April 29, 2018: US bomb used at Saudi air raid at wedding — UAE used Chinese drone for killing Houthi president Samad — US killings in post 9/11 wars — Western media complicit in war crimes — and more
Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Klassifizierung / Classification
Für wen das Thema ganz neu ist / Who is new to the subject
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp1a Am wichtigsten: Seuchen / Most important: Epidemics
cp2 Allgemein / General
cp2a Allgemein: Saudische Blockade / General: Saudi blockade
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
cp4 Flüchtlinge / Refugees
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
cp12a Katar-Krise / Qatar crisis
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms Trade
cp13b Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
cp13c Wirtschaft / Economy
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)
? = Keine Einschatzung / No rating
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
Für wen das Thema ganz neu ist / Who is new to the subject
Einführende Artikel u. Überblicke für alle, die mit den Ereignissen im Jemen noch nicht vertraut sind, hier:
Yemen War: Introductory articles, overviews, for those who are still unfamiliar with the Yemen war here:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-einfuehrende-artikel-u-ueberblicke
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
(** B K)
American-Made Bomb Used in Airstrike on Yemen Wedding
The following day, April 23, local media in Yemen published a photograph of weapon remnants taken by the Ansar Allah Media Center, which has extensively documented the airstrike through multiple social media platforms, including Telegram, Facebook, and Twitter. This photograph, along with others from the scene, were reportedly passed to the Yemen Press Agency (Saba News Agency) from the media center.
The photograph shows the remains of the wing assembly of an American-made GBU-12 Paveway II guided bomb.
We can trace back this exact wing assembly part to an online database(thanks to @obretix), with the serial number (1325…), SKU (96214 … 872128…) matching up with the wing assembly part used for the GBU-12 Paveway II guided bomb. This bomb part was manufactured by the American defense firm Raytheon. Assuming the Ansar Allah Media Center photograph is from the recent strike — and there is no evidence indicating that it is not– this is far from the first time that the GBU-12 Paveway II guided bomb, which is manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and provided to the Saudi Arabian military by the United States, has been used to target Yemeni civilians. (photos)
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/04/27/american-made-bomb-used-airstrike-yemen-wedding/
(** B K P)
How the UAE’s Chinese-Made Drone Is Changing the War in Yemen
An airstrike that killed a senior Houthi leader shows that the Emirates is growing more assertive in its military operations.
O n Monday evening, video began circulating online of a black-and-white drone feed monitoring a two-car convoy driving north along Road 45, east of Hodeidah, Yemen. In the video, the drone’s target — a blue Toyota Land Cruiser — turns onto a side street. Seconds later, it is struck by a Chinese-made Blue Arrow 7 missile.
The driver of the second vehicle slams on the brakes. He and his companions rush to the lead car, now in flames. “Identify the target,” an officer orders, monitoring the drone feed from an operations room in the United Arab Emirates. The survivors start to move away from the wreckage. “Kill them! Kill the people!”
At 2:02 p.m., the second strike hits. The command room erupts in applause. “Good hit guys, good hit! We got this son of a dog’s car,” an officer cheers in footage reviewed by Foreign Policy.
Saleh al-Samad, the president of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, was killed in the drone strike, delivering the deathblow to an already stagnant Yemeni peace process. Samad was regarded as a conciliatory figure within the Houthi rebellion and had sought to reach a negotiated settlement to Yemen’s civil war. He was scheduled to meet with Martin Griffiths, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, on April 28.
The strike, which is the first successful assassination of a senior figure in the Houthi rebellion, highlights the growing military assertiveness of the UAE. Since 2016, the Gulf nation has been trying to establish itself as the West’s primary counterterrorism partner in the region while simultaneously bolstering its military capabilities through arms deals with Beijing.
Though the Saudis have claimed credit for the strike, the intelligence for the attack was routed through Tareq Saleh’s staff to the UAE, which also carried out the operation.
The UAE did not respond to a request for official comment
Tareq Saleh and his men were forced to seek refuge in the UAE, bringing with them a deep knowledge of the Houthis inner workings
“We still maintain a talking relationship with some of the Houthis. … Sometimes, our agendas align,” explains a senior coalition commander overseeing operations to retake Hodeidah.
Samad’s death was not an isolated incident. A number of key Houthi figures, who shared close ties to former President Saleh, have been killed recently.
Samad’s death is likely to exacerbate existing divisions within the Houthi movement, which he had played an important role in holding together.
The strike against Samad shows that the UAE is also seeking to continue the military struggle and is testing new capabilities. Last year, China sold to the UAE the Wing Loong II, an armed unmanned aerial vehicle equivalent to the American MQ-9 Reaper.
This is part of a broader UAE policy of expanding influence throughout the region.
In the meantime, the UAE’s nascent war is having consequences on the ground in Yemen. Samad’s successor, Mahdi al-Mashat, who was appointed Monday, is a hard-liner with extensive links to Hezbollah in Lebanon – BY RAWAN SHAIF, JACK WATLING
Comment by Judith Brown: More details on the assassination in Yemen of the Houthi leader. I've read it was a Saudi helicopter attack, an American drone, and here UAE Chinese made drone. The detail makes this sound as if it might be true.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10156636377068641
Comment by Haykal Bafana:
This claim of a 'UAE ops room video' is rather laughable, honestly.
I am not aware of either Saudi Arabia or the UAE having the military capability yet to target a man's cellphone signal with a 500kg missile. But that's what the 2nd missile did.
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/989976584697401344
Remark: The Houthis claim the US did it by a drone, the Saudis claim their air force did it:
(* A K)
Al-Shami: The US is Behind The Assassination of President Al-Sammad
T he Commander of the Air Force, Major General Ibrahim al-Shami, revealed that the United States is behind the assassination of martyr President Saleh Al-Sammad in Al-Hudaydah city on Thursday, April 19.
Al-Shami said in a statement to Al-Masirah television channel on Friday that the plane that targeted the martyr President Saleh Al-Sammad is a US M-Q-9 plane, stressing that this crime bears clear hallmarks of the Americans.
http://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=441&cat_id=1 and http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/04/27/559873/US-main-culprit-behind-assassination-of-Yemens-Political-Council-chief-Cmdr
(*** B K P)
How Many Millions Have Been Killed in America’s Post-9/11 Wars?
Part 3: Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen
In the first two parts of this report, I have estimated that about 2.4 million people have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while about 1.2 million have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In the third and final part of this report, I will estimate how many people have been killed as a result of U.S. military and CIA interventions in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
Comprehensive mortality studies in other war-torn countries (like Angola, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda) have revealed total numbers of deaths that are 5 to 20 times those previously revealed by “passive” reporting based on news reports, hospital records and/or human rights investigations.
In the absence of such comprehensive studies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, I have evaluated passive reports of war deaths and tried to assess what proportion of actual deaths these passive reports are likely to have counted by the methods they have used, based on ratios of actual deaths to passively reported deaths found in other war-zones.
I have only estimated violent deaths. None of my estimates include deaths from the indirect effects of these wars, such as the destruction of hospitals and health systems, the spread of otherwise preventable diseases and the effects of malnutrition and environmental pollution, which have also been substantial in all these countries.
Estimating Deaths in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen
In the third and final part of this report, I will estimate the death toll caused by U.S. covert and proxy wars in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
Senior U.S. military officers have hailed the U.S. doctrine of covert and proxy war that found its full flowering under the Obama administration as a “disguised, quiet, media-free” approach to war, and have traced the development of this doctrine back to U.S. wars in Central America in the 1980s. While the U.S. recruitment, training, command and control of death squads in Iraq was dubbed “the Salvador Option,” U.S. strategy in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen has in fact followed this model even more closely.
These wars have been catastrophic for the people of all these countries, but the U.S.’s “disguised, quiet, media-free” approach to them has been so successful in propaganda terms that most Americans know very little about the U.S. role in the intractable violence and chaos that has engulfed them.
Libya
So I estimate that about 250,000 Libyans have been killed in the war, violence and chaos that the U.S. and its allies unleashed in Libya in February 2011, and which continues to the present day. Taking 5:1 and 12:1 ratios to passively counted deaths as outer limits, the minimum number of people that have been killed would be 150,000 and the maximum would be 360,000.
Syria
Taking the SOHR’s passively reported figures for non-military war deaths as 20% of the real total killed would mean that 1.45 million civilians and non-military combatants have been killed. After adding the 64,000 Syrian troops killed to that number, I estimate that about 1.5 million people have been killed in Syria.
If SOHR has been more successful than any previous “passive” effort to count the dead in a war, and has counted 25% or 30% of the people killed, the real number killed could be as low as 1 million. If it has not been as successful as it seems, and its count is closer to what has been typical in other conflicts, then as many as 2 million people may well have been killed.
Somalia
So I estimate that the true number of people killed in Somalia since 2006 must be somewhere between 500,000 and 850,000, with most likely about 650,000 violent deaths.
Yemen
While Saudi Arabia is conducting most of the air strikes, the U.S. has sold most of the planes, bombs, missiles and other weapons it is using. The U.K. is the Saudis’ second largest arms supplier. Without U.S. satellite intelligence and in-air refueling, Saudi Arabia could not conduct airstrikes all over Yemen as it is doing. So a cut-off of U.S. weapons, in-air refueling and diplomatic support could be decisive in ending the war.
Estimating War Deaths in Yemen
Published estimates of war deaths in Yemen are based on regular surveys of hospitals there by the World Health Organization, often relayed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). The most recent estimate, from December 2017, is that 9,245 people have been killed, including 5,558 civilians.
But UNOCHA’s December 2017 report included a note that, “Due to the high number of health facilities that are not functioning or partially functioning as a result of the conflict, these numbers are underreported and likely higher.”
Even when hospitals are fully functioning, many people killed in war do not ever make it to a hospital. Several hospitals in Yemen have been struck by Saudi air strikes, there is a naval blockade that restricts imports of medicine, and supplies of electricity, water, food and fuel have all been affected by the bombing and the blockade. So the WHO’s summaries of mortality reports from hospitals are likely to be a small fraction of the real numbers of people killed.
ACLED reports a slightly lower figure than the WHO: 7,846 through the end of 2017. But unlike the WHO, ACLED has up to date data for 2018, and reports another 2,193 deaths since January. If the WHO continues to report 18% more deaths than ACLED, the WHO’s total up to the present would be 11,833.
Even UNOCHA and the WHO acknowledge substantial underreporting of war deaths in Yemen, and the ratio between the WHO’s passive reports and actual deaths appears to be toward the higher end of the range found in other wars, which has varied between 5:1 and 20:1. I estimate that about 175,000 people have been killed – 15 times the numbers reported by the WHO and ACLED – with a minimum of 120,000 and a maximum of 240,000.
The True Human Cost of U.S. Wars
Altogether, in the three parts of this report, I have estimated that America’s post-9/11 wars have killed about 6 million people. Maybe the true number is only 5 million. Or maybe it is 7 million. But I am quite certain that it is several millions.
It is not only hundreds of thousands, as many otherwise well-informed people believe, because compilations of “passive reporting” can never amount to more than a fraction of the actual numbers of people killed in countries living through the kind of violence and chaos thatour country’s aggression has unleashed on them since 2001.
The systematic reporting of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has surely captured a larger fraction of actual deaths than the small number of completed investigations deceptively reported as mortality estimates by the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan. But both of them still only represent a fraction of total deaths.
And the true number of people killed is most definitely not in the tens of thousands, as most of the general public in the U.S. and in the U.K. have been led to believe, according to opinion polls.
We urgently need public health experts to conduct comprehensive mortality studies in all the countries the U.S. has plunged into war since 2001, so that the world can respond appropriately to the true scale of death and destruction these wars have caused.
As Barbara Lee presciently warned her colleagues before she cast her lone dissenting vote in 2001, we have “become the evil we deplore.” But these wars have not been accompanied by fearsome military parades (not yet) or speeches about conquering the world. Instead they have been politically justified by “information warfare” to demonize enemies and fabricate crises, and then waged in a “disguised, quiet, media free” way, to hide their cost in human blood from the American public and the world.
After 16 years of war, about 6 million violent deaths, 6 countries utterly destroyed and many more destabilized, it is urgent that the American public come to terms with the true human cost of our country’s wars and how we have been manipulated and misled into turning a blind eye to them – before they go on even longer, destroy more countries, further undermine the rule of international law and kill millions more of our fellow human beings.
As Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism, “We can no longer afford to take that which is good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live.” – by Nicolas J.S. Davies, author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapter on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.
(** B K P)
Western Media Complicit in War Crimes
This week saw an horrendous massacre of up to 50 women and children at a wedding party in Yemen, carried out by the US, British and French-backed Saudi air force.
Contrast that Western media indifference to Yemen’s suffering with the saturated coverage given to an unverifiable, and as it turns out, fabricated incident in Syria over an alleged chemical-weapons attack in Douma on April 7.
Videos of dubious provenance were played over and over on Western media purporting to show children suffering from chemical exposure in Syria. Strangely, the pitiful scene of the Yemeni wedding hall massacre and the little boy among the carnage gained negligible Western media coverage.
A week after the Douma incident, on April 14, after much hysterical condemnation of the Syrian government and its Russia ally, US President Donald Trump and his British and French counterparts ordered a barrage of missile strikes on Syria in what was supposed to be revenge for the alleged atrocity in Douma.
Trump, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron made anguished statements about “human suffering” in Syria. On Yemen, they say nothing.
This week, Russian authorities facilitated testimonies by families from Douma at the Hague headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. British and American officials decried it as Russian “theatrics” without even bothering to listen to the testimonies.
The Western media in their reckless, hysterical coverage of the Douma incident alleging a chemical-weapon attack thus stand accused of complicity in the subsequent criminal US-led air strikes.
But where is the Western media coverage and outcry over a real atrocity which happened this week in Yemen? Like many other real atrocities that have occurred in Yemen from Western-backed Saudi air strikes, the Western media act as conduits for covering up the crimes by omitting to report on the horror.
The near-complete absence of reporting on the barbarity inflicted in Yemen with the support of Western governments is an example of how Western media operate like propaganda services.
Their complicity is compounded by their arrogance in proclaiming to be “independent, professional journalism”. It is sickening when Western media outlets continually boast about their “excellence in journalism”.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/27/western-media-complicit-in-war-crimes.html
cp1a Am wichtigsten: Seuchen / Most important: Epidemics
(* A H)
Yemen: Cholera Suspected Cases (From 27 April - 19 April 2018)
https://reliefweb.int/map/yemen/yemen-cholera-suspected-cases-27-april-19-april-2018
(* A H)
Yemen: Cholera Attack Rate (%) Population (From 27 April - 19 April 2018)
https://reliefweb.int/map/yemen/yemen-cholera-attack-rate-population-27-april-19-april-2018
cp2 Allgemein / General
(B P)
Yes. Both north and south have failed to build strong, integrated societies. The issue of marginalized populations throughout Yemen needs to be addressed in the framework of a unified state with a high degree of decentralization.
https://twitter.com/j_feierstein/status/990009316643131392
Decentralizing the gov. caused a war in 94' and in 2015. The north and the south have different political characteristics. The north do not accept a decentralized gov. away from Sanaa and the south do not accept a centralized gov. in Aden.
https://twitter.com/AmrAlBidh/status/990016404098252800
Actually, it was the failure to grant local populations their rights that triggered the ’94 war and the flawed agreement on federalism that contributed to the current conflict. But I agree about Sana’a and Aden.
https://twitter.com/j_feierstein/status/990041496916320256
Remark: Gerald Feierstein, ex-US ambassador to Yemen.
(* B K P)
Strikes on Syria as Yemen atrocities ignored: Journalists discuss the West’s double standards
Unlike the alleged attack in Syria, real atrocities by Saudi Arabia in Yemen do not get the same response, Yemeni journalist Hussain Albukhaiti told Afshin Rattansi, the host of Going Underground.
Albukhaiti called out Britain for its crocodile tears over Yemen. “The British heart is not towards Yemen, the British heart is towards the Saudi pocket.” (with film)
https://www.rt.com/news/425437-airstrikes-syria-chemical-attack/
(A K P)
Thank you @georgegalloway (Text in image)
(* A K P)
Film by Press TV Iran: The war on #Yemen entered its 4th year last month. There have been no achievements, just an everyday slaughter, a humanitarian apocalypse and a country in rubbles
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/videos/1724679787585044/
(A K P)
Interactive Map of Yemen
(* B K P)
The Roots Of The Conflict In Yemen And Why The U.S. Plays A Part
Support for Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen is taking a severe toll on the civilian population and the U.S.’s foreign policy is a contributing factor.
Although the airstrikes have directly killed civilians, they also serve a more insidious purpose: creating long-term famine conditions. In an interview with Salon, Martha Mundy of the London School of Economics said that the Saudi campaign is “deliberately targeting Yemen’s tiny agricultural sector in a campaign which, if successful, would lead a post-war Yemeni nation not just into starvation but total reliance on food imports for survival.”
The Saudi-led campaign can attribute some of its effectiveness to the backing it receives from the United States. Although not officially a partner to the Saudi-led coalition, the United States has been critical in providing material and logistical support to Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the civil war.
The Saudi-led bombing campaign is threatening to completely destroy the population of Yemen, either directly through the airstrikes or through the exacerbation of ever-worsening famine and disease, and the United States is encouraging the coalitions’ complete disregard for life. The United States needs to immediately halt all forms of weapons sales to the coalition and stop being complicit in a humanitarian disaster.
https://studybreaks.com/news-politics/yemen-genocide/
(B C P)
Yemen: the lessons of history
Ginny Hill's book paints the turbulent historical backdrop to the current war in Yemen
It's difficult to imagine a worse state of affairs. Yemen has been battered for six decades, and there seems no end to it. The creation of the republic in 1962 was followed by five years of civil war, with Saudi Arabia backing supporters of the deposed Imam. South Yemen, created after the departure of the British from Aden in 1967, was soon at loggerheads with the north. The unification of the two Yemens in 1990 was followed by yet another civil war. Against a background of political turbulence and assassinations, remote areas of Yemen received little financial support from the capital, Sanaa. (book review)
http://www.petroleum-economist.com/articles/politics-economics/middle-east/2018/yemen-the-lessons-of-history and another review, from 2017: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2017/08/22/book-review-ginny-hills-yemen-endures/
(* B E H P)
Government of Yemen: Yemen Socio-Economic Update, Issue 32 - February 2017
During 2013- 2014, the economy sustained another shock with the return of about 400,000 Yemeni expatriates from Saudi Arabia to Yemen, which exacerbated unemployment and poverty rates and contributed in creating conducive environment to undermine stability in the country(2). Most of these labourers managed to return to Saudi Arabia later.
Whatever the case may be, expatriates’ remittances during the ongoing war remained the last source to fund Yemen’s economy, import essential and luxury goods and support the national currency.
However, the new escalating levy imposed by Saudi Arabia on expatriate workers and their dependents threatens not only to erode remittances of billions of dollars, but also to force tens of thousands of expatriates to return to Yemen. This threatens to widen unemployment crisis, increase misery and frustration and ignite further conflict in the war-torn country.
Employing Yemeni youth and increasing their remittance inflows to Yemen is a worthwhile investment in the security of Yemen, the region and the entire world, especially due to Yemen’s unique strategic position on international shipping lines, in addition to being the southern gateway of the Arabian Peninsula towards Africa. Without taking into account the difficult situation in Yemen, the economic and humanitarian tragedy will worsen and undermine social peace in the country.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-socio-economic-update-issue-32-february-2017-enar
(A K P)
#Royal Baby Celebrated Across The World While Yemen Gets Bombed Again
why isn’t the international community calling out the illegal war against Yemen for what it is – genocide?
More lives lost in Yemen and another dirty proxy war rages on in the Middle East – is this worth your time MSM?
(* B K)
US-Saudi Terror Attacks in Yemen Kill or Injure 155+ in Just 5 Days
The gruesome U.S.-Saudi terror attacks in Yemen targeted blatant civilian gatherings and infrastructure including a wedding, gas station, and water well drilling rig. Riyadh also assassinated the president of Yemen’s Sana’a government this week, President Saleh Ali al-Sammad.
Over the weekend, just days prior to these attacks, warplanes targeted a bus full of civilians and several homes.
These airstrike attacks clearly demonstrate Washington, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi’s intention to terrorize Yemeni civilians, spread disease, and deteriorate morale within the country. This is part and parcel of the aggression coalition’s strategy to beat Yemen into submission.
Over the past five days, Riyadh, Washington, and Abu Dhabi have carried out relentless terror attacks in Yemen. Considering the airstrike targets, it’s clear that instilling fear and deteriorating Yemen’s strength are the goals.
The gas station and water well attack make it clear that Riyadh’s intentions include manufacturing a humanitarian crisis.
http://geopoliticsalert.com/us-saudi-terror-attacks-in-yemen
(A H K)
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect : Airstrikes and atrocities continue in Yemen
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/atrocity-alert-no102-25-april-2018-yemen-and-south-sudan
(* B P)
RSF Index 2018: Hatred of journalism threatens democracies
The 2018 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), reflects growing animosity towards journalists. Hostility towards the media, openly encouraged by political leaders, and the efforts of authoritarian regimes to export their vision of journalism pose a threat to democracies.
The continuing wars in Syria (117th) and Yemen (down one at 167th) and the terrorism charges still being used in Egypt (161st), Saudi Arabia (down one at 169th) and Bahrain (down two at 166th) continue to make this the most difficult and dangerous region for journalists to operate.
https://rsf.org/en/rsf-index-2018-hatred-journalism-threatens-democracies
(A K P)
Ambiguous assassination in Yemen
Ambiguity surrounds the circumstances of the death of Saleh Al-Sammad, head of the rebel Houthi Movement’s Supreme Political Council, during an inspection tour in Yemen this week
Ambiguity continues to surround the circumstances of Al-Sammad’s death. While the Houthi Movement has said he was killed during the coalition strike, some believe his death could have been an inside job.
In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Al-Majidi said that “the incident was staged by the Houthi Movement so as to lay the blame on the coalition and mobilising support for retaliation.”
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/24383.aspx
My comment: This meanwhile is conspiration theory – as the Saudis have admitted the killing, and also have published a film showing the precise targeting of Sammad’s car.
(* B K P)
In #Saudi eyes, there is no #Yemen political solution which includes the Houthis, and the killing of Saleh Al-Sammad confirms this. Indeed, this entire Saudi war is about not allowing Houthis in power. Whatever little prospect for peace there was have now become exactly nil.
But let's not slide into default assumptions. After 3 year of witless failure, even monkeys with Macbooks should understand vaguely by now that there is no military solution in Yemen either.
War will make Saudi Arabia's problems worse, and empower the Houthis more. This is the strategic calculus in Yemen.
Comment: This reminds me rather of Israel killing all the reasonable leaders who would be good negotiators and leaving extremists in power with less chance of peace.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10156630361228641
cp2a Saudische Blockade / Saudi blockade
(* B H K)
[from March 25]
Yemen's lifeline Hodeidah port still stifled by 'de facto blockade'
Yemen's rebel-held port of Hodeidah, a lifeline for the war-ravaged country dependent on food imports, remains "a wasteland" three months after a Saudi-led coalition alleged to have lifted its long-running blockade.
The status of Hodeidah, the country's largest seaport and gateway to the majority of its aid-dependent population, offers a window into the nation's dire plight.
In February, food imports were half of the monthly national requirement, according to the United Nations agency for humanitarian affairs.
The world body said those food shipments, critical to a nation where millions are on the verge of famine, were "the lowest" since the UN began inspecting cargo in May 2016.
The once-bustling port of Hodeidah now receives a trickle of deliveries, with some ships entering only to remove empty containers and haul them away.
"Hodeidah should be supporting more than 20 million Yemenis. It should be the source of at least 70 percent of all imports to Yemen," Suze van Meegen, a protection and advocacy adviser with the Norwegian Refugee Council, told AFP. "Instead it's like a wasteland.
Van Meegen in late February visited the port for a first hand view.
"The most striking thing at the port is the destruction of the five gantry cranes," van Meegen said, referring to infrastructure bombed by coalition warplanes in the first six months of their intervention.
The old cranes are now obstacles to movement at the port, and the storage area where containers were once stacked four high is largely empty, she said.
Some 5,000 day labourers have been let go since the bombing of the cranes, according to port authorities.
(B H P)
World Food Programme: VOS Apollo and VOS Theia: The Maritime Lifelines Flowing Through the Waters of the Gulf of Aden
An interview with Lionel Schenal, Logistics Officer in charge of sea operations for Yemen
“It is definitely not easy, Yemen is currently in a very complex and precarious situation. The biggest problem we have is access. Infrastructure within the country is badly damaged, but more crucially, there is limited transport capacity into the country itself. For a long time, the only access has been by sea from Djibouti to Aden."
The WFP-chartered VOS Apollo has been plying the route Djibouti-Aden since April 2016, becoming the critical link to the south. Recently, the port in Hodeidah reopened so in March 2018, WFP chartered a second vessel, the VOS Theia which represents an important lifeline to the north."
(* A H K P)
Saudi Lies and the War on YemenIt isn’t surprising that the Saudi government is fabricating stories like this about Yemen. Supporters of the war have been eager to portray the coalition’s enemies as threats to international shipping, but the only party to the conflict that has been interfering with shipping in and around Yemen is the Saudi coalition with their blockade. Since there is nothing to back up their warnings about threats to international shipping from Yemen, the Saudis are reduced to making things up out of thin air.
The Saudi coalition blockade is responsible for delaying and diverting the delivery of essential goods to the ports that serve the vast majority of the population in Yemen, and they have been doing this since their intervention began in 2015. The blockade is the primary cause of the starvation of millions of Yemenis, more than eight million of whom are on the brink of famine. It was the coalition that bombed the cranes at the main port of Hodeidah, and it was the coalition that shut down all commercial traffic into the port last fall. Some ships are being allowed in now, but they are far too few to provide for the basic needs of millions of Yemenis. There is not enough food or fuel being brought in, and that makes basic necessities prohibitively expensive for an impoverished country whose economy has been devastated by the ongoing war and whose infrastructrue has been destroyed by the coalition bombing campaign. The Saudi coalition needs to fully lift its blockade instead of concocting bogus stories to distract attention from their cruel policy of collective punishment – by Daniel Larison
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/saudi-lies-and-the-war-on-yemen-2/
and
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Saudis say 19 oil ships are held hostage off Yemen. Not true, say maritime experts.
A Saudi Arabian diplomat said last weekend that 19 oil tankers were seized by rebel forces off the coast of Yemen. Then, the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, repeated the story. But based on interviews and research conducted by PRI, there is no hostage situation at all.
A hostage crisis. Hijackings at sea. Commercial ships to be destroyed. An environmental disaster to follow. The Saudi press release indicated a crisis was surely brewing.
But shipping companies and industry analysts tell a different story.
TankerTrackers, a maritime transparency project based in Sweden, spotted the tankers listed by the Saudis within hours of the ambassador's tweet. Through satellite imagery and data transmissions, the group identified the vessels anchored off Hodeidah and began watching their movements.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for a Greek shipping company whose tankers are on the Saudi list expressed surprise about the Saudi accusations. "Up to now there is not any issue reported by vessels," wrote Capt. Minas Papadakis of the Athens-based company, Eurotank, which manages four of the ships. "There is congestion at port, but waiting time is normal for Hodeidah."
Papadakis said the Delia I had successfully offloaded its cargo of fuel at Hodeidah and that Eurotank's other ships were in line to do the same.
"Ariana, Selene and Liana are at [Hodeidah] anchorage waiting orders by port control for discharging their cargo," he said. "We confirm that all are in order."
Samir Madani of TankerTrackers fact-checked the Saudi claim that vessels had been held hostage for up to 26 days.
"Given everything that we've seen from satellite imagery, we have not seen any vessels that were surrounded or physically blocked from entering port," he said. "They've been sitting idle in anchorage. And now we see a lot of traffic: vessels that move from anchorage into port to deliver the cargo, and then they leave the port."
In short, it's been business as usual at Hodeidah.
The Saudi-generated stories may have had another purpose.
"Calling attention to the fact that Houthis are blocking international shipping is a good way to try and show the world that the Houthis are a danger to the global community," said Ellen Wald, author of the book Saudi, Inc: The Arabian Kingdom's Pursuit of Profit and Power. "It would make sense for the Saudis to take this tactic, particularly when their own activities in Yemen are under so much scrutiny. They are also probably looking to push the UN to take action against Iran for funding the Houthis and showing evidence of their disruption of global shipping lanes is a piece of that."
That could also be what's at work behind recent reports in Saudi media that the Houthis are preventing ships carrying humanitarian aid from entering the port.
A spokesperson from Save the Children, Bhanu Bhatnagar, told PRI they'd seen no disruptions to shipments.
"I would say the 'threat' looks to be largely manufactured by the Saudis in order to either justify their own actions against the Houthis or to get others to act against the Houthis," Wald said – by Stephen Snyder
https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-04-26/saudis-say-19-oil-ships-are-held-hostage-yemen-not-true-say-maritime-experts = http://nashvillepublicradio.org/post/saudis-say-19-oil-ships-are-held-hostage-yemen-not-true-say-maritime-experts#stream/0
(A H P)
Vessel seizures unlikely off Yemen’s Hodeidah despite Saudi claims, but cargo will face Houthi fee demands (paywalled)
(A H P)
Colonel Maliki: Houthi militia hinders movement of shipments, relief materials to Yemeni interior
Spokesman of the Coalition for the Support of Legitimacy in Yemen Colonel Turki al-Maliki said that all military operations in Yemen, whether air, sea or land, are functioning with full capacity, noting that the number of maritime permits issued for humanitarian operations and orders not to target since the beginning Military operations to date amounted to 22,622.
Colonel al-Maliki said during a press conference held in Riyadh on Wednesday that the maritime permits issued from 16 April to the present day to the port of Hodeidah amounted to 12 permits for twelve ships, and the air permits reached 49 flights to the Yemeni interior, the number of passengers was 1009 passengers. The number of permits from all land ports is 36 permits, and the maritime permits for all ports during the same period are 54 permits for foodstuffs, medical, oil derivatives, cattle and others, pointing out that the number of commercial vessels currently in the Yemeni ports totaled 22 vessels.
He pointed out that the presence of 19 ships heading to the port of Hodeidah and were given permits by the coalition forces and were not allowed to enter the port of Hodeidah by the coup militia in the process of delaying entry of materials and relief to the port of Hodeidah to raise prices and find a black market in Hodeidah and other areas Yemenis.
http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1756571
and
(A H P)
Saudi-led coalition says Houthis deny entry of humanitarian ships to Yemen port
Saudi-led coalition affirmed Wednesday that the rebels hinder the entry of humanitarian aids to the country, highlighting that 40 ships are waiting to access Al Hudaydah port, Al Arabiya local news reported.
The spokesperson of the coalition Col. Turki Al Maliki accused the militias of risking the security of Saudi Arabia and the navigation.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/26/c_137136973.htm
My comment: Look at YPR 407, cp2a. This is otherwise unconfirmed and seems to be Saudi propaganda rather that fact.
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
(A H)
Film: Apr 2018 Education of Women in Yemen
Years of Civil War in Yemen have left Many Women without access to even the most Basic Education. Many Women in particular have Never had a Chance to Learn to Read and Write. In a Rural part of the country however, one group of women are Determined to make up for Lost Time and Enable them to Teach their Children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d0lkfXB9S8
(* A H)
Today in #Yemen: I’m amazed at how the shelves are fully stocked in the supermarket but very little people buying. The fuel blockade = up transport costs = up prices = down purchasing power = people can’t buy food (no salaries as well) = 8.5 million people on brink of famine (photos)
https://twitter.com/samboosa_a/status/989766733572419584
(A H)
World Bank and United Nations Office for Project Services Sign Solar Project to Restore Electricity to Over One Million Yemenis
The World Bank and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) signed an agreement today for a US$50 million project to improve access to electricity in rural and peri-urban areas in Yemen. The Yemen Emergency Electricity Access Project will be funded by a grant form IDA — the World Bank fund for the world’s poorest countries — and implemented by UNOPS.
(B H)
#WhenIGrowUp
Internally displaced Yemeni children share their hopes for the future
https://twitter.com/i/moments/989404195924135936
(B H)
UNA GIORNATA CON ALI, OPERATORE UMANITARIO IN YEMEN
Lo scorso anno ero in missione a Hajjah nel nord dello Yemen dove Save the Children distribuisce cibo, acqua e cure mediche alle famiglie yemenite.
Il mio compito è stato quello di accompagnare il team medico delle unità mobili nel loro lavoro. Le unità mobili sono delle cliniche itineranti che forniscono servizi salva-vita a coloro che non hanno la possibilità di raggiungere un centro medico. In Yemen infatti più della metà delle strutture sanitarie è stata danneggiata o distrutta dalla guerra e le strade sono spesso intransitabili.
https://www.savethechildren.it/blog-notizie/una-giornata-con-ali-operatore-umanitario-yemen
(* B H)
Audio: Yemen's Civil War Places Heavy Burden On Ordinary Citizens
Steve Inskeep talks to Bushra Aldukhainah, a Yemeni worker for the aid group CARE, about conditions in Yemen in the midst of its years-long civil war.
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/26/605944158/yemens-civil-war-places-heavy-burden-on-ordinary-citizens
My comment: It’s no more a “civil war” (since more than 3 years now).
(B H)
Yemen: Emergency Dashboard, April 2018
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-emergency-dashboard-april-2018
(* B H)
Yemen | Severe Acute Malnutrition response levels and Humanitarian Access Constraints – DG ECHO Daily Map | 26/04/2018
(* B H)
UNICEF Yemen Humanitarian Situation Report (March 2018)
Children continue to bear the heaviest toll of the conflict. 16 children were killed and 38 injured during March, bringing the cumulative totals for 2018 up to a 110 and 192 respectively.1 The conflict also continues to heavily impact children's right to an education. Many teachers' salaries remain unpaid (61 per cent) and over three years of conflict is now compromising the education of over 4.5 million children. Whilst no data available concerning the attendance of teachers, it is reported than in some school's teachers work only a few hours a day, and in others, parents are grouping together to collect fees for teachers.
The consequences of this has a varying impact across the country.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/unicef-yemen-humanitarian-situation-report-march-2018
(* B H)
Yemen's children have been forgotten by the world for too long
Just 12 percent of the funds required to support education activities in the war-torn country this year have been raised
Across the country, schools have been attacked, destroying the structures and the lives of those trapped inside. More than 1,800 schools have been directly impacted by the conflict, including more than 1,500 that have been damaged or destroyed and 21 that are occupied by armed groups. But that's just the start of it.
The entire education system has been decimated. There's a severe shortage of teachers; no one has been hired since before the war, leaving many schools reliant on volunteers. The shortage of female teachers is of particular concern, causing many parents to pull their girls out of school. A dire lack of materials, such as textbooks, has left the bookshelves in school libraries almost bare.
Schools decimated
Sometimes there aren't even buildings in which to teach, so lessons are held outdoors, often in intolerable weather conditions. One "school" we visited was a cluster of sweltering white tents erected next to the obliterated remains of what was once a school building. The Saudi-led coalition bombed the original school, which had been occupied by Houthi armed forces.
Organisations like Save the Children run programmes, such as catch-up classes to try to stop students from falling too far behind, but the funding is completely insufficient to support the number of children in need.
At the end of my visit, it was abundantly clear that these children have been forgotten by the world for too long. The international community must do much more to protect Yemen's children.
Pressure must be put on all parties to the conflict to allow life-saving supplies to reach those who need it, to respect their obligations under international law, and most importantly to find a peaceful solution to the war. Ultimately, the crisis will only end through a peaceful and permanent political solution – by George Graham, Save the Children’s director of conflict and humanitarian policy.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/children-yemen-deserve-better-1988641947
Comment: This is appalling. A small fraction of children are in school in Yemen just now and only a few days ago a boy whose parents couldn't afford to send him to school any more killed himself. Teachers and pupils faint in classrooms from the lack of food and the state schools are places where militias go to recruit. Girls are getting married off in early teens - or earlier - to older men just in order for their families to have more chance of survival. How long can this continue without destroying Yemen's future for generations?
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10156632448008641
(B H)
World Bank, UN Development Programme: Yemen emergency crisis response project as of March 2018
The Emergency Crisis Response Project (ECRP) works on building the resilience of vulnerable people and communities in Yemen to cope with the current crisis through restoring key public service, creating employment opportunities, and supporting small businesses.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-emergency-crisis-response-project-march-2018
(* B H)
Film: Yemen war survivor struggles to provide education to women
A woman in divided Taiz province is trying to empower other women and girls to obtain brighter future.
In Yemen, a makeshift school run by a remarkable survivor of the three-year-long civil war is teaching a fortunate few women to read and write. Taiz province is sandwiched between Houthi rebels in the north and government-controlled areas in the south.
(A H)
Ahmad Alghobary: I distributed 30 food baskets for the most needy people, I did this with my friend's help, thanks to polish organization school for peace (szkoly dla pokoju) for feeding 30 families. (photos)
Website of the polish organization: https://szkolydlapokoju.pl/
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/989209295391723520
(A H)
United Nations Population Fund: Yemen: GBV-Subcluster Dashboard - Analysis of Indicator Data, Reporting period: March 2018
cp4 Flüchtlinge / Refugees
(A H)
100 Ethiopians repatriated from Yemen: foreign ministry
The Ethiopian government said on Friday 100 of its nationals were repatriated from Yemen.
In a press statement sent to Xinhua, the Office of the Ethiopia Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), said the Ethiopians arrived from Yemen with the help of the Ethiopian Embassy in Djibouti and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/28/c_137142297.htm and also https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/100-ethiopian-migrants-return-yemen
(* B H)
UN High Commissioner for Refugees: Yemen UNHCR Update, 1 - 14 April 2018
Funding
USD 198.7 M requested in 2018 $44.3M funded as of 17 April 2018
Operational Update
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is extremely concerned by a worsening situation for newly-arrived refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Yemen. Conflict, deteriorating economic conditions and now increasing criminality are exposing people to harm and exploitation. As prolonged conflict and insecurity threatens state institutions and weakens the rule of law, there are growing accounts of extortion, trafficking and deportations. Many persons of concern are arrested, detained, abused, and pushed out to sea or forcibly returned by the very same smugglers who brought them to Yemen.
State and non-state actors are effectively controlling detention facilities where new arrivals are being held, and UNHCR perseveres in working with all actors to ensure that those being detained are treated humanely and with dignity in accordance with refugee and human rights law.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-unhcr-update-1-14-april-2018
(* B H)
Film: Life in a Yemeni camp for the displaced as conflict grinds on
The Dharwan camp for Internally Displaced Persons in Amran province north of the capital Sana'a was set up three years ago, and now houses over 3,500 displaced Yemenis in makeshift tents and shelters that do not provide sufficient protection during the winter months or when it rains.
Those living in the camp reported ongoing food scarcity, as well as a lack of access to water and health care, according to an epa photojournalist who visited the camp recently.
Most of the 500 families who live at the camp have been forced to flee their homes in the north of the country near the border with Saudi Arabia because of the ongoing Saudi-led war against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen, which began Mar. 2015.
Any aid from international humanitarian organizations that does reach Dharwan camp only lasts a few weeks, the epa photojournalist noted.
(* B H)
Fleeing Horn of Africa, new arrivals find more peril in Yemen
On arrival in war-torn country, refugees and migrants are routinely subjected to detention and abuse as UNHCR calls for unhindered access to detainees.
Yemen is historically a country of migration, refuge and transit for people fleeing the Horn of Africa. But more than three years of conflict have plunged the country into the world’s deepest humanitarian crisis, and Jon is one of many to have crossed the Gulf of Aden in search of safety only to meet new dangers on arrival.
Last year, according to humanitarian partner data, more than 87,000 new arrivals, including refugees and migrants, crossed from the Horn of Africa to Yemen.
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
(* A P)
Yemenis hold funeral for President Al-Sammad
Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis gathered on Saturday morning at Sabeen Square in the capital Sanna in a historic funeral procession to say goodbye to the President Saleh Ali Al-Sammad and his companions ,who was killed in Hodeida, last Thursday by the US-backed Saudi-led air strikes.
The Yemenis gathered, mid sadness, in Al Sabain district to pray tribute to Saleh al-Samad and the funeral was headed the president Madi Al-Mashat, ministers, military commanders of the state and many other important social figures.
The people raising flags of the Republic of Yemen and pictures of the martyr president and banners that read slogans against US policy in the region and calling to confront the Saudi-led coalition aggression on Yemen.
They also chanted slogans challenging the Saudi-led coalition and their allies.
In the funeral ceremony, the Saudi-led Coalition struck the people who gathered for procession of martyr President Al-Sammad by two raids, hitting near the funeral ceremony
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494590.htm
(A P)
Sayyed Abdulmalik: In The Farewell of Martyr President Al-Sammad
In the same night the Yemeni people gave their farewell to the assassinated President Al-Sammad, Sayyed Abdulmalik addressed them in a highly anticipated speech. He covered a wide range of issues including the ramification of the assassination of Prisdent Al-Sammad on the country and the aggression, the US responsibility of the assassination of Prisdent Al-Sammad and a brief recognition of the martyr’s life and achievements.
Starting by giving his condolences to the family of the President Al-Sammad and those who killed with him in the US-Saudi airstrike, he also gave his condolences to the Yemeni for the great loss of their President and thanked them for their very appreciated and astonishing attendance of the funeral.
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=455&cat_id=1
(A P)
Pics of New president of supreme political council Mr Almashaat lead the funeral gatgering in Sabeen Square today in #Sanaa with #Yemen-i PM and Head of the revolution committee Mr Mohammed Alhouthi , respite #Saudi #UAE wave of strikes around the Square
https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/990275861302726658
and more photos and details of the funeral here:
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990240257118437376
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990234643701039105
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990210528294457344
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990207146666098693
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990202082211913729
(* A P)
Official Funeral of Martyred the Yemeni President , His Companions in Sana’a
On Saturday , Yemeni people prayed on the body of the martyred president Saleh al-Sammad and his companions who died in a raid by the Saudi-led coalition warplanes in Hodeidah last Thursday .
The prayer was held at Al-Sabe’en in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, with the participation of millions of people and officials, led by the new President of the Supreme Political Council, President Mahdi al-Mashat and the head of the Supreme Revolutionary Committees, Muhammad Ali al-Houthi.
The crowd gathered in the squares surrounding the mosque. The crowds attended the funeral stressing the stand behind the Yemeni leadership in facing the brutal enemy, which has waged war on Yemen for more than three years. (photos)
http://www.newnewss.net/official-funeral-of-martyred-the-yemeni-president-his-companions-in-sanaa/
Saudi airstrikes kill citizen, injure 2 during Al-Sammad funeral
A citizen was killed and two others injured on Saturday in US-backed Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Sabeen Square in the capital Sana'a during the funeral of the martyred president Saleh Al-Sammad.
Two airstrikes hit the vicinity of Sabeen Square, coinciding with the funeral ceremony, which led to the killing of one of the mourners and wounding two others, as well as causing damage to Al-Sha'ab Mosque.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494596.htm
and
(A K P)
Film: Saudi-airstrike near funeral of the martyred president Sammad. Watch the people's reaction. Incredible.
https://www.facebook.com/StopTheWarOnYemen/videos/vb.319595141544022/858734294296768/?type=2&theater
(* A P)
Thousands Attend Funeral of Houthi Leader Killed in Airstrike in Yemen (VIDEO)
The head of Yemen's Supreme Political Council and one of the leaders of the Ansar Allah group, Saleh Sammad, was killed last week in the Yemeni province of Hodeida by an airstrike carried out by a Saudi-led coalition.
The funeral of al-Samad was held in al-Sabeen square and attended by high-ranking Houthi officials, including the late leader's successor, Mahdi al-Mashat.
Houthi rebel chief Abdul-Malek al-Houthi pledged to revenge al-Samad's death.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804281063994412-houthi-yemen-leader-killed-funeral/
(* A P)
Going now to attend the grandiose funeral of Yemen president Saleh Samad who was assassinated by US-Saudi airstrike. (photos9
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990108685094486016
US-Saudi war criminals fighter jets hovering over us now ( Yemenis going to attend the funeral of President Saleh Samad in the middle Sanaa (photo)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990109433500983296
This is where we are now attending the funeral of Yemen President Saleh Samad who was assassinated by US-Saudi airstrike. (photos)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990112987003355136
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990120993095024640
Now, US-Saudi war criminals start to bomb us. To bomb millions of Yemenis attending funeral of Yemen President Saleh Samad. In country's biggest square, Sanaa.
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990121411179171840
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990125179937394688
Another wave of #Saudi coalition strikes around Sabeen Square as Hundreds of thousands of #Yemen-is are gathering in the Square in #Sanaa for the funeral of Mr Al Sammad president of supreme political council (photos)
https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/990128169024925696
#Saudi led coalition carried out 2 airstrikes near al-Sabeen square in the capital #Sanaa as a large crowd gathered to commemorate the death of Saleh al-Sammad & other senior political figures (photos)
https://twitter.com/SaadAbedine/status/990132854993530880
Under US-Saudi cowardly bombings on their place Millions of Yemenis mourn their most liked & respected president Saleh Samad who was assassinated by US-Saudi airstrike last week Newly elected president Mahdi Mashat along with all senior state officials attended the funeral (photos)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990166959647088641
https://twitter.com/YemenIsOurLove/status/990162293571899392
(A P)
Hamoud Sharaf al-Deen, a #Houthi journo, says that after the appointment of Mahdi al-Mashat as head of the #SPC, directives were issued to impose strict monitoring on the society, especially social media platforms, to prosecute those who criticize them or support the coalition
https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/989923650093625344
(A P)
on the even of the funeral of their political leader Saleh al-Sammad, the #Houthis impose strict security measures in the capital #Sanaa and prevent the entry of large trucks and locomotives into the capital. al-Sammad was killed 8 days ago by airstrike.
https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/989890855346622464
(* B P)
What Houthi leader’s death and his replacement could mean for Yemen war
As the Houthi is a secretive movement, the hit on Saleh Al-Sammad was big, because it means that they have been compromised to a high level, says political analyst
Mehdi Al-Mashat, the replacement of Saleh Al-Sammad, is rumored to be related to the Houthi leader by marriage
“It’s certainly a big hit — if more on a symbolic basis. Sammad was a key face of the Houthis,” Adam Baron, co-founder of the Sanaa Center For Strategic Studies, told Arab News.
Yemeni political analyst and former Nobel Peace Prize nominee Baraa Shiban also believes this to be a significant blow to the militant group.
“The entire Houthi movement depends highly on secrecy; that’s why for them the hit on Saleh Al-Sammad was big, because it means that they have been compromised to a high level,” Shiban told Arab News.
He said that the strike showed that the coalition had had some intelligence information on his location before the attack.
Al-Mashat’s elevation to president of the political council, is being viewed as the latest attempt by the Houthis to keep power between a select few at the top of the group.
Al-Mashat was previously director of Abdel-Malek Al-Houthi’s office.
“It signals consolidation around close confidants of Abdel-Malek,” Baron said, “Al-Mashat is one of the more trusted members of his inner circle.”
Little is known about Al-Mashat. However, it is rumored that Mehdi Al-Mashat, the replacement of Saleh Al-Sammad, is rumored to be related to the Houthi leader by marriage.
Some have referred to Al-Mashat as a hard-liner who has been known to adopt aggressive positions.
While Al-Mashat is seen to be more aggressive than Al-Sammad, Yemeni analysts say they do not expect much difference in the militias approach because all the decisions are made by the Houthi leader.
“Both Al-Sammad and Al-Mashat are two sides of the same coin and both served the Houthi political leadership by being completely subservient to Abdel-Malek Al-Houthi,” Fatima Al-Asrar, senior analyst at the Arabia Foundation think tank, said. “No one else in the Houthi movement holds power besides Abdel-Malek and they both are not anything more than a mouthpiece of the political movement.”
The main difference between the two would be that Al-Sammad had a degree of acceptance among some tribes and political figures outside the Houthi group.
“He would not use a threatening tone with Yemeni tribes, he would try to reconcile with them, I don’t see Al-Mashat taking a similar approach,” Baraa said.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1292831/middle-east
Remark: By Saudi media, but apart from obvious propaganda this article gives more detailed information.
(A P)
Houthis torture prisoner to death in Hajjjah
Mohammed Mahmoud al-Emad died on Friday as a result of a weeklong imprisonment and torture in the rebel militia's jail
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-17902
(A P)
Yemen: Houthis sentence Jewish man for rescuing Torah scroll
Man accused of helping Jews fleeing to Israel from Yemen's civil war bring 500-year-old Torah scroll imprisoned by Houthi rebels.
A Jewish man was sentenced to two years in prison for helping to smuggle a Torah scroll to Israel.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/245082
(B P)
#Yemen Ambassador [Hadigovernment] to the #Britain Yaseen Saeed Numan believes that killing the #Houthi political leader al-Sammad comes in the context of the conflict between the "dynasties and supporters," and expects more radical behavior in the coming period.
https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/989524645589274626
(* A P)
Court executes 8 man for coalition collaborators in Sanaa
The court criminal in the capital Sanaa said on Wedensday eight Saudi-led coalition’s collaborators will be executed.
The culprits helped the Saudi enemy to collecting an information for the coalition war plane and to send information on movements of the army and the popular committees.
The decision also pointed out that the collaborators planted more than four explosive devices on the roads of the Yemeni provinces.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494434.htm
Remark: As claimed by the Houthi-ruled news agency. Earlier reporting YPR 407, cp5.
(A P)
Thousands of protesters in the rifles march in Hodeidah
Large crowds marched in Al-Hodeidah city on Wednesday in the Rifles March, which was called by the martyr President Al-Sammad.
The rally showed the extent of the presence of large and honorable crowds and the interaction of the masses gathered, from all the people of Al-Hodeidah governorate.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494419.htm
(A P)
"The March of Guns" in Al Hudaydah Province Begins
A popular march under the title "The March of Guns" was launched on Wednesday in Al Hudaydah honoring the President of Yemen's Supreme Political Council Saleh al-Sammad.
The march was attended by a large crowd of supporters, raising Yemeni flags and pictures of the martyr and raising banners calling of freedom against American policy in the region.
and
(A P)
Film: Yemen: Thousands demonstrate after Houthi political chief al-Samad killed in airstrike 'The March of Guns' was launched on Wednesday in Hodeidah to honour former Houthi political leader Saleh al-Samad who was killed in Saudi-led airstrike last Thursday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxq1blAaym8
(* A P)
Yemen: 8 get death for collaborating with coalition
Court in Houthi-held Sanaa convicts eight people for cooperating with ‘enemy forces’
A court in Yemen’s capital sentenced eight people to death Wednesday for cooperating with Saudi-led coalition forces, according to Yemen’s official SABA news agency.
The Houthi-run news agency reported that a criminal court in Sanaa ordered the death penalty after convicting them of cooperating with “enemy forces”.
Spying for Saudi Arabia was also among the charges they faced, it added.
https://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/yemen-8-get-death-for-collaborating-with-coalition/1128218
and
(*A P)
The Criminal Court in Sanaa announced that eight Saudi-led coalition’s collaborators will be executed.
According to the Court, the culprits helped the Saudis collecting information also on movements of the army and the popular committees.
The decision also pointed out that the collaborators planted more than four explosive devices on the roads of the Yemeni provinces.
cp6 Südjemen und Hadi-Regierung / Southern Yemen and Hadi-government
(A P)
Al-Awlaquy: The Southern Transitional Council is Committed with His Promises to the Southern People. Our Position is Clear regionally and internationally.
(* A P)
Secrets Behind Ben Daghar’s Visit to Hadhramaut
In a post on his page on face book, Said Salmeen Shakaba, a Hadhramauti journalist, indicated that the visit of Ahmed Ben Daghar, prime minister of Yemen, to Hadhramaut has a specific objective. He indicated that Ben Daghar’s visit was not for participating in Hadhramaut celebration of the second anniversary for liberating Hadhramaut coast from terrorist groups, neither to launch some illusive projects that would never achieve any good. Instead, the visit of Ben Daghar came to arrange a 600-million Dollars oil shipment from Hadhramaut’s oil fields and to seize all the profit without paying Hadhramaut’s share of the deal. In other words, Ben Daghar visited Hadhramaut for robbing more of its fortunes.
http://en.smanews.org/secrets-behind-ben-daghars-visit-to-hadhramaut
My comment: By Southern separatists. – This could be true. The Hadi government was accused of corruption already in 2014; and Ben Daghr was almost from the beginning of his term.
(A K P)
Mansour Saleh Visits Southern Injured Soldiers in Cairo
Vice chairman of media department at the southern transitional council, Mansour Saleh, visited some injured southern soldiers who are being treated in Egyptian hospitals in Cairo – Egypt
http://en.smanews.org/mansour-saleh-visits-southern-injured-soldiers-in-cairo
(A P)
Adan Police Department Continues Campaign for Demolishing Random Buildings in Mansoura
(A T)
UAE-backed Yemen forces seize one of Al Qaeda’s largest strongholds in Shabwa
Security forces have also killed a senior ISIS commander in the southern city of Aden
Elite security forces in Yemen backed by the Arab coalition on Friday liberated one of the largest strongholds of the Al Qaeda militant group in the war-ravaged country, according to the unit’s commander, as the military announced a new operation named “Black Mountains” to deal further heavy blows to the group.
Soldiers recaptured the area of Rafadh Al Rays, which is located in the Azzan area that sits in the southeast of Shabwa province, Colonel Mohammed Salem Al Buhar, commander of the elite forces in Shabwa, confirmed to The National.
The operation included two strikes conducted by the Arab Coalition air forces that killed several Al-Qaeda militants, and the arrest of two Al-Qaeda militants in the “fierce confrontations”, Mr Al Buhar said.
Remark: as claimed by Emirati media.
and
(A T)
Emir of Al-Qaeda in Shabwa Killed
Nasser Hussain Ba Madoukh Al-Bu Bakry Al-Awlaky, Emir of Al-Qaeda in Shabwa was killed in a robot plan raid in Rafd – Shabwa.
http://en.smanews.org/emir-of-al-qaeda-in-shabwa-killed
(A T)
Yemeni security forces kill senior Islamic State commander: statement
Yemeni security forces said they killed a senior Islamic State commander in a gunbattle in the southern city of Aden on Saturday, dealing a blow to the group’s powerful Yemen branch.
Counterterrorism forces surrounded al-Bakhshi in a building, according to a statement on the Aden police Facebook page, when he and fellow militants refused to surrender.
In the ensuing shootout, one of the counter-terrorism force members was killed along with al-Bakshi, whose bloodied corpse was displayed in a picture accompanying the police statement.
Three of his comrades were arrested, it added.
(* A P)
Yemen war: Shells rain down on Taiz residents as allies clash
The murder of a Lebanese aid worker has ultimately led to fighting among the Popular Resistance
The residents of Yemen’s third biggest city have become accustomed to violence since war broke out in 2015. Thousands have died, while many more have been injured or displaced.
But this week has seen a sudden surge in clashes which have left many in Taiz horrified at how fighting has come to residential streets, as groups gathered under the Popular Resistance alliance turn on each other.
Shops and business have shut while people anxiously wait for the clashes to end and what passes for regular life to resume. Sami only leaves his house to buy basic food from the nearest market and to go to work as an accountant in the al-Thawra neighbourhood.
The fierce clashes broke out on Monday between the battalions of Abu al-Abbas, the Salafi leader in Taiz, and the security forces backed by the military police.
They came after state security forces arrested men it suspected of assassinating Hannah Lahoud, an employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on Saturday. Lahoud was shot dead in Al-Dhabab, the southwestern entrance to Taiz, as a team of aid workers were leaving the city.
The suspects belonged to pro-Abbas battalions, who went to the state prison where the suspects were held on Sunday and released them.
That same day Ameen Mahmoud, the governor of Taiz, told security forces to launch a military campaign against the "outlaw" groups in the city, including Salafis, and return public institutions to government.
On Monday the operation began. Taiz' streets soon emptied of civilians: the only people to be seen are fighters, as pro-government forces divide between those who back and those who oppose the security forces. Anecdotal reports suggest that dozens have been killed on both sides.
But the fighting has resulted in deadlock.
and
(* A P)
Troops Loyal to Reform Party Attack Posts of the Public Resistance in Taiz
Security source indicated that troops of the 22nd armored brigade, loyal to the reform party, bombarded posts of the public resistance – Abu Al-Abbas Salafi Front – in Taiz on Thursday April 26th, 2018. The attacking troops used artillery and Katjusha rockets from their post at Al-Araous – Gebel Sabr to bombard the headquarters of Abu Al-Abbas front in Al-Bab Al-Kabeer near Al-Mudaffar hospital, in addition to other posts. The source indicated that the bombard cause severe damages to citizens’ houses located in the bombard parameter. He added that reform party troops ignored its commitment with the directives of Taiz governor indicating to seize fire among Taiz axis, reform troops and Abu Al-Abbas front in addition to stop targeting governmental facilities by all parties. Two civilians were killed while a third was injured by snippers loyal to the reform party.
http://en.smanews.org/troops-loyal-to-reform-party-attack-posts-of-the-public-resistance-in-taiz
My comment: “Reform party” = Islah Party, Muslim Brotherhoos, supporters of president Hadi. This report is from the Southern separatists’ news web site.
(A)
Commander of the military police in Taiz Colonel Jamal al-Shamiri, survived an assassination attempt while entering his work post east of the city;a day after Brigadier General Sadeq Sarhan, commander of the 22nd Brigade, escaped a similar attempt by unidentified gunmen
https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/989902938352111622
(A T)
Shabwa Elites Sweeps Wadi Rafd – a Stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Abian
http://en.smanews.org/shabwa-elites-sweeps-wadi-rafd-a-stronghold-of-al-qaeda-in-abian
Remark: This report is from the Southern separatists’ news web site; Shabwa Elites = UAE-backed pro-separatists’ militia.
(A P)
Lamlas: Exclusion, Singularity and marginalization are no longer Accepted Policies and the Council is Open to All Opinion that Believe in the Southern Cause
Secretary General of the Southern Transitional Council, Ahmed Lamlas, asserted that the south is close to restore his lost rights through approaching the negotiation table fostered by UN. He added that the south today is not the same south of 1967, 1986 or even 1994 as it became more mature to understand the current stage.
(A P)
Lamlas and Al-Khabjy Discuss Political Developments with Academics and Politicians in Adan
T he southern transitional council hosted a meeting with academic and political elites in its headquarters in Adan
(A H P)
Yemeni Red Crescent Launches its Biggest Humanitarian Aids Campaign in Karsh
Fawaz Mohamed Al-Shaoush, secretary general of the Yemeni Red Crescent in Lahj, indicated that the association launched the biggest humanitarian aids operation in Karsh last week.
http://en.smanews.org/yemeni-red-crescent-launches-its-biggest-humanitarian-aids-campaign-in-karsh
(A P)
Yemen’s Government Celebrates 2 Years Marking Mukalla’s Liberation from Qaeda
Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid bin Dagher revealed on Wednesday indicators showing strategic oil and gas discoveries in Yemen’s Hadhramaut province, vowing to establish new electricity infrastructure.
Bin Dagher also launched development projects that come as government efforts aim at accelerating growth in liberated areas. Reconstruction efforts, renovation and rebuilding of services are tasks the internationally-recognized government undertook to normalize the situation in areas cleared from militia presence.
(* A P)
Hadi government forces began an operation to seize parts of Taiz city under control of militias and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), according to local sources. Hadi government forces also clashed with Abu Abbas Brigade forces in Taiz city on April 24. The Abu Abbas brigade is a Saudi-led coalition-backed Salafi militia that operates against the al Houthi movement in Taiz and cooperates with AQAP. [1]
and
(* A P)
Military spokesman: East Taiz precinct fully retaken, clashes calmed relatively
The spokesman of the armed forces in Yemen's southwestern city of Taiz has said that the "East Taiz precinct" where clashes were going on between the army and rebels over the past couple of days has been fully retaken and the clashes with the rebels are seeing a relative calm.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-17824
and
(* A P)
Saudi Arabia is fighting with UAE through their proxy extremist groups in the city of Taiz central Yemen. Leader of UAE-loyal group, Abu Al Abbas is designated as a terrorist by UAE & Saudi! Many leaders of Saudi-loyal group are designated as global terrorists by US! (photos)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/989490952720011264
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
(* A P)
Exclusive: Griffiths’ 3-Pronged Yemen Peace Plan Includes ‘Transitional Phase’
UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths’s three-pronged peace plan includes the “withdrawal of weapons, a transitional phase with the participation of Houthis in the government, and elections,” high-ranking officials told Asharq Al-Awsat on Wednesday.
According to the officials, who wished to remain anonymous, Yemenis would later decide on other controversial issues, including the situation in the south of Yemen.
The sources said that the expected peace talks would be held between the legitimate government and the rebels.
For his part, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdulmalik al-Mekhlafi told Asharq Al-Awsat that Houthis were refusing to hand over their weapons in the framework of a political solution in Yemen in order to “legitimize the coup.”
He stressed the need for insurgents to take arms out of the streets and withdraw from Yemeni cities.
Mekhlafi did not object to the formation of a future partnership government as part of a political solution but only after rebels hand over their weapons. “Otherwise, it would only be a legitimization of the coup, which we reject,” he said.
My comment: What should this be? A „withdrawal of weapons“ certainly is necessary as a starter for any peace process – but this must include a total ceasefire. Such a „withdrawal of weapons“ of course must be required from both sides equally. The Hadi government just wants to repeat their old preconditions against the Houthis, as they always did before, referring tot he biased UN SC resolution 2216. This simply would mean a capitulation oft he Houthis. And this is the way how starting a peace process simply does not work.
Comment: weapons decommissioning (NOT applicable for the Coalition)
My comment to comment: In this case, this peace plan is nothing new but the old rubbish again and again, and will fail.
and
(* A P)
Transition government, elections to follow weapons decommissioning: New UN envoy's road map for Yemen
Sources were quoted by Al Sharq Al-Awsat that Martin Griffith the UN special envoy to Yemen hopes to float a new-old blueprint to end the war by getting the parties to agree to a political settlement based on a transitional period to be followed by elections if both parties to the conflict agree to his plan.
Griffith hopes to start political talks without addressing the armed groups and their weapons, in the hope of addressing this sensitive issue later.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1292091/middle-east
My Comment: Stunning: “Griffith hopes to start political talks without addressing the armed groups and their weapons, in the hope of addressing this sensitive issue later”.
Comment: i.e. Try again the old, failed 2011 GCC Yemen Initiative, AND ignore 3 years of Saudi/UAE-led war
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/989579338998861825
My comment to comment: Yes, this really seems to be the case. The hadi government just continues to repeat its old preconditions, which had blocked any advance:
(* A P)
Shaddadi to UN envoy: Peace will come only by Houthi handover of heavy weapons
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Mohammad Ali Al-Shaddadi stressed that peace and stability in Yemen will only be achieved by handing over the Houthi militia's handover of weapons to the state, withdrawal from state institutions and resuming the political process from where it was left off."
He said this during a meeting with UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-17861
Mycomment: Oh yes, exactly this is back to Square One again. As Hadi himself also says:
(A P)
President Hadi sets four guides for peace with Houthi rebels
1- The dialogue has to be between the government and the Houthi rebels (not between the stakeholders in the NDC. 2- The task of the United Nations shall be to restore the state and end the insurgency 3- Any deal shall be according to the three internationally agreed upon terms of reference. 4- The two parties have to implement trust building measures from the past; release of all detainees including detainees whom the UN Security Council resolution 2216 demanded to be released.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-17862
and
(* A P)
UN Special Envoy Yemen Martin Griffiths outlined three aspects of his proposed plan for negotiations during meetings with Hadi government officials. Griffiths proposed disarming unspecified groups, incorporating al Houthi officials into the Yemeni government, and holding national elections. Griffiths also postponed a visit to Sana’a city to meet with al Houthi officials and will instead travel to Oman to meet with al Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam, according to sources from Asharq al Awsat.[2]
https://www.criticalthreats.org/briefs/gulf-of-aden-security-review/gulf-of-aden-security-review-april-26-2018 and https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-17860
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
(* A P)
Saudi Arabia arrests nearly 1m people in four days
The Saudi authorities said they had arrested 994,000 people between 18 April to 22 April, Saudi Okaz newspaper reported.
According to the paper, 14,467 people were stopped by the security agencies and border security forces regarding issues related violations of residency and labour regulations and attempted infiltration across the border into the kingdom.
The paper said 58 percent of those arrested were Yemenis, 39 percents were Ethiopians and 3 percent from other nationalities.
(A P)
Saudi Arabia to host meeting of Islamic scholars on Afghan war
A meeting of Islamic scholars from across the world will be held in Jeddah in July to discuss the religious justification of the Taliban war against the Afghan government and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan, Afghan High Peace Council (HPC) officials said on Saturday.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1293236/saudi-arabia
My comment: Oh my dear.
(* B P)
MbS and MbZ: Two princes in a hurry shake up the Gulf
In UAE and Saudi Arabia, two princes are driving a geopolitical shake up. But do they share a common strategy?
Saudi Arabia - once a relatively infrequent actor on the international scene - appears to be building a key role for itself in the region, through proxy wars and diplomatic confrontations, but without taking on the role of the region's policeman.
And so, two lines of tension are progressively taking shape, following the economic and strategic rivalries between the regional powers rather than a simplistic confrontation between Sunni and Shias.
On the one hand we find a Saudi Arabia-United States-Israel axis, to which the UAE contribute as well as Egypt, and of which the UAE is the main creditor. They share a common hatred for the Iranian regime and the political Islam championed by the Muslim Brotherhood.
On the other hand, we find the de facto formation of a Qatar-Turkey axis which has boosted the commercial and military cooperation between the two countries.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2018/4/27/two-princes-in-a-hurry-shake-up-the-gulf
(B E P)
Opinion: Saudi Arabia needs to spread the word
Hard work is needed to turn the kingdom's tourism dreams into a reality
As GCC countries adjust to lower oil prices and strive to diversify their economies, one sector in particular looks set to experience exponential growth and play a prominent role: tourism.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Saudi Arabia, which for the first time in its history, is swinging open its doors to non-religious tourism. When the kingdom begins issuing tourist visas – an imminent and significant milestone – the country will begin a new chapter that has the potential to completely transform the kingdom.
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/travel-hospitality/395222-saudi-arabia-swings-open-its-doors
My comment: “Hard work is needed to turn the kingdom's tourism dreams into a reality”: Oh yes, get rid of Wahabism.
(* A P)
Saudi Arabia finances all US colonial policies in Middle East, beyond
Statement - Islamic Human Rights Commission
Saudi Arabia has now become the financers of all US colonial policies in the Middle East and beyond. Not only are they handing over money to finance US wars but they are also financing the USA by buying arms for the specific purpose of getting Muslims to kill Muslims and targeting innocent civilians in Yemen and elsewhere. At the same time Saudi Arabia deliberately ignores and even undermines the cries of Palestinians, Kashmiris and the Rohingya in Myanmar.
The Saudi regime is paying millions to market itself with a new liberal mask but the reality of the oppression of ordinary Saudis is clear. Thousands of political prisoners are rotting away in jail and countless facing execution. The regimes domestic tyranny exposes its hypocrisy and the mask of liberalism for those who want to look beyond the regimes public relations exercise.
At the same time we see the Saudi regime is becoming more aggressive in its efforts to control the Arab League and OIC (which has traditionally had its headquarters in Saudi) claiming that they seek stability and peace; their actions are having complete opposite effect. They are promoting conflict where there should be harmony and tranquillity. The OIC in particular was created to support the Palestinian cause but is now under the influence and leadership of the Saudis who have abandoned the Palestinians and become promoters of the Zionist regime. It warrants the whole of the Muslim world and OIC member states to recognise that to support and liberate Palestine, the OIC must first be liberated from Saudi leadership.
We have to recognise that without holding regimes like Saudi accountable, we will not be able to hold others – like the Zionist regime and oppressive colonial powers – accountable.
Saudi Arabia continues to commit widespread violations of basic human rights. The most pervasive violations affect persons in the criminal justice system, women and girls, migrant workers, and religious minorities. Persecution of peaceful dissidents and independent human rights advocates is widespread. The Saudi -led coalition in Yemen has also committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law since it began military operations in March 2015.
(* A P)
Christians should not be second-class citizens, cardinal tells Saudi Arabia
A senior Vatican official who last week made a historic visit to Saudi Arabia says he told authorities in the kingdom, where non-Muslim worship is banned, that Christians cannot be considered second-class citizens.
“I think all religions are faced with two dangers: terrorism and ignorance,” Tauran, who is head of the Vatican’s Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, told Vatican Radio.
“During my meetings, I insisted very much on this point, that Christians and non-Muslims are spoken of well in schools and that they are never considered second-class citizens,” he said.
My comment: This is void. Just be happy that you could return home safe.
(* A P)
Saudi Arabia executes 48 people in 2018, half for nonviolent drug crimes: HRW
Human Rights Watch said Saudi Arabia has executed 48 people so far in 2018, half of them for nonviolent drug crimes.
Others convicted of drug crimes remain on death row, the rights group reported on Wednesday.
My comment: Prince Salman labeled as “reformist Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman”. This is propaganda, whow.
A long article from Nov. 2017:
(* B P)
Rock the Casbah: a Saudi coup that never was
What is happening in Riyadh can be called a de-facto coup d’etat in anything but name. It follows the long-standing power dynamic in the Kingdom and within the House of Saud; families competing for power-for-the-sake-of-power, set inside a vacuum of outside influence, guided by the unwritten laws of the Royal Court. A dynamic that might be described as analogous to Richard the Third, Hamlet, and The Tragedy of Macbeth in all but act and tone.
As is the case in much of the region, Saudi Arabia’s elite have abused political office and family influences to amass great personal wealth and power. Bribes and kickbacks have become the accepted norm for doing business. Since its founding, this approach has been prevalent in Saudi Arabia but has grown out of control in the past few decades. Elites have ruthlessly worked to maintain this status quo, hiding under the protective umbrella of ultra-conservative Wahhabism as cover for personal gain.
With the recent population boom and high unemployment numbers, this has quickly become an endemic problem of great consequence. The younger generation of Saudis quickly saw diminishing returns in keeping the system of corruption alive, something that Crown Prince Salman has used as a cornerstone in his reforms. The new crown prince’s progressive changes threatened to halt the growth of the personal fortunes of the old-guard, exposing their corruption. As a result, the old-guard immediately began work to isolate and remove him from office.
Crown Prince Salman’s surprise preemptive strike caused their worst fears to come true. With one swift move, he was able to remove his antagonists from blocking his ascension to the throne, addressing the very real problem of political corruption, and clearing the road for the progressive changes believed necessary for the survival of Saudi Arabia as a power player on the world stage. If the anti-corruption probe is proven successful, the Saudi government could also stand to gain access to some $800 billion dollars worth of offshore private assets.
https://limacharlienews.com/mena/a-saudi-coup-that-never-was/
And a reminder from 2016:
(** B P)
'Tsunami of money' from Saudi Arabia funding 24,000 Pakistan madrassas
About 24,000 'madrassas' in Pakistan are funded by Saudi Arabia which has unleashed a "tsunami of money" to "export intolerance", a top American senator has said adding that the US needs to end its effective acquiescence to the Saudi sponsorship of radical Islamism.
Senator Chris Murphy said Pakistan is the best example of where money coming from Saudi Arabia is funnelled to religious schools that nurture hatred and terrorism.
"In 1956, there were 244 madrassas in Pakistan. Today, there are 24,000. These schools are multiplying all over the globe. These schools, by and large, don't teach violence. They aren't the minor leagues for al-Qaeda or ISIS. But they do teach a version of Islam that leads very nicely into an anti-Shia, anti-Western militancy.
"Those 24,000 religious schools in Pakistan - thousands of them are funded with money that originates in Saudi Arabia," Murphy said in an address yesterday to the Council on Foreign Relations, a top American thi ..
According to some estimates, since the 1960s, the Saudis have funnelled over USD 100 billion into funding schools and mosques all over the world with the mission of spreading puritanical Wahhabi Islam.
As a point of comparison, researchers estimate that the former Soviet Union spent about USD 7 billion exporting its communist ideology from 1920-1991. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/tsunami-of-money-from-saudi-arabia-funding-24000-pakistan-madrassas/articleshow/50781972.cms and also read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrassas_in_Pakistan
cp9 USA
Siehe / Look at cp1
(A P)
Pompeo makes diplomatic debut in Riyadh as US top envoy
Washington's newly appointed secretary of state landed in Riyadh on Saturday on a tour of the US' key Middle East allies, after vowing to bring some "swagger" back to US diplomacy.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/4/28/pompeo-makes-diplomatic-debut-in-riyadh-as-us-envoy
(A P)
Pompeo starts Mideast tour with call for new Iran sanctions
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday on a hastily-arranged visit to the Middle East as the United States aims to muster support for new sanctions against Iran.
and
(A P)
Enough is enough: Pompeo tells Saudis end Qatar spat, ease up in Yemen
Pompeo told al-Jubeir on Saturday that Yemen must have easy access to humanitarian and commercial goods, along with fuel, the State Department official said.
(* B P)
The Long and Winding Road: the U.S.-Saudi Alliance
Since the war’s inception a million people have contracted cholera and about 20 million out of a pre-war population of 28 million need humanitarian assistance for their basic needs.
Such is the nature of the American-Saudi alliance. The alliance originated with a 1945 meeting Roosevelt, on his way home from Yalta, had with Saudi king Abdul Aziz ibn Saudaboard the USS Quincy. The Saudis would keep the oil flowingand the U.S. would overlook provide the defense. However, ever since 9/11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, there has been a general, and understandable, sentiment with the American public that something is amiss.
Those old enough to have experienced the run-up to the invasion of Iraq may recall it wasn’t supposed to go this way. The war was supposed to change everything. The neocons were ascendant and Leo Strauss, with his alleged endorsements of noble Platonic lies and rule by brilliant elites, was their inspiration.
Christopher Hitchens would wink at this sentiment in a piece he titled Machiavelli in Mesopotamia writing: ‘Part of the charm of the regime-change argument (from the point of view of its supporters) is that it depends on premises and objectives that cannot, at least by the administration, be publicly avowed.
The current, official justification for the alliance’s permanence is Iran, a country that has signed, and has since been certified to be complying with, a nuclear weapon’s treaty with the U.S. and European Union. The Iranian government, both before and after the Islamic Revolution that overthrew American backed Shah, has long been repressive domestically and Iran’s foreign policy is certainly not enlightened, yet in neither arena has it held a candle to Saudi Arabia. For decades the Saudi government has been more despotic and has spent tens of billions of dollars spreading Wahhabism, the most primitive strain of Islam, everywhere there are Muslims, disrupting local Islamic traditions and increasing toxic sectarianism from Pakistan (of course with American aid), to Nigeria, Indonesia, and many other places.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/27/the-long-and-winding-road-the-u-s-saudi-alliance/
(* B K P)
Common Article 1 and the U.S. Duty to Ensure Respect for the Geneva Conventions in Yemen
If the United States is aiding and assisting the Saudi-led coalition in its violation of international humanitarian law, as a previous article in this series concluded is likely, then the United States is not only in violation of its responsibilities under State Responsibility doctrine, but also its well-accepted obligation not to aid and assist violations under Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions.
Common Article 1 obligates states to “undertake to respect and to ensure respect” for the Geneva Conventions in all circumstances. In March 2016, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued new Commentaries on the Geneva Convention—the first in more than six decades. As discussed in an article in the Texas Law Review, “Ensuring Responsibility: Common Article 1 and State Responsibility for Non-State Actors,” the ICRC Commentaries conclude that Common Article 1 imposes not only a negative obligation on states not to encourage violations of the law of armed conflict, but also (and more controversially) a positive third-party obligation on states to closely coordinate their activities with other parties, whether state or non-state actors. The Commentaries state: “Under the negative obligation, High Contracting Parties may neither encourage, nor aid or assist in violations of the Conventions by Parties to a conflict. Under the positive obligation, they must do everything reasonably in their power to prevent and bring such violations to an end.” Continued U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen arguably violates both these negative and positive duties.
Whether the United States has violated its positive obligation under Common Article 1 may again turn on the adequacy of U.S. mitigation measures. Pursuant to the ICRC’s due diligence standard, states may discharge their affirmative obligations under Common Article 1 by undertaking efforts to mitigate and prevent violations.
Whether the assurances that the United States has received mitigate its positive obligation under Common Article 1 turns on the credibility of the assurances. If Saudi Arabia’s assurances cannot be considered credible—or if the Saudi military was incapable of adhering to IHL regardless of the assurances—then the United States was obligated not to provide any form of support. By this reasoning, the United States would be obliged to cease its support for the Saudi-led coalition and it may also be required to adopt additional affirmative measures, such as diplomatic pressure and public denunciations, in order to avoid further liability – by Oona Hathaway, Alexandra Francis, Alyssa Yamamoto, Srinath Reddy Kethireddy and Aaron Haviland
(* A K P)
Sen. Rand Paul On Yemen And U.S. Foreign Interventions
NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky talks about why he's opposed to U.S. involvement in Yemen and the costs of American intervention abroad.
RAND PAUL: I think what Americans need to understand - who worry about terrorism - is that when a wedding party is bombed and innocent people are killed - that their relatives will never forget this. And a hundred years from now, people from that village will be saying, do you remember when the Saudis came with American bombs and bombed a wedding party and killed our ancestor?
I would say that people ought to remember that Saudi Arabia has funded radical madrassas, teaching hatred of America throughout the world, and that Saudi Arabia also supplied arms to ISIS in the Syrian civil war. I don't think they're friends. I think they're, at most, frenemies. And I think what they're doing in Yemen is unconscionable.
I think the most informative event of the last several decades in the Middle East has been the Iraq War and your position on it. So when I asked Director Pompeo about the Iraq War, he says, oh, that was past history - you know, that he was just a farmer in Kansas or in business in Kansas. And I really thought that was an inadequate answer.
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/27/606292740/sen-rand-paul-on-yemen-and-u-s-foreign-interventions
(A P)
Film: Again ??
#Trump; "Countries that are in that area, immensely wealthy that would not be there except for the U.S. ... They wouldn’t last a week, but they will have to pay a lot more... The Gulf states have nothing but money... Don't forget, without us the Gulf states won't exist"
https://twitter.com/A7medJa7af/status/989280136062173186
Remark: Look at Macron’s face.
(* A P)
Trump’s Travel Ban Traps U.S. Citizens
Young children of Yemeni-American men are stuck in Djibouti because their mothers can’t get visas.
The war in Yemen is testing one of President Trump’s stated principles. It’s no surprise that the U.S. is admitting hardly any refugees from that Arab state. Yet on a reporting trip to Yemen and nearby countries, my colleagues and I discovered something startling: American citizens are among the Yemenis who have tried and failed to reach safety in the U.S.
Children of Yemeni-American families are effectively trapped outside America. These are typically small children with U.S. passports, whose mothers are not citizens. The mothers haven’t received visas, often because of President Trump’s restriction on travel from several countries, including Yemen.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-travel-ban-traps-u-s-citizens-1524695819
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‘This is my real life’: Where Trump’s travel ban hits home
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments next week on Trump’s travel ban, its effects are playing out for Alborati and others from Manhattan to Minnesota to the Middle East. Whatever the outcome of the legal debate between an administration that says the policy is a national security necessity and challengers who say it’s discriminatory, it is already shaping lives and plans. https://www.apnews.com/866ec6025e1547ea803442d79dd43d92
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Trump’s Ban As Experienced by Yemeni-Americans
In this post, I focus on the ban’s impact particularly on Yemeni-Americans and their families, as Yemen is one of the countries listed in the executive orders that initiated the ban. The ban denies U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents of Yemeni descent who are in the U.S. the right to be with their children, spouses, and other close relatives, many of whom are stranded in third countries as they transit out of the war in Yemen.
Since December 2017, the Center for Constitutional Rights and many other organizations have received reports that hundreds of U.S. citizens’ spouses and children were called to come to the U.S. embassy in Djibouti, where their passports were returned, along with a document stating that they’d been denied a U.S. visa and were not eligible for a waiver. The document also stated that this decision was “final.”
Yet Muslim Ban 3.0, the latest version of the Muslim ban, which is currently in effect and which was initiated by a presidential proclamation instead of an executive order, contains a provision for granting a waiver to certain people affected by the ban.
https://www.nilc.org/2018/04/25/trumps-ban-as-experienced-by-yemeni-americans/
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Yemeni family 'hopeless' after disabled daughter denied US visa
Al-Omari, a US citizen, has been trying to get visas for his 11-year-old daughter Shaima - whose severe mental and physical disabilities have been compounded by Yemen's civil war - his wife Asma, and two other daughters, Salma, aged 8 and Lamiya, aged 6.
"I did all I can; sold everything I've got and knocked on every door I know," al-Omari says, holding Shaima on his lap, her mouth slightly ajar as she looks up at the morning sun.
"The ban has left us with no hope," he tells Al Jazeera in a video call.
"We're completely helpless in the middle of this war," he adds, pausing to move the tip of his checkered headdress to shade her eyes from the sun.
Al-Omari's family is among thousands of Yemeni-Americans who have been stranded in Djibouti for months or forced back into war-torn Yemen after being denied visas to travel to the US due to controversial travel restrictions - often referred to as the "Muslim ban" - implemented by US President Donald Trump.
and
(* B H P)
Film: Between War and the Ban: A Yemeni-American Story
Travel Ban Blocks U.S. Citizen From Bringing Yemeni Daughter with Cerebral Palsy to U.S. for Care
Al-Omari has been prevented from bringing his 10-year-old daughter to the United States to receive medical care for cerebral palsy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=324k9qPkU0I and excerpt: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/26/travel_ban_blocks_us_citizen_from
(A P)
Trump lawyer: There’s no Muslim ban because Trump thinks Islam is ‘one of the greatest countries’
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Hawaii, the case against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning nationals of several countries, most of which are Muslim-majority.
In his closing arguments, United States Solicitor General Noel Francisco said that the ban was not targeting Muslims, because Trump actually has praised Islam as “one of the greatest countries of the world.”
My comment: LOL, LOL, LOL.
(B P)
Yemen War Great For US Jobs: Watch CNN's Wolf Blitzer Proclaim Civilian Deaths Are Worth It
With the still largely ignored Saudi slaughter in Yemen now in its fourth year, RT's In The Now has resurrected a forgotten clip from a 2016 CNN interview with Senator Rand Paul, which is currently going viral.
In a piece of cable news history that rivals Madeleine Albright's infamous words during a 1996 60 Minutes appearance where she calmly and coldly proclaimed of 500,000 dead Iraqi children that "the price is worth it," CNN's Wolf Blitzer railed against Senator Paul's opposition to a proposed $1.1 billion US arms sale to Saudi Arabia by arguing that slaughter of Yemeni civilians was worth it so long as it benefits US jobs and defense contractors.
C NN's Blitzer responded, “So for you this is a moral issue. Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there’s going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That’s secondary from your standpoint?”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-28/yemen-war-great-us-jobs-watch-cnns-wolf-blitzer-proclaim-civilian-deaths-are-worth and film: https://twitter.com/IntheNow_tweet/status/989942263563239425
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
(A K P)
'Crocodile tears’: Boris Johnson accused of hypocrisy over tweet on Yemen deaths
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has been accused of “sickening hypocrisy” after tweeting he is “saddened” by news of Yemeni civilians being killed by the Saudi Arabia-led bombardment of the country.
Johnson’s seemingly compassionate tweet was subsequently attacked, with Twitter users posting that his sadness was akin to “crocodile tears.”
https://www.rt.com/uk/425198-boris-johnson-yemen-bombing/ referring to https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/988827996944510976
cp11 Deutschland / Germany
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Von ARD und ZDF totgeschwiegen: Weiteres Massaker Saudi-Arabiens an einer Hochzeitsfeier im Jemen
Der Krieg im Jemen ist ein Paradebeispiel für die vorsätzliche Desinformation und Propaganda in den deutschen Medien – insbesondere den Staatssendern ARD und ZDF. Weil es der westliche Verbündete Saudi-Arabien ist, der dort massenhaft Zivilisten ermordet und die größte humanitäre Katastrophe der Welt angerichtet hat, wird dieses Verbrechen in den GEZ-Sendern nahezu komplett ausgeblendet oder in einen „Stellvertreterkrieg“ zwischen Saudis und Iran umgedichtet, obwohl es absolut keine Beweise für militärische Aktivitäten oder Waffenlieferungen der Perser an die Houthis gibt.
ARD und ZDF berichteten weder in den sogenannten „Nachrichten“ noch auf ihren Webseiten.
Die andere Seite des Totschweigens saudischer Verbrechen ist eine aktive Werbekampagne, die von ARD und ZDF seit Monaten für die islamistische Diktatur gefahren wird. Wer sich Propagandamagazine wie die „tagesthemen“, das „heute-journal“, den „Weltspiegel“ oder das „auslandsjournal“ anschaut, bekommt lupenreine PR vorgesetzt, in der das Land der öffentlichen Enthauptungen und Auspeitschungen zu einem „modernes Touristenparadies“ umlackiert wird.
Was eine Suche in der ARD-Mediathek über Saudi-Arabien zutage fördert, ist höchst aufschlussreiche PR-Arbeit.
(A P)
German bill seeks to prevent weapons exports to Saudi Arabia, UAE over Yemen conflict
Germany’s democratic socialist political party Die Linke has proposed a draft bill aimed at banning weapons exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their role in the three-year-old Yemen war, which has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians in the impoverished Arab country.
The bill seeks to prevent weapons exports and all other related goods and services to the two countries over their human rights abuses in Yemen.
The proposed law, if approved, would not only stop future transactions from being made but would also retroactively recall deals already made.
My comment: Euphoric headline by „The Independent“, no chance at all to pass.
(* B K P)
Rüstungsexporte und der Krieg im Jemen
Wirtschaft und Energie/Antwort - 26.04.2018 (hib 275/2018)
Um Rüstungsexporte im weiteren Zusammenhang mit dem Jemen-Krieg geht es in der Antwort der Bundesregierung (19/1583) auf eine Kleine Anfrage (19/1052) der Fraktion Die Linke. Darin verweist die Bundesregierung bei Fragen zu Genehmigungen in Länder, die unmittelbar am Jemen-Krieg beteiligt sind, auf die derzeitigen koalitionsinternen Diskussionen: "Die Aussagen zur Rüstungsexportpolitik im Koalitionsvertrag erörtert die Bundesregierung in all ihren Dimensionen derzeit intensiv." Kenntnisse über die Beteiligung der USA, Großbritannien oder Frankreich an dem Krieg liegen der Bundesregierung nach eigenen Angaben nicht vor. Sie listet in der Antwort weiter detailliert Genehmigungen für Kriegswaffen in die Länder Jordanien, Ägypten, Bahrain, Kuwait, Marokko, Sudan, Senegal, Katar, Saudi-Arabien und die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate auf.
https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/-/553486
(A K P)
25.04.2018 - Stop the WAR in #Yemen
Letter by registered mail to the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Germany Heiko Maas
No end to the crimes against humanity by Saudi Arabia and the war coalition in Yemen (letter in image)
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
(A E P)
Expo 2020 Dubai becomes first World Expo in history and second ever 'mega-event' to achieve CIPS award
Expo 2020 Dubai has become the first World Expo and the second ever ‘mega-event’ to secure a Procurement Excellence award from the highly respected Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) organisation, a major vote of confidence for the next World Expo’s procurement practices.
http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302685275
(A H K P)
Vatikan fordert mehr Aufmerksamkeit für Jemen
Der Vatikan ruft nach „einer stärkeren Aufmerksamkeit“ der Weltöffentlichkeit für den blutigen Krieg im Jemen. Der Krieg werde von anderen Konflikten in der Region völlig aus dem internationalen Fokus verdrängt.
https://www.vaticannews.va/de/vatikan/news/2018-04/vatikan-uno-jemen-krieg-erzbischof-auza.html
(* B K P)
India’s Secret Involvement in the War Against Yemen
India’s influence has been on the ascent in the Gulf, and especially with the UAE, so much so that the US’ new military-strategic partner for the 21st century is now functioning as a gigantic hospital ward for Abu Dhabi. It’s this recently acquired responsibility that makes India a secret party to the War on Yemen and deserves to be explained a bit more in depth because much of the global audience missed the latest news about this event in the past week since it was announced.
It was around 20 November that reports began to trickle in that the UAE was sending injured Yemenis to the prestigious Fortis Hospital in New Delhi, with every source stating that these were individuals who were supposedly harmed by Houthi attacks. While the number of treated patients has varied between 88 and 52 according to the sources available, the incontestable fact is that they were flown to India aboard an Emirati military aircraft in an official state-to-state capacity of cooperation between Abu Dhabi and New Delhi, supposedly funded by the Emirates Red Crescent.
The whole operation is very curious because India isn’t officially part of the War on Yemen, yet it’s working in a very close and sensitive capacity with one of the conflict’s main aggressors in order to provide partisan medical support to one of its warring parties. Instead of helping some of the millions of Yemenis suffering under the joint Saudi-Emirati blockade and at dire risk of starvation and disease, India is treating a select group of individuals that were purportedly targeted by the Houthi National Liberation Movement.
While it’s impossible at this time to verify exactly who these injured Yemenis are, it’s very plausible that they were either members of UAE-backed militias or occupation collaborators because it’s highly unlikely that Abu Dhabi would go to such dramatic lengths to help “ordinary” civilians allegedly caught up in the crossfire by providing them with some of the best and more expensive medical care available.
Furthermore, these people were flown across the Arabian Sea to India instead of sent to more nearby Saudi or Emirati hospitals, meaning that there was probably a political reason for sending them out of the region and further away for treatment, suggesting that this was orchestrated in order to represent a “gentle” rolling out of India’s clandestine involvement in this conflict on the side of the aggressors.
https://astutenews.com/2018/04/21/indias-secret-involvement-in-the-war-against-yemen/
(A P)
IRGC network eulogizes slain top Yemeni Houthi official
Prominent figures in the network led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have eulogized Saleh al Sammad, the Houthi (Ansar Allah) movement’s political leader, who was slain in an April 19 airstrike launched by Saudi Arabia in the Yemeni city of Hudayah.
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Kuwait expels Filipino envoy, recalls own ambassador
Move comes after discovery of Philippine embassy staff 'encouraging workers to flee employers' households', KUNA says.
Kuwait has ordered the ambassador of the Philippines to leave the country within a week and recalled its envoy to Manila for consultations, according to the official news agency KUNA.
The moves on Wednesday came days after video emerged of Philippine embassy staff purportedly helping Filipino maids flee from allegedly abusive employers in Kuwait.
KUNA quoted the Kuwaiti foreign ministry as saying that the action against Ambassador Renato Villa was in retaliation for "undiplomatic acts by Philippine embassy staff, encouraging Filipino domestic workers" to escape employers' households.
(A P)
Somali Forces Clash with UAE Troops
Somali forces clashed with residual troops from the United Arab Emirates at a military training centre in Mogadishu yesterday, Garowe Online has reported.
The fighting erupted after units of the Somali National Army (SNA) and their commanders tried to break into the former UAE-run centre, explained an anonymous source. The SNA soldiers were said to be trying to steal military equipment. A gun battle ensued leading to six fatalities on each side.
Somalia scrapped a UAE military training programme just under two weeks ago; it had been in place since 2014. The Defence Minister announced that the units which were being trained by the UAE troops will be added to the SNA.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180424-somali-forces-clash-with-uae-troops/ = http://www.newnewss.net/somali-forces-clash-with-uae-troops/
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The UAE’s Unsustainable Nation Building
The UAE economy relies on inequality and migrant workers, 90 percent of the population, who come from elsewhere in Asia
One of the world’s richest regions is facing several new challenges, from technology to demography, and that at a time as nationalism enjoys a resurgence around the world. The United Arab Emirates has become an economic powerhouse in the Middle East on the back of millions of migrant workers. In 2015, 89 percent of the UAE population of 9.3 million were migrant workers, and an overwhelming majority of these workers was semi-skilled or unskilled from South Asian countries.
In 1971 the UAE was a relatively underdeveloped and poor country with a GDP of around $2.5 billion. In 2015 its GDP had climbed to $370 billion, making the UAE the world’s seventh richest country in terms of per capita GDP. Between 1971 and 2015 the country’s GDP increased by 231 times. One quarter of its GDP is derived from oil-related sectors, and the rest comes from mainly services, manufacturing and construction. Only 1 percent of the Emirati labor force is employed in the private sector and 60 percent in the public sector.
The massive increase in the country’s wealth has been generated by the economic activities of the UAE’s millions of migrant workers, and the main beneficiaries are the Emiratis. In 2015 the UAE’s per capita GDP was $67,616 and the average annual income of a migrant worker was $4355.
Emirati citizenship is confined to those whose ancestors lived in its seven constituting Emirates before 1925. The country has no system of naturalization or permanent residency. Consequently migrant workers have no residency rights. They work on short-term contracts, typically up to three years. Foreigners are obliged to have a national sponsor in what is known as the kafala system.
Because foreign workers lack residency rights, the fear of deportation is the major mechanism enforcing ethnic and religious tolerance and industrial peace. Only workers with monthly income of more than AED 10,000, or US$27,000, are allowed to bring families, and consequently most workers are single male. Most work upwards of eight hours a day, six days a week and live in overcrowded housing in labor camps far from their place of work. Around 5 percent of workers are professionals such as doctors, engineers and accountants. Even under such a regime, the experience of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society increases ethnic and religious tolerance – by Riaz Hassan
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/uaes-unsustainable-nation-building
Comment: The UAE fears the loss of Arab culture, but that battle has already been lost.
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1723442107708812
(A P)
Ecolo juge la visite parlementaire en Arabie saoudite "inopportune, voire dangereuse"
"Ce voyage ne me paraît pas très judicieux", déplore le député fédéral Benoît Hellings (Ecolo). Une série de parlementaires belges seront en visite en Arabie saoudite du 4 au 9 mai à l’invitation de l’assemblée législative locale.
Benoît Hellings, membre de cette section de l’UIP, a déjà écrit à M. Destexhe pour lui signifier qu’il n’y participerait pas. "Et je trouve que l’ensemble de la section aurait dû décliner l’invitation, dit l’écologiste. On sait ce qui s’est passé entre les deux pays ces derniers temps…
Remark: There is a planned Belgian delegation to Saudi Arabia in May.
If people would like to send a message about why Belgium should #StopArmingSaudi or legitimising the Saudi regime, they can send their message or testimony to testimonies@agirpourlapaix.be. Agir pour la Paix will communicate them / publish them also do so anonymously if that is safest for people.
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1723434997709523
cp12a Katar-Krise / Qatar crisis
(* B P)
Hacked messages show Qatar appearing to pay hundreds of millions to free hostages
(* B P)
Teure Schmutzkampagne: PR-Firma konstruierte Verbindung zwischen Katar und Terrorismus
Ein Ex-Mitarbeiter von Bell Pottinger mit Erfahrung in Propaganda-Kampagnen im Auftrag des Pentagon produzierte für eine Dubaier Firma einen Film über angebliche Verbindungen des Katar zum Terrorismus, enthüllt das Büro für Investigativen Journalismus (TBIJ).
Demnach erhielt Charles Andreae, der ehemalige US-Geschäftsführer der berüchtigten PR-Agentur Bell Pottinger, im August 2017 über 500.000 Dollar für die Produktion eines sechsteiligen Films, der eine Verbindung zwischen Katar und den globalen Terrorismus darlegen sollte.
(* A P)
Qatar govt. must send troops to Syria or lose US support and be toppled – Saudi FM
Riyadh appears to be trying to bully regional rival and fellow US ally Qatar into going to war in Syria, with the Saudi foreign minister citing the US leader's call for "wealthy" nations to stump up and send boots to the ground.
In his interpretation of US President Donald Trump's appeal to the affluent states in the region, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir issued a thinly veiled threat to Doha, arguing the Qatari government will not last a week after the US cuts off its military support.
Qatar must "send its military forces (to Syria), before the US president cancels US protection of Qatar, which consists of the presence of a US military base on its territory," Jubeir said on Wednesday, as cited by the ministry's media center.
https://www.rt.com/news/425041-qatar-troops-syria-saudi-arabia/
My comment: I would think it would be an US decision and no matter of Saudi Arabia to decide on US support?
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms trade
(* A K P)
#US State Department approved a $911.4M possible FMS to the Royal #Bahraini Air Force for (12) AH-1Z #Viper attack helicopters (text in image)
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/989967913942765569
(* B K P)
Azioni contro Rheinmetall. Un modello di sinergia europea
Le attività di azioniariato critico e la denuncia contro il colosso delle armi tedesco: due segnali di un nuovo approccio pragmatico della società civile pacifista
Fondazione Finanza Etica(FFE) partecipa a questo cartello con il contributo specifico dell’azionariato critico. Con la sua presenza cioè alle assemblee degli azionisti, e la facoltà di formulare domande precise e puntute all’azienda. Dal 2017 la Fondazione ha avviato l’azionariato critico alla assemblea degli azionisti di Rheinmetall AGcon l’organizzazione non governativa tedesca Urgewald. Rheinmetall è la casa madre della controllata italiana RWM Italia SpA.
Denuncia penale a Roma e azionariato critico in Germania. Un modello di sinergia europea che prende consistenza, in linea di continuità fra lancio dell’azione legale odierna e assemblea di Rheinmetall l’8 maggio.
https://valori.it/azioni-contro-rheinmetall-un-modello-di-sinergia-europea/
cp13b Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
(* B K)
Saudi destroys Yemen`s archaeological treasures
Saudi-led Coalition and its groups from Islamic extremists who, in a campaign against heresy and historical sites, have destroyed archaeological treasures in Yemen, which is grimmer than you expect, depute many of these sites are not suitable or useful for military use
Massar mountain, is located in a village in Mankha district, Sana’a Province, which extends to about 1000 of years ago, was struck on April 17,2018, by more than 14 raids, leaving a deep destruction
In addition to the demolition of a large number of houses in the village targeted by direct shelling, and causing significant damage to the remaining homes, which are more than a hundred years old
On October, Airstrikes targeted the historic city of Shibam, killing more than 10 civilian as well as a huge damage in the old city of Kukaban.
The destruction deliberate, agrees archaeologist Sarah Japp of Berlin’s German Archaeological Institute. “The Saudis were given information on important cultural heritage sites, including exact coordinates,” by UNESCO, said Japp, who was based in Sana’a before the war.
http://www.yemenextra.net/2018/04/26/saudi-destroys-yemens-archaeological-treasures/
cp13c Wirtschaft / Economy
(* B E)
Foreign & Commonwealth Office: Yemen economic factsheet
This factsheet provides key economic and development data for Yemen, on just 2 pages. They offer a snapshot of economic data under headings such as trade/investment, economic development and government finance.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/yemen-economic-factsheet
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
Siehe / Look at cp6
(A T)
Pro-#alQaeda #Yemen wire is reporting a #drone strike in the Rafd region of Shabwa. It names only one man killed: Muhammad 'Awad al-'Awlaqi (aka Abu Ra'd al-'Awlaqi). Phrasing implies he was associated with #AQAP though not directly stated.
https://twitter.com/Dr_E_Kendall/status/989601195844128772
(A T)
#IslamicState #Yemen posts its 10th "martyr mugshot" this year, Abu 'Umar al-Yafi'i. All were with Wilayat al-Bayda'. (photo)
https://twitter.com/Dr_E_Kendall/status/989516695214657537
(* A T)
AQAP militants detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) killing six al Houthi troops in Wadi Adal village, Rada’a district, western al Bayda governorate, central Yemen on April 24 according to an official AQAP media channel. AQAP militants attacked al Houthi forces in al Bayda using IEDs three other times since April 9.[3]
cp15 Propaganda
(A P)
Saudi Arabia’s approach towards religious reform
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s statements and interviews enunciate Saudi Arabia’s current strategy to get the region out of its several crises and shortcomings which have pulled it down since the Iranian revolution started exporting its ideology and following the impact of the two Gulf Wars, the War on Iraq and the unrest that ensued in their wake.
Saudi Arabia, as stated by the Crown Prince, deems the Brotherhood and its offshoot Sururism — and by extension “the Sahwa phenomenon” — as the basis for the revival of violence. A decisive and firm stance was thus essential for eliminating this terrorist phenomenon. Several approaches have been devised for achieving this aim. Foreign confrontation against terrorism began with participating in an international alliance against ISIS and then by launching a war against the Houthis who staged a coup in Yemen. This latter war became one of the foundations for fortifying the kingdom from violence and terrorist ideology. The alliance led by Saudi Arabia does not only fight the Houthis but also continuously targets al-Qaeda in Yemen.
“There is no contradiction between fighting a war in Yemen, developing entertainment in Saudi Arabia, changing religious rhetoric and leading educational reform. This is how we fight and defeat major challenges.“
Fahad Suleiman Shoqiran
We are thus confronting an existential threat. We must carry out this change on the domestic and foreign levels. This corrective project is balanced and whole. There is no contradiction between fighting a war in Yemen, developing entertainment in Saudi Arabia, changing religious rhetoric and leading educational reform. This is how we fight and defeat major challenges.
(A P)
Martyred president 'Saleh Al-Samad' brought unity and security to Yemen
President Al Samad, “the man of peace,” as he was described by the UN special envoy for Yemen Mr. Martin Griffiths. He was the man of determination: a profound personality mixed between a high qualified politician and a humble and pure-hearted Yemeni loved by all sort of citizens.
The Yemeni wisdom and courage — which is known historically for thousands of years and mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, other Holy books, and other historical remains — were embedded in the personality of the martyr president Al Samad.
http://geopoliticsalert.com/president-saleh-al-samad-yemen-security = http://en.abna24.com/news/report/martyred-president-saleh-al-samad-brought-unity-and-security-to-yemen_891153.html
(A P)
FM: Houthi terrorism negates the simplest principles of coexistence
Addressing "No Money for Terrorism", an international conference to prevent the financing of al-Qaeda and ISIL held in the French capital 25-26 April, he said that "the Yemeni people are suffering from, besides the well-known terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, another unprecedented terrorism; the terrorism of the Houthi group, characterized by an extremist ideology and show of racial supremacy. Which negates the simplest principles of coexistence with others."
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-17863
My comment: Joke. The most „extremist ideology” in the whole Islamic world is Saudi Wahabism; the greatest “racial supremacy” in the Islamic world is Saudi discrimination against blacks, Christians, Jews.
(A P)
No Peace with Houthis until they are Defeated Militarily: al-Bukhaiti
Writer and politician Ali al-Bukhaiti has reduced the possibilities of reaching peace with the Houthi, pointing that this group do consider all Yemenis as ‘infidels of their spoken Quran says”, in reference to the founder of the Houthi group, ‘Hussein al-Houthi’.
“The Houthis cannot share power with “infidels” unless it is a temporary tactic until the end of the threat imposed by the Arab Coalition,” al-Bikhaiti added in his twitter account.
He also stated, “no one should look forward to making peace with the Houthis, especially following the appearance of Abdul Malik al-Houthi with the phrase “the spoken Quran” written in a banner behind him.” “With this move, al-Houthi has cut off any hope for peace.”
http://republicanyemen.com/archives/5687
(A P)
Supported by Mohamed Ben Zaid, UAE Red Crescent Prepares for Mass Wedding for 200 Brides in Adan
With support of his highness, Sheikh Mohamed Ben Zaid Al Nuhaian, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy of the Supreme Commander of UAE Armed Forces, UAE Red Crescent continues preparations for a mass wedding for 200 brides in Adan, as a response for supporting and fulfilling the needs of Yemeni people.
Salem Al-Murezi, organizer of the event, indicated that this mass wedding came as a gift from Mohamed Ben Zaid to relieve the suffering of youth and help them in their marriage costs. He added that the wedding in Adan will be the first in a series of similar events all over Yemeni governorate for nearly 2000 brides.
http://en.smanews.org/supported-by-mohamed-ben-zaid-uae-red-crescent-prepares-for-mass-wedding-for-200-brides-in-adan
My comment: LOL. Might be Saudis bomb it?
(A P)
UAE tackles aid to Yemen in cartoon
The United Arab Emirates has released an animated video highlighting the 4.3 billion AED ($403.7 million) in foreign aid the country has contributed to war-torn Yemen between April 2015 and July 2016.
In the video, shared by Emirates News Agency, a young Yemeni boy attempts to draw a happy child with chalk on the wall of a bombed out building.
https://stepfeed.com/uae-tackles-aid-to-yemen-in-cartoon-0034
Comment: In 2016 the #UAE made a video to praise itself for the donations made to #Yemen.
Do not be fooled.
The child in the video, in a destroyed house, trying to draw a smiling face on the wall while rain washes away all his drawing attempts, is not 'saved' by the UAE.
The Emirates are not saving Yemeni children. They are killing them
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1723453341041022
(A P)
Yemeni Vice President Praises Arab Coalition's Pivotal Role for supporting Yemen
www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1756955
My comment: “for supporting Yemen”: LOL.
(A P)
Eliminating Sammad, one step out of many
Sammad is viewed as one of the non-Hashemite symbols who belongs to the Zaidi sect as per the Houthi Jarudiyah approach. He’s from the tribal wing, just like his “dreamy” successor Mahdi al-Mashat. The Hashemites are among the well-known families in the Zaidi mountains, especially from Saada. They control military and security decision making processes and they are the supporters of the idea of a parallel organization to the state – even when the state is under their command via their leader or president Saleh al-Sammad. What a strange and revealing paradox!
The blow is painful but it’s not a severe and eradicative blow. We need plenty of similar momentum, not by killing the commanders of the terrorist group but by intensifying general military work and speeding up the process of uniting “all” powers operating under the coalition’s umbrella. We must also address western leftist propaganda that’s sympathizing with Houthi narratives and prevent it from achieving its aims.
Victory is patience of an hour.
My comment: Not even getting right Sammad’s year of birth (1979, not 1973!).
(A P)
Iran attempting to reappear on the regional scene by co-opting elections
This year’s Lebanese, Iraqi and even Bahraini elections may offer space for Iranian interference once again.
With upcoming elections in Bahrain, the emergence of a new line of candidates linked to dissolved political parties, which were either serving Iran’s agenda or following Iran, looms as these groups plan to reappear on the scene again.
Hezbollah’s threat to candidates
Bahrain is one of the countries whose people courageously stood with their leaders and the political regime thus preventing a disaster, which Lebanon and Iraq suffer from today due to the presence of political parties which serve Iran within their legislative institutions. These political parties are imposed on Lebanon and Iraq via their militias whose only concern is to harness their countries’ resources to serve Iran.
(A P)
King Salman declared ‘Islamic World’s Personality of the Year’
A group of religious scholars in Pakistan have declared King Salman the “Islamic World’s Personality of the Year 2017,” in recognition of his services to the Muslim world, especially to Palestine.
The scholars gathered in Lahore to participate in the International Paigham-e-Islam Conference (Message of Islam Conference) organized on Monday by the Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC).
The event was chaired by PUC President Maulana Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi and attended by Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs Secretary Talal Al-Aqeel as chief guest.
“No one can afford the destabilization of Saudi Arabia, and Iran should not support the Houthis. The world should take notice of excesses committed by Houthis,” Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi, president of the PUC, said while addressing the gathering.
The conference also lauded the Pakistan Army for providing training facilities to Saudi forces.
http://aroundworld24.com/2018/04/23/king-salman-declared-islamic-worlds-personality-of-the-year/
My comment: What a funny (Saudi-paid??) assembly is this? This sounds like Saudi mouthpieces.
(A P)
Arab Coalition: Saleh Sammad Responsible for Thousands of Yemeni Deaths
The Arab coalition to restore legitimacy in Yemen said on Wednesday that slain Houthi commander Saleh al-Sammad was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemenis and posed a threat to Saudi Arabia.
Coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said that he was also behind the firing of ballistic missiles from Yemen.
“He was responsible for threatening Saudi Arabia and marine navigation,” he told a press conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
My comment: Nice propaganda. “A threat” to Saudi Arabia? Who threats whom? Killing neighbouring countries’ politicians this way, what a pretty example for the world! The only person who personally would be “responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemenis” is Saudi crown prince Salman. Nobody else reaches his figures.
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
Siehe / Look at cp1
(* A K pH)
Yemeni woman and her baby both died today from their injuries they had yesterday When US-Saudi war criminals bombed their house at Anab neighborhood in Sanaa. (photos of house, below)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990441112568516609
(* A K pH)
Saudi airstrikes kill citizen, injure 2 during Al-Sammad funeral
A citizen was killed and two others injured on Saturday in US-backed Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Sabeen Square in the capital Sana'a during the funeral of the martyred president Saleh Al-Sammad.
Two airstrikes hit the vicinity of Sabeen Square, coinciding with the funeral ceremony, which led to the killing of one of the mourners and wounding two others, as well as causing damage to Al-Sha'ab Mosque.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494596.htm
and photos (graphic!) https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/990274061040279553
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990210528294457344
and
(A K)
Airstrike reported close to crowds at Yemeni politician’s funeral (VIDEOS)
Video footage from the funeral of a Houthi political leader shows agitated crowds, as a loud blast is heard, followed by the sight of black smoke billowing in the vicinity.
Tens of thousands of Yemenis mourners were attending the funeral of Saleh al-Samad on Saturday when the airstrike occurred.
https://www.rt.com/news/425431-strike-yemen-funeral-saudi/ and film https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/990215274472321026
(* A K pH)
Several air raids near the crowds in al-Sabeen square in #Sanaa during their participation in the funeral of the president Saleh Al-Sammad, and the aircraft of aggression continues hovering over Sanaa. [look at cp5]
(* A K)
Führer der Huthi-Rebellen in Sanaa getötet
Das saudi-arabische Fernsehen meldete indes einen Luftangriff der saudi-arabisch geführten Koalition auf die jemenitische Hauptstadt Sanaa. Dabei seien zwei führende Mitglieder der Huthi-Rebellen getötet worden. Während der staatliche Fernsehsender von insgesamt mehr als 50 Toten sprach, zählte das in Dubai ansässige Nachrichtennetzwerk Al-Arabija 38 Tote einschließlich der beiden Huthi-Führungsmitglieder.
Den Berichten zufolge zielte der Angriff auf eine Sitzung ab, bei der die Trauerfeier für den kürzlich getöteten Rebellen-Führer Saleh al-Sammad vorbereitet werden sollte.
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/jemen-saudi-arabien-103.html
und
(* A K)
Dutzende Rebellen bei Luftangriff im Jemen getötet
Bei einem Luftangriff des von Saudi-Arabien angeführten Militärbündnisses auf die jemenitische Hauptstadt Sanaa sind Medienberichten zufolge dutzende Rebellen getötet worden. Der Fernsehsender Al-Arabiya berichtete am Samstag, bei dem Angriff auf ein Gebäude des von Houthi-Rebellen kontrollierten Innenministeriums seien am Freitagabend 38 Rebellen getötet worden. Unter den Toten sollen sich nach Angaben des saudiarabischen Staatssenders Al-Ekhbariya mindestens zwei Anführer der Rebellen befinden.
https://derstandard.at/2000078843585/Dutzende-Rebellen-bei-Luftangriff-im-Jemen-getoetet
Mein Kommentar: Nur saudische Medien haben von vielen toten „Rebellen“ im Innenministerium berichtet, eine Bestätigung von Seiten der Huthis steht aus.
(* A K)
Strike kills dozens of Yemen rebels including commanders: Saudi TV
An air strike on Yemen's capital by a Saudi-led military coalition has killed dozens of Huthi rebels including at least two commanders, Saudi television reported Saturday.
Saudi Arabia's official Al-Ekhbariya television said two high-ranking insurgents were among more than 50 Huthi militiamen killed in Sanaa on Friday evening, without giving further details.
Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television said a total of 38 rebels were killed in the strike on a Huthi interior ministry building.
The Huthis confirmed an air strike on Sanaa but gave no details.
The raid came hours ahead of a public funeral of the Huthis' political head Saleh al-Sammad, killed last week in a Saudi-led coalition strike.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-5668387/Strike-kills-dozens-Yemen-rebels-including-commanders-Saudi-TV.html and https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/strike-kills-38-yemen-houtis-including-commanders-saudi-tv-180428070817220.html and also by Iranian IRNA: http://www.irna.ir/en/News/82899454
My comment: Up to now, this is just claimed by Saudi media and not confirmed by the Houthis on the ground.
(* A K pH)
Huge blast just heard in capital Sana'a, Yemen, as Saudi fighter jets are screaming overhead. Tonight, thousands are flocking into capital to attend tomorrow funeral of Saleh al-Sammad, senior Houthi political leader.
https://twitter.com/Shuaibalmosawa/status/989955425813581824
film¨This is the daily life of #Yemen-i people in the capital #Sanaa and other cities. #UK an #US bombs are turning Yemenis life to hell.
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/990311378824105990
The Saudi-led coalition air raids on the capital #Sanaa tonight targeted the blood center's building at al-Sabeen hospital for motherhood and childhood, causing material damage.
First photos of Abdo Haimi house after an air strike by #Saudi led coalition targeted it in Aldefaa Aljawi neighborhood in #Sanaa
Preliminary photos of the targeting of the aggression on the house of a citizen in Al-Anab neighborhood in the capital Sana'a wounded 6 citizens (photos)
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/989995112343244802
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/989995254580498432
https://twitter.com/A7medJa7af/status/989993407341789184
https://twitter.com/A7medJa7af/status/989993360340520960
#Saudi #UAE bomb dropped on blood bank centre in Sabeen motherhood & childhood hospital in #Sanaa #Yemen , Did NOT explode No casualties Just damage (photos)
https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/989997770504396800
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990250302812147713
https://twitter.com/BBassem7/status/990323699860455425 = https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1806508359645150
https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1806506546311998
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990439609296408577
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/990439411451158529
Journalist Hussain Albukhaiti @HussainBukhaiti
asks if anyone can identify the bomb fragments dropped by #Saudi #UAE on blood bank in Sabeen motherhood & childhood hospital #Sanaa
It looks like like MK82 guided bomb that was dropped on Great hall in #Sanaa (photos)
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1725678160818540
but it is obvious already:
Bombs used by Saudi Airforce hitting the blood bank and hospital in Yemen were the same kind US made guided “smart” bomb that was used to target the wedding in Yemen few days ago. (photos)
https://twitter.com/BBassem7/status/990329748596211712
Two air strikes targeted the Presidential Residence in al-Sabeen south of the capital #sanaa, and three air raids targeted the ministry of the interior in al-Hasabah north of the capital.
The interior ministry has been hit for the first time by #Saudis, they should know that there are civilians houses around the ministry. people are walking near that area, children were sleeping, #Sanaa is under #UK & #US bombs.
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/989969253720879114
War jets of the KSA-led Coalition hit the Rescue Camp in Sana'a in al-Hasbah, a very populated area.
https://twitter.com/zaidaahmed/status/989958814307938304
- 6civilians injured in a strike on Shamlaan area W #Sanaa #Yemen - Been reportd, entire family of 6 (inc4kids) killed in another strike central #Sanaa
https://twitter.com/HussainBukhaiti/status/989990109582905346
First account of 10 injured in #Sanaa tonight as a result of an endless series of Coalition airstrikes (photos)
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1724662330920123
(A K pH)
Health Minister: Targeting blood center by Saudi-led airstrikes is war crime
Minister of Public Health and Population Dr. Mohammed Bin Hafeedh on Saturday said targeting of the National Center for Blood Transfusion by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes is a war crime.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494602.htm
(A K pH)
Film: Targeting the American - Saudi aggression Bedouin tents in Nashour district Directorate of yellow in Saada 27-04-2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMAXWAXcjHg
(A K pH)
Film: Targeting the American - Saudi aggression Bedouin tents in Nashour district Directorate of Al Baydah in Saada 27-04-2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMAXWAXcjHg
(* A K pH)
US-Saudi aerial aggression continues its raids on various provinces, causing damages to public and private property.
In Marib, four children were injured when a bomb of the remnants of aggression exploded in Al-Sarha area in Serwah district.
In Hajja, the aggression launched 12 raids on Al-Jar farms in Abs district, and 9 more raids on Haradh and Medi districts during the past hours.
In Taiz, five raids were carried out south of Khalid Camp in Mawze' district.
In Lahjj, US-Saudi aggression launched 3 raids on Hamalah area in Karsh district.
In Al-Hudaydah, the aerial aggression launched two raids east of Katabah in Al-Khukha, and launched a raid east of Hays district.
In Sa'ada, different areas of Razih and Munabeh districts and Al-Ghor area in Ghammer district were targeted by rocketry and artillery shells causing damages in citizens' farms and houses.
https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1806101739685812
(* A K pH)
Saudi Arabia targets Yemen in 32 raids
Saudi Arabia's war planes in 32 raids targeted various parts of Yemen on Thursday, Yemeni media reported.
According to the website of Yemeni TV channel Almasirah, the Saudi aggression on Yemen continued in various provinces, causing injuries as well as damage to public and private property.
http://www.irna.ir/en/News/82898827 = http://en.abna24.com/news/middle-east/saudi-warplanes-target-various-parts-of-yemen-in-32-raids_891070.html
(A K pH)
Film: The martyrdom of a child and wounding others in a raid of the Saudi American air aggression on the Directorate of Razih Saada province 28-04-2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMGsHxlxK6o
(A K pS)
Gebel Al-Kuous – North of Lahj – Bombarded by Arab Coalition Air Forces
Local sources indicated that Arab Coalition air forces launched several raids over Al-Houthi posts in Gebel Al-Kuhous, overseeing Al-Jawazia I AlKubita and Sheab in Tour Al-Baha on Monday April 23rd, 2018
http://en.smanews.org/gebel-al-kuous-north-of-lahj-bombarded-by-arab-coalition-air-forces
(A K pH)
Film: Death of a number of livestock following a raid on the air Saudi Arabian aggression on the Directorate of Altifat 26-04-2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrnHScbl8Z8
(A K pH)
Four children were injured when a coalition cluster bomb exploded in Saada Governorate
A cluster bomb was fired by the Coalition Air Force on the area of al-Sarhah Directorate of Sarawah in the province of Saada, wounding four children.
A local source said a coalition bomb was fired by coalition forces in the area of al-Siraha on Thursday, injuring four children.
http://alfjeralgaaded.net/news_details.php?sid=17768&lng=arabic and Saba reports tey were killed http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494516.htm
(* A K pH)
More Saudi coalition air raids reported on:
April 28:
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494598.htm Taiz p.
April 27:
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494519.htm Hodeidah p.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494513.htm farms, Hajjah p.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494512.htm Taiz p.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494511.htm Lahj p.
April 26:
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494501.htm Amran p.
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
(* A K)
Angriffe von Huthis und Saudi-Arabien
Im Jemen-Krieg hat es einen neuen Schlagabtausch zwischen den Huthi-Rebellen und Saudi-Arabien gegeben. Nach einem Luftangriff auf die Hauptstadt Saana schossen Huthis Raketen auf das Nachbarland ab.
Die jemenitischen Huthi-Rebellen haben nach eigenen Angaben acht Raketen auf die saudi-arabische Stadt Dschisan abgefeuert. Die staatliche saudi-arabische Nachrichtenagentur SPA bestätigte den Raketenbeschuss auf die Stadt im Süden des Königreichs. Vier Raketen seien von der Luftabwehr abgeschossen worden.
Der Zivilschutz teilte mit, er habe Informationen erhalten, denen zufolge Geschosssplitter einen Zivilisten getötet worden seien. Zwei Häuser und drei Fahrzeuge seien beschädigt worden.
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/jemen-saudi-arabien-103.html
(* A K pH)
Yemeni forces fire 8 missiles at ‘economic, vital targets’ in Jizan: Media
Yemeni army forces, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have fired at least eight domestically-manufactured ballistic missiles at a number of “economic and vital targets” in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Jizan in retaliation for the Saudi regime’s campaign against the impoverished country, Yemeni media report.
Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, citing a military source, reported that the short-range Badr-1 ballistic missiles were launched on Saturday morning, adding that the projectiles had hit the designated “economic and vital targets” in the region with great precision.
The report of missile attack, which was also carried by Yemen's official Saba news agency, provided no further details on the exact locations of the targets and the possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/04/28/559958/Yemen-Saudi-Arabia-Jizan-ballistic-missiles-Houthis and as stated by Saba Net: http://www.sabanews.net/en/news494587.htm and film of launch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w0UCpl92s4 = https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/990320560419868672
(* A K)
Saudi man killed in missile salvo from Yemen
Yemen’s Houthi movement fired ballistic missiles at what it called “economic and vital targets” in the southern Saudi province of Jizan on Saturday, and Saudi authorities said a man was killed by debris from the projectiles.
The attack appeared to be retaliation promised by Yemen’s dominant political faction in a war there as thousands attended a funeral in the Houthi-run capital Sanaa for a top Houthi official killed in a Saudi-led air strike last week.
Eyewitnesses in Sanaa reported Saudi-led air raids on Saturday near the downtown rally for the burial of Saleh al-Samad, the president of the political body which runs Houthi-controlled northern Yemen. There were no reports of casualties.
The Houthis said they launched eight ballistic missiles at “economic and vital targets” in Saudi’s Jizan province on Saturday and Riyadh said it intercepted four of the projectiles.
Jizan civil defence spokesman Colonel Yahya Abdullah Al-Qahtani said on Arabiya TV that the Saudi national was killed by “falling fragments of military projectiles.”
A picture accompanying the Arabiya TV report appeared to show the outside of a civilian home pockmarked by shrapnel.
and
(* A K pS)
The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition (Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen): Coalition Air Defense Intercepts and Destroys four Ballistic Missiles Launched by the Iranian Houthi Militia at Saudi Arabia
The official spokesman of the Coalition (the Coalition to restore legitimacy in Yemen) Col. Turki Al-Malki stated that at 10:40 the Coalition Air Defense detected the launch of four ballistic missiles from Sa’dah governorate aimed at Saudi Arabia.
Col. Al-Malki reported that the four ballistic missiles were launched deliberately by the Iranian Houthi militia to target densely populated civilian areas in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, where the missiles were intercepted and destroyed by the Coalition Air Defense.
He continued: “The interception resulted in projection of fragments throughout some residential areas. No casualties were recorded up to the time of this release”
Col. Al-Malki added: “This hostile act carried out by the putschists proves that the Iranian regime is still providing the terrorist Houthi armed militia with qualitative capabilities, in flagrant defiance of UNSCRs 2216 and 2231, with the main objective of threatening the Saudi Arabian, regional and international security.”
He concluded: “Launching ballistic missiles at densely populated civilian areas is a direct breach of the principles of the international humanitarian law.”
http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1757275
My comment: Of course, enriched with anti-Iranian propaganda. Funny: Launching ballistic missiles at densely populated civilian areas is a direct breach of the principles of the international humanitarian law.” – a perfect description of Saudi air raids in Yemen.
(* A K pS)
Coalition Air Defense Forces Supporting Legitimacy, in Yemen Intercept Ballistic Missile Launched by Houthis, targeting the Kingdom
The spokesman of the coalition forces to support the legitimacy, in Yemen, Col. Turki Al-Maliki announced that at 12:46 minutes of the noon of this day, the Coalition air defense forces monitored launching of a ballistic missile by Iranian-backed Houthi militias from inside Yemeni territories (North of Imran) towards the territories of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Col. Al-Maliki stated that the missile was directed towards Najran city in a deliberate launching by the militias to target civilian and populated areas, but the coalition air defense forces successfully intercepted it, resulting in scattering of missile's fragments over residential areas, while no injuries or damages were reported up to preparing the statement.
http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1757152
My comment: “to target civilian and populated areas”: LOL, no proof as it was intercepted. It’s Saudi air raids which aims “to target civilian and populated areas” on a daily basis.
(A K pS)
Four #children, three of them from a single family were injured by a mortar shell fired by the #Houthis on the houses of displaced people in al-Ghail village of al--Jawf province, northeastern of Yemen. (photos)
https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/989859156252352512
(A K pH)
UAE Summons Mercenary Leader Tariq Afash after Series of Defeats
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) have reportedly summoned their top mercenary Tariq Afash in order to explain his failures, after a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Yemeni Armed Forces.
However, despite being equipped with state of the art weaponry and covered by aerial support, Afash suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Yemeni Armed Forces and Popular Committees near Khaled camp. Sources mentioned by the Yemen Press Agency claim that the mercenaries lost at least 106 troops.
http://www.newnewss.net/uae-summons-mercenary-leader-tariq-afash-after-series-of-defeats/
Remark: As claimed by pro-Houthi media.
(A K)
Saudi Arabia downs Yemeni rebel missile: state media
Saudi Arabia's air defences on Friday intercepted a missile fired by Yemeni rebels, days after the insurgents' second-in-command was killed in an air raid by Riyadh and its allies.
The missile, the latest in a series of similar attacks, was heading towards the kingdom's southern coastal city of Jizan, state-run Al-Ekhbariya television said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-5664585/Saudi-Arabia-downs-Yemeni-rebel-missile-state-media.html and photos https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/989860107465916421
(A K pS)
Saudi woman injured in shelling from Yemen
The Iran-backed Houthi militias launched the projectiles which hit civilian areas in Najran in southern Saudi Arabia.
http://www.gdnonline.com/Details/349414/Saudi-woman-injured-in-shelling-from-Yemen
(A K pS)
Two Martyrs and Three Injured in An Explosion in Kehboub – Lahj
Military source indicated that two soldiers were killed while three others were injured because of an explosive pack implanted by Al-Houthis on the road linking Kehboub to Ras Al-Ara, on Tuesday April 24th, 2018.
http://en.smanews.org/two-martyrs-and-three-injured-in-an-explosion-in-kehboub-lahj
(* A K)
Al Houthi forces launched a Zilzal 2 ballistic missile targeting Saudi-led coalition forces near Jabal al Sudais, south of Najran city, southern Saudi Arabia on April 25.[1]
(A K pS)
Fierce clashes between the Army Forces and the #Houthis in the vicinity of the Republican Palace, the Honour Guard Camp and Mohammed Ali Osman School, east of the city of #Taiz, as the Army thwarted an attack by the Houthis in al-Ain area west of the province.
https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/989516981597503488
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
(A)
Funeral held for aid worker killed in Yemen
A Lebanese humanitarian worker from the International Committee of the Red Cross has been laid to rest in his hometown a week after being shot dead in Yemen.
http://www.dailyjournal.net/2018/04/28/ml-yemen-the-latest-2/
(-)
The Other Side of Yemen
Yemen is one of the oldest Civilizations in the World. It's also one of the most beautiful countries in the Middle East unless we say in the world. Despite the war and destruction which Yemen is passing through currently the beauty still exists, resists war's circumstances. Yemen has a huge diverse culture that is still visible in every single Village and small Town. (Photos)
http://yemengrainsoftruth.blogspot.de/2018/04/the-other-side-of-yemen.html
(* B K P)
Putin droht mit Luftschlägen gegen Saudi-Arabien
Washington auf Tauchstation
Auf einer kurzfristig einberufenen Pressekonferenz kündigte der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin massive Luftschläge seines Landes gegen Saudi-Arabien an. Die Machthaber in Riad, so Putins Begründung, führten im Jemen mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung des Westens einen „barbarischen Krieg“ ohne jede Rücksicht auf die Zivilbevölkerung und hätten eine „humanitäre Katastrophe größten Ausmaßes“ angerichtet. Dieser „eklatante Bruch zivilisatorischer Standards“ könne keinesfalls länger geduldet werden.
Da der Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen sich als „handlungsunfähig“ erweise und Russlands „westliche Partner“ in der Jemen-Frage jegliche Einsicht vermissen ließen, sehe sich Russland berufen und gezwungen, „im Namen der Weltgemeinschaft“ ein Zeichen zu setzen. Für seine „Massaker an der Zivilbevölkerung“ müsse Saudi-Arabien endlich einen „angemessenen Preis“ bezahlen, so Putin.
Die Vorbereitung des Militärschlags laufe „auf Hochtouren“, so der Präsident weiter. Es handele sich zunächst um eine „einmalige Strafaktion“. Sollte sich Saudi-Arabien davon nicht beeindrucken lassen und in seinem „verbrecherischen Tun“ fortfahren, werde die Russische Föderation allerdings nicht untätig bleiben und „nachlegen“, drohte Putin.
Der russische Präsident bezog sich ausdrücklich auf das jüngste saudische Bombardement einer Hochzeitsgesellschaft (23. April), bei dem zahlreiche Menschen, darunter viele Frauen und Kinder, getötet oder schwer verletzt wurden. Er attackierte westliche Medien, die dieses „grauenvolle Verbrechen“ wieder einmal nur „auf Seite 9 unten rechts“ gemeldet hätten.
Putin bezeichnete Saudi-Arabien als „Hauptsponsor des Terrorismus“. Er warf der Regierung in Riad vor, ihre Kriegsführung im Jemen sei „blanker Staatsterrorismus“. Diesem „empörenden Gebaren“ könne der „anständige Teil der Menschheit“ nicht länger tatenlos zusehen.
Da obiger Text anscheinend für Irritationen sorgt, sei angemerkt, dass es sich selbstverständlich um Satire handelt – oder richtiger vielleicht: um ein zynisches Gedankenspiel.
https://augenaufunddurch.net/2018/04/27/putin-droht-mit-luftschlaegen-gegen-saudi-arabien/
Kommentar: Gut, aber das kann man besser machen. Um die Verlogenheit der verbrecherischen Politik der WWG und die Propaganda und Hetze ihrer servilen Medien noch besser aufzuzeigen, sollte dei gleiche manipulatorische Sprache verwendet werden. Der „Luftschlag“ geht nicht gegen „Saudi Arabien“, sondern gegen den islamistischen Diktator Salman. DER wird bestraft. Es gibt keine „saudische Regierung“, es gibt nur einen Machthaber, den Schlächter von Riad. So werden völkerrechtswidrige Kriege in den Köpfen der Menschen als „richtig und angemessen“ implantiert. „Das Böse“ zu personalisieren, ist die wichtigste Voraussetzung für eine Akzeptanz für Krieg und Zerstörung. Siehe all unsere Schlächter Milosevic, Saddam, Gaddafi und Assad, bald Putin. Und Putin „droht“ auch nicht, Russland kündigt an. Es sind „Vergeltungsmaßnahmen“ für Salmans Massaker an der jemenitischen Zivilbevölkerung, an unschuldigen kleinen Kindern.
….Putin kündigt Vergeltungsmaßnahmen gegen Salman an
…Auf einer kurzfristig einberufenen Pressekonferenz kündigte der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin massive Luftschläge seines Landes gegen den saudischen Machthaber Salman an. Der islamistische Diktator und Schlächter von Riad, so die Begründung der russischen Regierung, führe im Jemen mit tatkräftiger Unterstützung von Trump, May und Macron einen „barbarischen Krieg“ ohne jede Rücksicht auf die Zivilbevölkerung und habe eine „humanitäre Katastrophe größten Ausmaßes“ angerichtet.
…Für seine „Massaker an der Zivilbevölkerung“ müsse Salman endlich einen „angemessenen Preis“ bezahlen, so Putin.
Wenn man die gleichlautenden Meldungen der gleichgeschalteten deutschen „Qualitätsmedien“ mit umgekehrten Vorzeichen übernimmt und damit Gut Und Böse automatisch auf den Kopf stellt, wird die ganze Manipulation sichtbar. Die Guten „drohen“ nie, sie zeigen Stärke oder kündigen Vergeltungsmaßnahmen an.
(-)
Film: Honey Badger Narrates: The Wildlife of Beautiful Yemen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk8WPS16OIE
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-407-yemen-war-mosaic-407
Jemenkrieg-Mosaik 1-407 / Yemen War Mosaic 1-407:
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
http://yemenwarcrimes.blogspot.de/
und alle Liste aller Luftangriffe / and list of all air raids:
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