.
The ship was understood to hold 11 crew members on board and was reportedly transiting from Dubai to Somalia, via the port city of Mukalla in Yemen.
The vessel was allegedly attacked by an individual small boat on Saturday, however the owners confirmed the news on Monday,
"We got a call from one of the crew members today that the pirates have demanded money from the owners of the goods in the vessel," he said.
"Negotiations are on. The crew member further informed that five gunmen were on-board the vessel ... However, nobody has been hurt."
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/4/3/pirates-hijack-yemen-bound-indian-ship
3.4.2017 – India Today (A)
Indian cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates on way to Yemen
An Indian cargo ship- Al Kaushar has been captured by Somalia pirates on its way to Yemen from Dubai.
All 11 crew members on the ship belong to Mandavi in Mumbai.
More details awaited.
2.4.2017 – The Talking of the Soul
A Young Yemeni Artist’s Dream
Wars are not only made of statistic, pain, horror, bone chilling stories.
There are dreams behind anyone trapped under the bombs, blocked in a siege, going hungry to bed, who has been maimed and those who have lost everything.
There are plans and expectations, passions, hopes.
In this regard, I received a message from a Yemeni friend and I share it hoping we can assist young Louay and, who knows, others like him.
The message read:
”Do you know anyone interested in drawing .. I want to find supporters for someone I know.
His name is Louay Nabil al Farazi. He is just seventeen, lives in Sanaa and comes from a modest family of six.
Louay started drawing when he was only 5.
You know the war in Yemen, the situation… so far no one has helped him.
Louay has a dream: to complete his studies and access to the international drawing field. Maybe join an institution for Arts outside Yemen. As Louay says: I would like to deliver my work to the biggest number of art lovers. Maybe find work in simple animations.
What he needs is… cost-saving: the drawing material. Can anyone help him?‘‘
Sending material to Yemen, considering the two-year old siege imposed on the country might be hard but perhaps someone inside of Yemen has a stock of drawing material he would like to donate. Or maybe someone abroad can find Louay a way to join a school, exhibit his work or be part of a project featuring young artists. Possibilities are endless.
The page of Living in Yemen on the Edge in Facebook will be diverting any message received to Louay’s friend.
There are dreams behind those trapped in any war: they deserve to become reality.
In the meantime, you may see some of his work here (cover image also by Louay Nabil al Farazi):
https://thetalkingofthesoul.com/2017/04/02/a-young-yemeni-artists-dream/
1.4.2017 – Hisham Al-Omeisy (A)
Kids holding up signs of peace at @UNICEF_Yemen sponsored art workshop/gallery in Sana'a today. Yellow shirt is my little minion (photos)
https://twitter.com/omeisy/status/848137578234748928
https://twitter.com/omeisy/status/848139317524529153
31.3.2017 – Mirror
Inside one of football's most unique cup finals: The Taiz Amateur League final in Yemen
Hundreds of locals cram around a gravel football pitch to catch a glimpse of rare sporting spectacle in Yemen.
In a country torn by civil war, the Taiz Amateur League final, played between As Ssumnd and Al Easifa on Thursday, was a unique chance for the people of western Yemen to see the sport they love.
But despite the masses of football fans that surrounded the Kidre football pitch in Taiz's Qadas region to watch the reds of Al Ssumnd come out on top, the reality of the country's fragile situation was clear to see.
The game was not played in a stadium - far from it - and had armed Yemini security forces surrounded the pitch, watching every move of the spectators in attendance.
Those fans turned every rooftop, cliff face, rock or vehicle in the close vicinity into stands, to ensure they got the best possible view of the action.
Some smartly-dressed fans watched on from behind the goals at wooden desks - executive boxes which are a far-cry from the five-star standards at the Premier League's modern venues.
Football is Yemen's biggest sport. Youngsters were seen around the pitch wearing shirts of Barcelona, no doubt wishing that they would one day be able to see their idols in action, but happy that they can at least see the sport live – BYAARON FLANAGAN (with photos)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/inside-one-footballs-most-unique-10135412 = http://en.abna24.com/news/art-sport/the-most-unique-football-final-in-yemen-pics_821476.html
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-288-yemen-war-mosaic-288
Jemenkrieg-Mosaik 1-288 / Yemen War Mosaic 1-288:
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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