... in Hajjah – Das Internet im Jemen – Neubelebung von Salehs GPC-Partei? – Kampftätigkeiten im Jemen haben zugenommen – Söldner in den Golfstaaten – USA: Kriege ohne Siege, Waffen ohne Ende – und mehr
Feb. 6, 2020: Yemen and the optimistic Crown prince – Humanitarian help gets obstructed – Humanitarian aid to Northern Yemen will be reduced – Food aid in Hajjah province is rotten – Internet in Yemen – Revival of Saleh’s GPC Party? –Yemen: Fighting had increased – Mercenaries in the Gulf States – USA: Wars Without Victories, Weapons Without End – and more
Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Kursiv: Siehe Teil 2 / In Italics: Look in part 2: https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-622b-yemen-war-mosaic-622b
Klassifizierung / Classification
Für wen das Thema ganz neu ist / Who is new to the subject
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp1b Am wichtigsten: Kampf um Hodeidah / Most important: Hodeidah battle
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 Separatisten und Hadi-Regierung im Südjemen / Separatists and Hadi government in Southern Yemen
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
cp8a Jamal Khashoggi
cp9 USA
cp9a1 USA-Iran Krise: Wachsende Spannungen am Golf: Deutsch / US-Iran crisis: Mounting tensions at the Gulf: German
cp9a2 USA-Iran Krise: Wachsende Spannungen am Golf: Englisch / US-Iran crisis: Mounting tensions at the Gulf: English
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
cp12b Sudan
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms Trade
cp13b Mercenaries / Söldner
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
Ältere einführende Artikel u. Überblicke für alle, die mit den Ereignissen im Jemen noch nicht vertraut sind, hier:
Yemen War: Older 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
Neue Artikel / New articles
(* B H K)
Film: "I hope my school goes back to the way it was before the war." Twelve-year-old Rania's energy and optimism in Yemen will make your day.
https://twitter.com/UNICEF/status/1221072731241926657 = https://twitter.com/UNICEF/status/1225058242880925702
Take 2 minutes to watch this moving & fascinating glimpse into a day in the life of a 12 year old schoolgirl in #Yemen. @UNICEF's work is terrific. Quality #education is the bedrock for re-building this war-torn country.
https://twitter.com/Dr_E_Kendall/status/1224641245634539520
(* B H K)
Film: Jemen: Hunger als Waffe - Mehr als 140.000 Kinder unter fünf Jahren sind Kriegsopfer (bis Ende 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWscSMTgxeM
(** B H K P)
The Optimistic Crown Prince
And so, the “Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen” in fact represents a sort of political gaslighting, a benevolent warmongering, a kingdom of morbid contradictions. As if war is peace in Yemen. As if, in August 2018, a 227-kilogram laser-guided bomb manufactured by top US defense contractor Lockheed Martin and sold to top client state Saudi Arabia, never hit a busload of schoolboys who were passing through a bustling market during a field trip in Yemen’s war- and crisis-ravaged north. As if 54 people weren’t killed in that attack, of whom 44 were children — their scattered bodies bloodied, charred, mangled. As if rights groups never deemed the massacre an “apparent war crime,” with concerned world powers like the US and UK perpetuating lucrative arms sales and military assistance as usual to the regretful Saudi-led coalition, which emptily pledged to investigate its “mistake.”
While Yemen’s death toll exceeds 100,000 (not accounting for indirect deaths), and while US- and UK-made bombs continue to fall, the war-crime-riddled tragedy of the school bus massacre constitutes a cautionary tale of collective punishment. Yemenis young and old, particularly in the Houthi-held north, are being effectively treated as so-called “legitimate military targets,” which in turn renders the “Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen” utterly suspect given that the majority of reported civilian fatalities and injuries — more than 12,000 killed in direct attacks since 2015 — are due to Saudi-led coalition airstrikes.
“I wish I could meet those who legitimize [Yemeni civilians as military targets],” reflects Sana’a-based writer Elham Hassan in her follow-up open letter to our April piece for the Guardian, entitled “Why should we Yemenis stop having babies and surrender to war?”
“If I were present in the command and control centers or the halls of power,” Hassan continues, “I’d likely observe how unconfirmed intelligence on the location of Houthi leaders and fighters leads to an easy massacre of us.” Bomb hospitals, schools, farms, markets, mosques, residential areas, refugee camps, detention facilities, weddings, and even funerals. Burn civilians alive in places or at events known for being crowded with them. And burn critical civilian infrastructure to the ground, too, including bridges, roads, factories, power plants, pipelines, and water treatment facilities. Instrumentalize hunger, disease, and displacement as weapons of war while year after year the international community watches the “severity of needs deepening” in a country that was already the poorest in the Middle East before the Saudi-led coalition unleashed its scorched earth campaign made possible by its Western allies.
Alas, reports of Yemeni carnage and suffering no longer grip the global 24/7 news cycle as they had last year in the aftermath of the grisly murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Since last spring, though, Yemen has become a largely “forgotten war” once again — the rising death toll and wholesale devastation overshadowed by arms deals, strategic relationships, diplomatic cover, and vetoed abatement. All of the aforementioned deaths combined — the schoolboys, Jamal Khashoggi, Amal Hussain, tens of thousands more Yemenis young and old — couldn’t outweigh Donald Trump’s veto power, which he issued last May to block Congress’s historic bipartisan resolution to end US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
“How could you do it again and again?” our colleague Elham Hassan asks, referring to the civilian blood on the hands of those inside the command and control centers and the halls of power, where the deadly decisions and deals are being made.
“How could you do it again and again?” our colleague Elham Hassan asks, referring to the civilian blood on the hands of those inside the command and control centers and the halls of power, where the deadly decisions and deals are being made – By Elham Hassan, Elle Kurancid, Amira Al-Sharif
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-optimistic-crown-prince
(* B K P)
THE FORGOTTEN CONFLICT AND HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN YEMEN
Yemen’s civil war has been raging since 2014 with the conflict largely being overshadowed by events in Syria and Iraq. The war however has sparked a disastrous humanitarian situation affecting over 80% of the population. The focus by Western and core regional states, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, on key security interests has produced a situation in which there is little diplomatic scope to restore help the Yemeni people. [overview article]
https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/forgotten-conflict-and-humanitarian-crisis-yemen
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
(** B H P)
UN experts: Uptick in Houthi obstacles to Yemen aid delivery
‘Threats and incidents against humanitarian workers are increasing in Houthi-controlled areas.’
Houthi rebels are increasingly arresting and intimidating aid workers in Yemen, in addition to putting up bureaucratic obstacles that obstruct the distribution of humanitarian assistance, according to a new report by a UN group of experts on Yemen.
The New Humanitarian has seen a copy of the latest report by the Panel of Experts on Yemen, which was submitted to the UN Security Council in late January but has not yet been made public.
The 48-page report, which looks at various aspects of Yemen’s war in 2019, says that “violations of international humanitarian law and international humanitarian rights law continued to be widely committed by all parties in Yemen with impunity” throughout last year.
The conflict has left 80 percent of the population – 24 million people – in need of aid, and more than 12,400 civilians have been killed since 2015 in direct attacks including airstrikes and shelling, according to the Armed Conflict & Location Event Database (ACLED). Not included in the count are those who have died from hunger or treatable diseases like cholera.
Despite the massive need, Yemen’s war has been marked by accusations of aid diversion and obstruction, including a November 2018 Saudi blockade that led to warnings of famine. In June 2019, the World Food Programme temporarily suspended deliveries to 850,000 people in Houthi-controlled Sana’a, after the rebels refused to agree to a biometric registration system that the agency said was necessary to prevent aid fraud.
The Panel of Experts report says “threats and incidents against humanitarian workers are increasing in Houthi-controlled areas”, and that “numerous administrative and bureaucratic impediments” by Houthi authorities mean NGOs face long delays and spend a large portion of their time in meetings.
It also mentions more direct threats to aid delivery, stating that “the issue of the manipulation of beneficiary lists and/or pressure to share these lists is of particular concern, and cases involving the use of violence and coercion at aid distribution points have increased in 2019”.
The panel also investigated nine “medical and nutritional” shipments that were delayed by Hadi’s government at the port in Aden – delays the report says the government had confirmed but did not explain.
Much of Yemen’s aid – as well as key commercial food imports – is brought into the country by ships that go to the Houthi-held north or the government-held south, which includes Aden.
The Houthi aid body, SCMCHA, has frequently accused international NGOs of trying to distribute expired or otherwise unsafe food and medication. Its head, Abdul Mohsen al-Tawoos, recently met with the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Lise Grande, and a statement released after the meeting said they had “reviewed joint efforts to overcome the problems facing some humanitarian activities” – by Annie Slemrod
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2020/02/03/Yemen-Houthis-aid-worker-safety
(** A B H P)
Aid to Houthi-controled Yemen to be cut back over risk it can be diverted: sources
The world’s biggest humanitarian aid operation will be scaled-down next month in Houthi-controled Yemen, because donors and aid workers say they can no longer ensure that food for millions of people is reaching those who need it.
Humanitarian sector sources told Reuters Houthi authorities in northern Yemen were obstructing efforts to get food and other assistance to those in need, to an extent that is no longer tolerable.
“The operating environment in north Yemen has deteriorated so dramatically in recent months that humanitarians can no longer manage the risks associated with delivering assistance at the volume we currently are,” a senior UN official said.
Unless things improve, humanitarians and donors will have “no choice” but to reduce assistance, the official said. This would include curtailing some food aid overseen by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), which feeds more than 12 million Yemenis a month, 80% of them in Houthi areas.
The Supreme Council for the Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (SCMCHA), a Houthi body formed in November to oversee aid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aid agencies have for the past year publicly and privately complained of worsening operating conditions, lack of travel permits and other access restrictions which have left workers in northern Yemen “exasperated”, in the words of one agency employee, and unable to deliver to full capacity.
“At high levels this has left the agencies, NGOs and donors asking: can we continue like this or do fundamental changes need to be made?” said another source familiar with the discussions between donors and aid distributors.
No donors, U.N. agencies or charities have yet made public announcement of aid reductions. Two sources told Reuters cutbacks could begin at the start of March after consultation with donors this month. Two said they could begin sooner.
“No one wants to walk away from a crisis, certainly not a crisis as big as the one in Yemen, but humanitarians have to adjust what we are doing based on the risks we are facing,” the U.N. official said.
Another source said discussions were ongoing about the extent of any suspension, given the severity of the crisis: “Any talk of suspension needs to be carefully considered before a decision is made.”
BIOMETRIC DATA
One of the reasons for the suspension is a dispute over a biometric system designed to record who receives aid to prevent it being stolen. The WFP partially suspended food aid delivery for two months in Sanaa in June in a dispute over control of the biometric data. Eight months on, the biometric registration system is still not operational in Houthi areas.
When deliveries are delayed, food can spoil and has to be destroyed. Aid workers complain that they have been denied access to fumigate stored food to protect it from pests.
“We have seen a disturbing trend that when we inform [Houthi authorities] of the need to remove any infested stocks from the distribution centers, they arrange for media to accompany them and portray it as if WFP is distributing expired or infested food,” one of the documents to Houthi authorities says.
(** B H P)
Hungry people in Yemen's Hajjah raid WFP warehouse, find food rotten
Tonnes of rotten WFP food in the Aslam district was burned in front of hungry residents
In one of Yemen’s poorest districts, hungry residents raided a United Nations warehouse in the hopes of getting their hands on much-needed sustenance. Instead, they found rotten food that local officials proceeded to burn in front of the people of Aslam, in the Hajjah province.
Last week, the World Food Programme (WFP) said one of its warehouses in Hajjah had been looted. WFP described the culprits as “militias” and said 127.5 tonnes of aid were stolen.
WFP did not name the people behind the incident but some sources accused the Houthis of looting the warehouse.
The WFP refused to comment on the affair in Aslam when contacted by Middle East Eye, but a UN source in Sanaa told MEE that the looted food it mentioned in its statement was not rotten and had been prevented from being distributed by the Houthis.
Aslam is under the control of Houthi rebels who have been engaged in a war against Yemen’s internationally recognised government and a Saudi-led coalition that backs it since 2015.
Videos showing families with starving children in Aslam having to boil the leaves of local wild vines began circulating by the end of 2018.
At least 20 children are known to have died of starvation in 2018 in Hajjah. The real number is likely to be far higher, since few families report their child’s death if they die at home.
Adding additional pressure on the district, families newly displaced by the war have continued to arrive at Aslam, despite the severe shortage of food.
WFP distributes aid based on a list of recipients provided by the Houthis.
Ahmed, using only his first name for security reasons, said he does not trust the rebels with the preparation of the list as they usually put down their fighters as beneficiaries “while many needy people starve to death”.
Ahmed said that there have been disputes between residents and the Houthis over the WFP's food deliveries, but added that he did not know anything about disputes between the rebels and WFP.
“We do not know about the WFP but we know their rotten food very well. They usually send us food and it remains in warehouses for months,” Ahmed said.
“When we demanded that aid workers distribute the food they refuse citing the lists of beneficiaries, which the [Houthi-controlled] local authority usually provide WFP with it.”
Ahmed said the food they were seeking last week has rotted after being stored for months and the local authority destroyed it in front of people.
Last Sunday, some people from Aslam, including Ahmed, gathered and decided to storm a WFP warehouse in the district to get food for their children.
Before heading to the warehouse, the residents went to the office of the local authority in Aslam where they were told that the food was rotten.
“We did not believe them”, said Ahmed, “so we went to the warehouse, together with a committee from the local authority, and the food was indeed rotten. The officials then decided to damage it in front of us.”
Earlier this month, a UN report submitted to the Security Council noting that Houthi rebels have been increasingly arresting and intimidating aid workers.
The 48-page report, which looked at various aspects of the civil war, said that the rebels have also put bureaucratic obstacles that have prevented the distribution of humanitarian assistance.
Another resident of Aslam Alam Quraidhi said he has only received one food basket from WFP last year and it was rotten but his family ate it nonetheless, and it did not cause any health problems for them.
“Their wheat flour was rotten but I sifted through it and threw away the damaged part and we ate the rest, which was plenty,” Quraidhi told MEE.
“I am unhappy to have seen food burning in front of my eyes while we are in dire need of it.”
Quraidhi said he hoped that in the future the INGOs would distribute the food immediately or a few days after it arrives at the warehouses to avoid its decomposition.
“We have heard and witnessed a lot of destruction of food in Aslam and other areas in Hajjah and that is not fair,” Quraidhi added. “We need to eat the food, not burn it.”
The Houthis destroyed hundreds of tons of rotten WFP food in Hajjah and other provinces during 2019, as the food was rotten and was deemed inedible.
However, a member of the Supreme Council for Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and International Cooperation (SCMCHA) in Hajjah confirmed that the food in the WFP warehouse was rotten.
“That was an old batch of rotten food and we have been demanding WFP to destroy it but they have refused to do so,” the source spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid direct disputes with WFP.
“We raised the issue to the prosecution and they appointed a committee to go and destroy the food in several districts, including Aslam.”
The source said the main reason behind food rotting was the process of importing wheat flour from outside Yemen, while it takes up to two months to get permission from the Saudi-led coalition to get it inside the country.
“I prefer that WFP and other organisations distribute money or vouchers for beneficiaries and they can buy the food from the local market and no need to import food.”
The source said that the quantity was destroyed in a legal process and nothing was looted as WFP said in its statement on Monday, adding that most of WFP’s food in the warehouses in Hajjah is spoiled.
“The residents are in dire need of the food and they have been chasing us not to destroy it as they want to eat it but this may harm them so we refuse,” the source added.
“The hungry people are willing to eat anything and they have been eating boiled leaves so they are willing to eat rotten food but it is our responsibility to protect them.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hungry-people-hajjah-raid-wfp-warehouse-rotten-food
My comment: Obviously, Houthi government authorities’ mismanagement, combined to misappropriation, bears a great part of responsibility for this situation.
And also:
(* A H)
Twelve-year-old Fatima Died of Malnutrition in Yemen
Twelve-year-old Fatima Ibrahim died of malnutrition on Tuesday after suffering acute malnutrition in Aslam area in the northeastern province of Hajja, where the militia keeps a grip on humanitarian aid and uses starvation as a bargaining chip.
The malnourished girl weighed only 10Kg (22 pounds) when she was carried into a Yemeni malnutrition clinic in 2019. She was left with bones and had “the most extreme form of malnutrition,” Makiah al-Aslami, a doctor and head of the clinic that Fatima was moved to, told Reuters on February 12, 2019.
Even though pictures of the girl were spread worldwide, the girl continued to suffer until she died yesterday.
The Iran-allied rebels have been accused of abusing food aid intended for people in areas under their control (photo)
https://republicanyemen.net/archives/22865
(** B E P)
Yemen's internet outage reveals power Sana'a still wields over Aden, Marib
“There are really just two submarine cable landing points in Yemen (Aden and Hodeidah), but each one is on a different side of the conflict.”
Nearly a month after a fiber-optic cable on the seabed of the Suez Canal was cut, knocking out 80 percent of Yemen’s internet connection, the war torn country is slowly emerging from the digital blackout and taking stock of the economic damage.
Yemen’s dominant telecom TeleYemen, controlled by the Houthis in Sana’a, announced that the so-called Falcon cable wouldn’t be repaired until late February. In the meantime, state-owned TeleYemen said it would provide “temporary emergency capacities.”
A few days later, one of those backup providers, Cogent, unexpectedly went offline. The Houthis accused Yemen’s internationally recognized government in Aden of severing the connection.
Regardless of the causes of the severed connections, the outage has paralyzed banks, money exchange shops and critical business functions across Yemen, compounding economic problems spawned by the war and creating new ones.
While Yemen is by and large a cash-based economy, access to and movement of that cash depends heavily on ATMs and money exchange shops.
Remittances, which act as a lifeline for populations throughout Yemen, particularly in besieged cities like Taiz, were suspended as financial companies were unable to transmit or verify electronic transactions.
Osama Mohammed opened an internet cafe in Sana’a after the government stopped paying his salary as a school teacher in late 2016.
“Electricity, fuel, internet, salaries, everything is cut off,” he said. “The only things that do not stop are death and the armed thieves who come to us in the name of the state every day.”
Some exchange shops managed to use expensive 3G internet on their smartphones to complete transactions, but the mobile web connection slowed to a crawl as waves of customers logged on and overwhelmed its limited capacity.
The unprecedented outage has exposed how vulnerable Yemen’s fragile internet infrastructure – providing the slowest internet connection in the world in normal times – is to large scale disruptions.
Yemen’s population of about 30 million is largely connected to the internet by four submarine cables landing at three port cities: Al-Ghaydah on the Arabian Sea near Yemen’s eastern border with Oman, Aden on the Gulf of Aden and Hodeidah on the Red Sea.
Geographical fragmentation in the five year civil war has further weakened the resilience of Yemen’s tenuous internet connection.
“There are really just two submarine cable landing points in Yemen (Aden and Hodeidah), but each one is on a different side of the conflict,” said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Oracle Internet Intelligence. “If used together, they would probably provide enough resiliency for the internet of Yemen. But right now they are not due to the partition.”
Yemen’s internationally recognized government, based in the southern port city of Aden since 2016, launched its own ISP called AdenNet in 2018 to gain independence from Yemen’s dominant, Houthi-controlled internet service provider (ISP), YemenNet, based in Sana’a. It was a forward-looking move, given that AdenNet wasn’t affected by the damaged Falcon cable in January.
But the YemenNet outage exposed how underdeveloped AdenNet remains nearly a year-and-a-half after its launch. AdenNet’s 4G coverage is confined to the small port city and has limited capacity or support for further growth. Indeed, the vast majority of Yemenis living in areas outside Houthi control still rely on Sana’a-based YemenNet due to the lack of other services.
In the immediate aftermath of YemenNet’s outage, the unexpected surge in demand for AdenNet modems revealed a thriving black market.
Prices rose to “fictional” levels, according to Omar Muhammad, with some devices selling for more than $500.
The internet outage has also exacerbated the fallout from a currency war being waged between the Aden and Sana’a branches of the Central Bank of Yemen.
The outage also raised questions about the viability of an electronic currency initiative the Houthis have launched in an effort to establish a monetary system independent of the internationally recognized government. Without reliable internet, the e-riyal system won’t work.
Yemen’s internet outage comes amid a fight for web access in Houthi-controlled areas.
In an effort to increase revenue, YemenNet raised subscription prices by as much as 130 percent in September.
https://al-masdaronline.net/national/305
(** B P)
A fight for survival in a new landscape: Can Yemen’s GPC recover after Saleh?
Since the death of its founder Ali Abdullah Saleh on Dec. 4, 2017, the General People’s Congress (GPC) — Yemen’s dominant political party for the past four decades — has faced a test in attempting to reunify its divided wings in Riyadh, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, and Sanaa amid a shifting strategic landscape. The GPC’s factions have competed over the party leadership, failed to elect a transitional leader, and exchanged accusations following the Saudi-brokered meeting in Jeddah in July 2019. Nevertheless, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh’s attempts to revive Saleh’s damaged old political vehicle continue, both politically and militarily.
At the time, many observers felt that Saleh’s death would be the end of the GPC simply because the party was a one-man show — “Saleh was everything,” Fadhl Mohammed, a professor and commentator on Yemeni affairs, said. Some, however, assumed that the party would survive because of its nationalistic values, in contrast to the Yemeni Socialist Party, the influence of which has faded considerably since the unification of the country in 1990. Regardless of whose theory holds true, local and regional developments will largely determine whether the GPC can play a significant role in the post-Saleh era.
Signs of growing power
Although the party remains fragmented, its growing prominence is based on two key factors. The first is the military. Since his departure from Sanaa amid the Houthi-Saleh divorce in 2017, the power of Brig. Gen. Tareq Saleh — the former president’s nephew and erstwhile head of his Presidential Guard — has grown substantially. In 2018, Tareq formed the Guards of the Republic with Emirati support and gradually assumed military command and control over the west coast the following year. In the hopes of liberating the port city of Hodeida, Tareq’s UAE-backed Guards of the Republic alongside the Giants Brigades and the Tehami Resistance — collectively known as the Joint Forces — launched Operation Golden Victory. The 2018 Stockholm Agreement, however, shattered the goal of liberation, at least for now, but never constrained Tareq’s role on the west coast.
The second driver of the GPC’s growing prominence is the political situation. The Gulf countries, most notably the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have not conditioned their support for the GPC on the resolution of its intra-party divisions. Rather, quite the opposite. A Yemeni political source, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested that “Abu Dhabi seeks to revive the GPC through increasing its influence on the ground and across political appointments, regardless of whether the party reconfigures its internal structure.” In April, Yemen’s parliament convened in Sayoun, Hadramawt, for the first time since the outbreak of war, electing Sultan al-Barkani of the GPC as the new speaker of the parliament after lengthy negotiations. Parliament’s revival means that the legitimacy of the Yemeni government now hinges not only on the president, but also on al-Barkani, who appears to be aligned with, if not supported by, Abu Dhabi.
Why the GPC?
Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi see considerable upside in supporting the GPC’s resurgence in the post-Saleh era, for two main reasons. First, it can help counter the influence of Yemen’s largest Islamist party, Islah, and second, it can balance against Houthi dominance in heavily-populated northern governorates, although whether such an endeavor is sustainable remains open to question – by Ibrahim Jalal
https://www.mei.edu/publications/fight-survival-new-landscape-can-yemens-gpc-recover-after-saleh
(** B K pS)
Analysis: ‘Unprecedented’ escalation east of Sana’a signals potential shift in Yemen war
Marib city, a government-controlled island of stability, sits in the crosshairs of the unfolding conflict
Throughout the latter halfof January, clashes between government and Houthi forces have raged across frontlines between Houthi-controlled Sana’a city and government-controlled Marib city. The fighting, spanning Marib and Al-Jawf governorates and the Nihm district of Sana’a, represents the most significant military escalation between government and Houthi forces since December 2017, when the killing of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh precipitated a shift in several frontlines, namely in Shabwa and Hodeidah governorates.
Unexpected and unprecedented
A ballistic missile believed to have been launched by the Houthis hit a military camp in Marib on Jan. 18, killing over 110 soldiers and wounding many more. The attack drew widespread criticism for targeting a mosque within the camp, which is a training camp for the Presidential Protection Brigade in Marib known as the Reception (Istiqbal) camp. The attack occurred during Maghreb prayer and the mosque was filled with troops. This was the Houthis’ third attack in Marib using the same type of missile within the span of a few months.
In late October, a missile hit the Ministry of Defense headquarters while Minister Mohammed Al-Maqdashi was holding a meeting with senior military commanders and a representative of the Saudi-led coalition.
The Houthis did not claim responsibility for the three attacks, but a source in the chief of staff command familiar with the investigations told Almasdar Online that all three missile attacks originated in Serwah, a district of Marib governorate just west of Marib city, which is split between Houthi and government control. An officer working in the Military Reconnaissance and Intelligence Department told Almasdar Online the type of missile used “is very accurate and its margin of error is very limited.” He said the missile type was not in the Yemeni army’s arsenal prior to the war, and that it is unlikely the Houthis would have been able to develop such technology without substantial support from Iranian experts and Hezbollah.
Unlike the first two missile attacks, immediately following the Jan. 18 strike the Houthis launched a ground offensive in Al-Jawf, closely followed by one in Nihm. The Houthis simultaneously escalated in Serwah, while continuing in Al-Jawf. Serwah and Nihm have been two of the most critical fronts over the last few years.
During the first week of fighting in Nihm, the Houthis made significant gains and took control of some mountains and hills in the district. On Jan. 24, the Defense Ministry announced a tactical withdrawal from some locations in Nihm.
Wider implications
In light of broader shifts in the geopolitical arena, not least between the United States and Iran, which could have repercussions on the bilateral talks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, determining the cause of the renewed high-intensity fighting in Yemen is important as it has implications for the larger strategy at play.
The warring parties have traded blame over who is responsible for the escalation, with the Houthis originally claiming they were merely responding to an attack by government troops. For its part, the government claimed the Houthis started the escalation in violation of the Stockholm Agreement. Military sources told Almasdar Online that the escalation was a pre-planned and well-coordinated attack by the Houthis, with the use of drones, thousands of troops, and strategic coordination between the different fronts.
A senior political affairs officer of UN Special Envoy’s office told Almasdar Online that it was not confirmed who bore responsibility for the escalation, but that it was unlikely to have been started by government forces since they would have prepared better defenses if they had been planning to launch an offensive.
There are many theories as to why the escalation occurred at this time. One is that the Houthis sought to capitalize on the government forces’ preoccupation with the STC in Shabwa and other governorates, where several brigades had been relocated from Marib. Another is that following the reduction in hostilities between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, which is believed to have resulted from the secretive bilateral talks in Muscat, the Houthis felt a need to make a show of force in order to continue fueling their war-time propaganda and avoid domestic pressure on governance and other issues in areas under their control. Finally, the Marib–Nihm–Al-Jawf region is widely perceived as being a stronghold of the Islah Party, and thus compared to other frontlines the government forces have minimal coalition backing, leaving them relatively weaker.
By the beginning of February, the fighting was ongoing in Serwah, Nihm, and parts of Al-Jawf governorate. Despite the government’s deployment of reinforcements to Nihm, the Houthis continued to hold on to most of the district, including strategic locations they overtook in the last two weeks. In Al-Jawf, the Houthis remained in an offensive position, with some advancement. The government had fortified its defenses, but further gains by the Houthis were not out of the question.
In Serwah, government forces launched a strong counter-offensive and took over a significant portion of the Haylan mountain range that spans much of the frontline in the district. However, the Houthis continued to hold Serwah town
https://al-masdaronline.net/national/308
(** B K P)
Foreign Contract Soldiers in the Gulf
Despite flagging oil revenues and the introduction of conscription in the Gulf, the use of foreign contract soldiers, sometimes called mercenaries, is here to stay.
States with ample financial resources but an insufficient number of citizens willing to enlist in their armed forces have employed foreign soldiers since time immemorial. Such non-native soldiers served in Arabia long before British involvement in the region. Aside from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies have small citizen populations that limit their ability to strengthen their defense sectors with the available pool of citizens. That pool itself is constrained because, as elsewhere in the world, prosperous young men do not find the rigors of military life appealing and have little economic incentive to join.
Employing noncitizen contract soldiers coincides with the political dynamics of the Gulf. The six states on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are monarchies where, with the partial exception of Kuwait, citizens enjoy scant political rights and have no oversight, let alone say, in military affairs. Gulf monarchies thus benefit politically from using foreign contract soldiers because these soldiers generally have no political interests to pursue and seldom participate in attempts to overthrow the regime. Furthermore, because they tend to have no social links to the native population, the state can deploy them with confidence against citizens in domestic contingencies. Foreign contract soldiers can also be dismissed with no political liability. While citizen-soldiers are expensive to maintain, especially in rich countries, contract soldiers are relatively cheap and there is no social condemnation to deal with should they become casualties in domestic or foreign deployments.
Based on these political dynamics, contract soldiers in the Gulf overwhelmingly fill enlisted positions, that is, most of them are in the lowest ranks. A far smaller proportion of them are noncommissioned officers (NCOs).
CONCLUSION
Contract soldiers and foreign advisers play an indispensable role in Gulf armed forces. They have given few headaches to the rulers of the Gulf states—although they have not been problem free, as the Pakistani contingent in Bahrain has demonstrated—and have made essential contributions to their militaries. For civil-military relations in GCC states, reliance on contract soldiers has been generally advantageous, fostering the buildup and professionalization of local armies, allowing the military leadership to shift tasks to contractors that no citizens would want to perform, and recruiting foreigners to complement the fighting forces in Yemen. The recently introduced conscription in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE is only marginally germane to the practice of hiring foreign contract soldiers: this policy was implemented primarily for socioeconomic and political, not military, reasons.
Although in recent years revenues from hydrocarbon exports in the Gulf have diminished and the states’ generous social provisions have somewhat narrowed, these developments have not significantly affected their use of foreign contract soldiers. In fact, the expanded foreign policy and military activism of some GCC states—coupled with the tremendous increase in defense budgets, weapons acquisition, and investment in indigenous defense industries—suggest that there is no reason to anticipate any major change in the employment of foreign soldiers in the region in the foreseeable future. Their long presence in Arabia is likely to continue – by Zoltan Barany
https://carnegie-mec.org/2020/02/05/foreign-contract-soldiers-in-gulf-pub-80979
(** B K P)
Tomgram: William Astore, The Self-Defeating Military
Here was the headline that recently caught my eye: “Former Top U.S. General Dunford Joining Unicef.”
Okay, you knew it was a joke immediately, right?
I’m sure you’ve already more or less guessed, but here’s the actual headline that caught my eye the other day: “Former Top U.S. General Dunford Joining Lockheed Martin’s Board.”
The Art of the Deal, Pentagon-Style: Wars Without Victories, Weapons Without End
The expression “self-licking ice cream cone” was first used in 1992 to describe a hidebound bureaucracy at NASA. Yet, as an image, it’s even more apt for America’s military-industrial complex, an institution far vaster than NASA and thoroughly dedicated to working for its own perpetuation and little else.
Thinking about that led me to another phrase based on America’s seemingly endless string of victory-less wars: the self-defeating military. The U.S., after all, hasn’t won a major conflict since World War II
Americans profess to love “their” troops, but what are they getting in return for all that affection (and money)? Very little, it seems. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying the slightest attention, since the present military establishment has been designed less to protect this country than to protect itself, its privileges, and its power. That rarely discussed reality has, in turn, contributed to practices and mindsets that make it a force truly effective at only one thing: defeating any conceivable enemy in Washington as it continues to win massive budgets and the cultural authority to match. That it loses most everywhere else is, it seems, just part of the bargain.
The list of recent debacles should be as obvious as it is alarming: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen (and points around and in between). And even if it’s a reality rarely focused on in the mainstream media, none of this has been a secret to the senior officers who run that military. Look at the Pentagon Papers from the Vietnam War era or the Afghanistan Papers recently revealed by the Washington Post. In both cases, prominent U.S. military leaders admitted to fundamental flaws in their war-making practices, including the lack of a coherent strategy, a thorough misunderstanding of the nature and skills of their enemies, and the total absence of any real progress in achieving victory, no matter the cost.
Of course, such honest appraisals of this country’s actual war-making prowess were made in secret, while military spokespeople and American commanders laid down a public smokescreen to hide the worst aspects of those wars from the American people. As they talked grimly (and secretly) among themselves about losing, they spoke enthusiastically (and openly) to Congress and the public about winning. In case you hadn’t noticed, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq that military was, year after endless year, making “progress” and “turning corners.” Such “happy talk” (a mixture of lies and self-deception) may have served to keep the money flowing and weapons sales booming, but it also kept the body bags coming in (and civilians dying in distant lands) -- and for nothing, or at least nothing by any reasonable definition of “national security.”
Curiously, despite the obvious disparity between the military’s lies and reality, the American people, or at least their representatives in Congress, have largely bought those lies in bulk and at astronomical prices. Yet this country’s refusal to face the facts of defeat has only ensured ever more disastrous military interventions. The result: a self-defeating military, engorged with money, lurching toward yet more defeats even as it looks over its shoulder at an increasingly falsified past.
In short, no matter how much money the Trump administration and Congress throw at the Pentagon, it’s a guarantee that the military high command will only complain that more is needed, including for nuclear weapons to the tune of possibly $1.7 trillion over 30 years. But doubling down on more of the same, after a record 75 years of non-victories (not to speak of outright losses), is more than stubbornness, more than grift. It’s obdurate stupidity.
Why, then, does it persist? The answer would have to be because this country doesn’t hold its failing military leaders accountable. Instead, it applauds them and promotes them, rewarding them when they retire with six-figure pensions, often augmented by cushy jobs with major defense contractors.
Given such a system, why should America’s generals and admirals speak truth to power? They are power and they’ll keep harsh and unflattering truths to themselves, thank you very much, unless they’re leaked by heroes like Daniel Ellsberg during the Vietnam War and Chelsea Manning during the Iraq War.
Yet even as America’s wars sink into Vietnam-style quagmires, the money keeps flowing, especially to high-cost weapons programs.
What does this all mean? One obvious answer would be: the only truly winning battles for the Pentagon are the ones for our taxpayer dollars.
For the Pentagon, the future is the past and the past, the future. Why should military leaders have to think when the president and Congress keep rewarding them for lies and failures of every sort?
Trump believes America doesn’t win anymore because we're not ruthless enough. Take the oil, dammit! The real reason: because America’s wars are unwinnable from the git-go (something the last 18 years should have proved in no uncertain way) and -- irony of all ironies -- completely unnecessary from the standpoint of true national defense. There is no way for the U.S. military to win “hearts and minds” across the Greater Middle East and Africa with salvos of Hellfire missiles. In fact, there’s only one way to “win” such wars: end them. And there’s only one way to keep winning: by avoiding future ones.
With a system that couldn’t work better (in Washington), America’s military refuses to admit this.
Small wonder America’s leader is upset. For when it comes to the military-industrial complex and its power and prerogatives, even Trump has met his match. He’s been out-conned. And if the rest of us remain silent on the subject, then so have we –– by William Astore
cp1b Am wichtigsten: Kampf um Hodeidah / Most important: Hodeidah battle
(A K pH)
Verletzung des Waffenstillstands der Hodeidah geht weiter
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3087016.htm
(A K pH)
US-Saudi Aggression’s Daily Update for Wednesday, February 5th, 2020
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=11091
(A K pS)
Dozens of Houthis killed and injured in Hodeidah
http://en.adenpress.news/news/18375
(A K pS)
Joint forces foil Houthi attack in Hodeidah
http://en.adenpress.news/news/18373
(A K pH)
Ein Spionageflugzeug der Aggressionstruppen wurde in Hodeidah abgeschossen
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3086910.htm
(A K pH)
Spy plane of aggression forces shot down in Hodeidah
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3086919.htm
and also https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=11089
(A K pH)
US- Saudi Aggression Continues to Commit Crimes against Yemeni People
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=11076
(A K pH)
Controlling Hostile Spy Drone in Ad-Durayhimi, Hodeidah
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=11077
(A K pH)
Aggressionskräfte verletzen weiterhin das Hodeidah-Abkommen
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3086899.htm
(A K pH)
Ein Mädchen getötet, ein weiteres und eine Frau verwundet in 2 Bombendexplosion in Hodeidah und Saada
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3086829.htm
Fotos: https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/2222869678009014
(A K pH)
Al-Hodeidah: A child's child was martyred and a woman was seriously wounded after a bomb explosion from the remnants of the aggression yesterday, east of Hayes district (photos)
https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/2222869678009014
(A K pS)
Al-Mahjami: Houthis secretly excavate largest tunnel in Hodeidah
http://en.adenpress.news/news/18368
(A K pS)
Film: Houthi militia bombing in Al-Muteena is a crime that destroyed homes and killed humans and animals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ytERpdCik
(A K pS)
Film: Houthi infiltrations in the city of Hodeidah and Al-Tahita and the militias incurred losses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjS3zdZgGCQ
(*B K P)
Nach den Regeln des Deutschen
Hodeidah, Jemen, allein auf einem Schiff: Fregattenkapitän Sebastian H. berichtet von seinem Ein-Mann-Einsatz auf der arabischen Halbinsel.
Die Bundeswehr ist mit genau einem Mann im Jemen-Konflikt im Einsatz. Bis Ende November war diese Person Fregattenkapitän Sebastian H., 45 Jahre alt
Als der Soldat seinen Job auf dem Schiff begann, registrierten die UN in der Provinz jede Woche 150 Verstöße gegen die Waffenruhe.
Alle vier Wochen seien die Konfliktparteien zu Gesprächen zusammengekommen. Dem deutschen Offizier fiel auf, dass die Toten und Verletzten auf beiden Seiten nicht gleichgültig hingenommen wurden. Die Generäle hätten ihr Bedauern zum Ausdruck gebracht, wenn Ambulanzen oder Laster, die Lebensmittel brachten, beschossen wurden. Wie sich in den Gesprächen herausstellte, geschah dies mitunter versehentlich, weil die Nerven blank lagen oder die Kommunikation nicht funktionierte. Für den Marineoffizier stellte sich die Lage so dar: "Beide Seiten sind bemüht, keine Gräueltaten zu verüben." Hinzu kam, dass sich führende Offiziere der beiden Konfliktparteien kennen, weil sie früher, vor Ausbruch des Bürgerkrieges, zusammen in einer Armee gedient haben. "Ich habe Generäle erlebt, die sich vertrauen."
So sei es immerhin möglich gewesen, von September 2019 an jeweils Verbindungsoffiziere der Konfliktparteien dauerhaft auf der Antarctic Dream einzuquartieren. Sie sollten sich direkt austauschen und eingreifen, bevor die Lage eskaliert. Es war H.s Aufgabe, beide Seiten zusammenzubringen – von Mike Szymanski
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bundeswehr-einsaetze-nach-den-regeln-des-deutschen-1.4782716
Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzTpK5D7BgI
(A K pS)
A landmine planted by #Houthi rebels went off killing fourteen-year-old Abdo Ali Salem in Almasana zone south the port city of #Hodeidah.
https://twitter.com/RepYemenEnglish/status/1224382988009582594
(A K pS)
Film: A child and an elderly woman are killed by Houthi bombing of Al-Muteena, Hodeidah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdGWxA-GfUU
and
Film: The death of a woman and a child, and the injury of two other children, by bombing the Houthi militia on the homes of citizens in Al-Muteena area
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfrZq-xFoe8
cp2 Allgemein / General
(* A K P)
Interactive Map of Yemen War
(* A K)
MILITARY SITUATION IN YEMEN ON FEBRUARY 5, 2020 (MAP UPDATE)
https://southfront.org/military-situation-in-yemen-on-february-5-2020-map-update/
(* B K P)
Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s rebels were making rare progress in peace talks. Then new violence flared.
Months of talks between Saudi Arabia and an Iranian-allied rebel group in Yemen have led to rare goodwill gestures between the bitter battlefield adversaries and presented what Western diplomats hope might be a long-awaited opportunity to resolve Yemen's nearly five-year war.
But a fresh outbreak of violence in Yemen over the past few weeks has imperiled those talks, underscoring the challenge of defusing long-standing battlefield enmities in a war fueled by outside powers.
After the strikes, the Houthis said they would halt attacks on Saudi Arabia, and in the months that followed, violence in Yemen fell to some of its lowest levels in years.
Since then, the Houthis and the Saudi-led military coalition have taken several confidence-building measures, including prisoner exchanges and a Saudi decision to allow medical evacuation flights from the Houthi-controlled airport in Yemen’s capital.
But Saudi ambitions to wind down the conflict have been dealt a setback since mid-January as parts of Yemen have descended into some of the worst clashes in years, with a resumption of Saudi airstrikes and Houthi missile attacks in fighting that has killed hundreds of people.
“The swing from stalemate and de-escalation to shooting war was sudden,” the International Crisis Group wrote in a recent briefing on the violence, which escalated after a missile struck a military camp in Marib province, killing more than 100 Saudi-backed Yemeni soldiers. No one asserted responsibility for the attack.
“For now, neither the Houthis nor the Saudis wish to abandon the talks, but the de-escalation process is under severe strain,” the group wrote.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to engage in negotiations with the Houthis — a movement it derided for years as both a “terrorist” entity and an Iranian proxy force — had amounted to an acknowledgment by the kingdom that it could not prevail militarily and was being harmed by international criticism, including from the U.S. Congress, over its intervention, analysts said.
Saudi Arabia also sought to tamp down its conflict with Iran in the aftermath of the strikes on the oil facilities, including by reaching out to Tehran through intermediaries.
Houthi leaders had long expressed a desire for negotiations, but progress occurred only after they announced a halt to the attacks on Saudi Arabia. This concession reflected their battlefield strength as well as their possible discomfort at being dragged further into the regional conflict between Iran and the United States, analysts said.
It was only after an event unrelated to the war — the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul — that the Saudis began to seriously reconsider their involvement in Yemen, according to Abdulghani Al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, a Beirut-based think tank.
“The world turned against them. There was a lot of international pressure to stop the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and they felt that they had to give in,” he said.
(* B K P)
Yemen: Where To Begin
Back in Saudi Arabia the government has allowed free discussion about what to do with the situation in Yemen. In other words, the Saudis are seriously considering abandoning Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, the last (in 2012) elected president of Yemen. Hadi presides over a government that controls little actual territory in Yemen.
The Shia and many other Yemenis insist that the 2012 elections to select a successor to unpopular “president-for-life” Ali Abdullah Saleh were unfair. International observers declared the elections fair, at least by Yemeni standards. Saleh was believed to want more amnesty guarantees so he could leave the country without fear of someone prosecuting him. Meanwhile, the Sunni majority in Yemen opposes autonomy or weapons for the Shia up north because those two things have made the Shia tribes a constant source of trouble for centuries. The Sunnis want the man they back (Hadi) recognized as the ruler of all of Yemen
Then there is the problem of there not being just one problem (the Shia rebellion) in Yemen. The reality is that there are at least five different wars going on. Ending one or more of these wars will not necessarily stop the others. The many wars include: []…]
Failed State
The Saudis have no problem with Yemen fragmenting. Many Yemenis insist that the country is not "becoming" a failed state because modern Yemen has always been a failed state. The problems of tribalism, religious radicalism and corruption make it impossible for Yemen to function as a country.
The continued popularity of dividing the country in two is partly about what little oil Yemen has, as it is in the south and that’s where the Sunni separatists are. Islamic terrorists (mainly AQAP) are also in the south and willing to help the separatists.
The corruption and lack of unity are related to the fact that Yemen has always been a region, not a country. Like most of the rest of the Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa (northeast Africa) region, the normal form of government, until the last century or so, were wealthier coastal city-states, nervously coexisting with interior tribes that got by on herding or farming (or a little of both). This whole "nation" idea is still looked on with some suspicion by many in the region. This is why the most common forms of government are the more familiar ones of antiquity (kingdom, emirate or modern variation in the form of a hereditary dictatorship.) Yemen is still all about the tribes. The national government is a bunch of guys who deal with foreigners and try to maintain peace among the tribes. Controlling the national government is a source of much wealth, as officials can steal part of the foreign aid and taxes (mostly on imports or royalties from oil).
This lack of nationalism means a lack of cooperation or willingness to act in the public interest.
The concept of a unified Yemen was largely created by Cold War politics and how Britain handled a threat to their seaborne trade in the early 19th century. That was when Britain took control of Aden.
There is resistance to admitting that Yemen is a failed state, one of those areas (like Somalia and Afghanistan) that were never united for long and are basically several smaller entities that are not really interested in unity with their neighbors who are supposed to be their countrymen. And then there is the corruption problem.
Everything Is For Sale
Yemen has long been recognized as one of the most corrupt places on the planet. The extent of this corruption can be seen in the international surveys of nations to determine who is clean and who is corrupt.
https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/yemen/20200205.aspx = http://dehai.org/dehai/dehai-news/350784
My comment: A biased, but interesting background article.
(B P)
A united response to Trump’s Mideast deal in a divided Yemen
Trump’s peace proposal is incapable of resolving such historical complexities. Instead, the proposal has sent waves of widespread resentment across the Muslim and Arab world.
This peace proposal is a provocative step, provoking ire in Palestine and beyond. Among the countries reacting to the plan is Yemen. Even in the midst of a civil war, political schisms and economic woes, Yemenis have responded to Trump's plan.
Thousands of people in Houthi-controlled Sanaa and Saada protested Jan. 31 against Trump's Middle East peace plan. The protesters raised Palestinian flags and chanted slogans against the United States and Israel.
Senior Houthi officials delivered remarks at the protest in Sanaa, stating that support for Palestine is a sacred duty.
Although the Houthis and the internationally recognized government have been locked in deadly fighting since 2015, they share similar stances on the US plan.
A statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry said Yemen’s support to Palestine is unchanging. The ministry tweeted: “Our position in the Republic of Yemen is consistent, firm and supportive of the Palestinian cause and the inalienable rights of the brotherly Palestinian people.“
(* B K P)
Atrocity Alert No. 189: Yemen, Central African Republic and Iraq
Renewed airstrikes threaten civilians in Yemen
Despite months of relative calm in Yemen, airstrikes and intense fighting around Sana’a have dramatically escalated over the past two weeks, causing the displacement of thousands of civilians. Since 21 January the international coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has increased its aerial bombardments in the districts of Nehm and al-Jawf as well as in Marib governorate, while fighting between Houthi forces and troops loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi has also intensified. Fighting also increased in Taiz Governorate, where mortars struck a busy market on 27 January, killing and wounding several civilians.
The escalation in violence should refocus the attention of the UNSC and the entire international community on the importance of the protection of civilians and halting ongoing violations of international law in Yemen.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/atrocity-alert-no-189-yemen-central-african-republic-and-iraq
(* B H K P)
Audio: Jemen: Wie der Krieg die Gesellschaft verändert
Der Krieg im Jemen hat enormes Leid über das Land gebracht. Millionen Menschen sind auf Nothilfe angewiesen. Aber der Krieg verändert auch die Gesellschaft, unter anderem die Stellung der Frau. Das beobachten ein Aktivist und eine Aktivistin aus der jemenitischen Zivilgesellschaft.
https://www.srf.ch/play/radio/echo-der-zeit/audio/jemen-wie-der-krieg-die-gesellschaft-veraendert
(* B K P)
In praise of Yemen’s dignity
Today, the world optimistically embraces the steps being taken toward peace in the Middle East. It is, however, difficult to understand what has previously prevented this change. It is hard to affirm that peaceful roads have been tried and exhausted before force has been used. While the Houthis have shown openness to dialogue — more than once participating in the 2013 Yemeni National Dialogue Conference or complying with the 2018 Stockholm agreement — Saudi Arabia has constantly insisted on defeating the Houthis rather than including them in a possible consensus. For instance, the Saudis broke the agreed cease-fire in Hodeida after peace talks in Sweden in 2018.
So what caused Riyadh to start considering the Houthis demands? Reaching the level of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the population in need of aid and 14 million people at risk of starvation, was not enough. Neither was the targeting of civilians and human rights violations or the massive proliferation of terrorist attacks. No. It took Saudi Arabia seeing their fossil fuel-based affluence threatened and the vulnerability of its source revealed — after the Houthi attack on Saudi Aramco oil facilities — to cause military attacks to decrease and catalyze the negotiation process.
At this point, we in the international community can only wait to see the outcome of these negotiations.
https://www.dailycal.org/2020/02/04/in-praise-of-yemens-dignity/
(* A P)
Saudi newspaper article suggests abandoning the Hadi government
No one previously had raised the issue of supporting a government which probably has limited support within the country.
An article in the Saudi newspaper Okaz by Hammoud Taleb has brought up the subject of Saudi support for Hadi for the first time. Okaz asks whether everyone would be better off if the Hadi government were replaced. No one even pointed out that Hadi's electoral mandate had run out years ago.
The Saudi government would be unlikely to allow such an article without tacitly approving it. Taleb must have felt safe in attaching his name to the article.
Taleb argues that the Hadi government is a burden both on Yemen and the Saudi invading coalition that includes the UAE. Taleb says that “it is absurd to rely on its members, who are distributed between capitals, and conspire against the alliance from inside their luxury hotels.” Much of the Hadi leadership remains in Saudi Arabia and some work within rival factions. The article could be a test balloon by the Saudi government. It shows at least, that such a move might be under consideration.
The Saudis may be losing patience with the Hadi government
The Saudi's are not allowing some members of the Hadi government out of Riyadh where they are in exile. Some have even described Hadi himself as effectively under house arrest at times. No doubt the Saudis are angry that the Hadi government has undermined attempts at negotiation. In particular the Hadi government baulked at having southern separatists become part of the Hadi government after the Saudis made a deal with their coalition partner the UAE and the Southern Transitional Council(STC).
A possible scenario
The Saudis have already settled with the STC. The Saudis may be able to negotiate with the Houthi's to leave them in control of the northern part of Yemen with the STC along with some members of the Hadi government to take control of the southern remainder of Yemen. Those members of the Hadi government which did not accede to such a solution would be left virtually powerless. The UAE could very well be involved in such a settlement. It remains to be seen whether the Houthis would agree to such a solution but they are dependent to some extent on the support of Iran and Iran may see such an agreement as lowering tensions in the region. The Saudis may find this plan better than continuing in a so far fruitless attempt to reinstall a dubious ruler. – by Ken Hanly
relying on https://news.antiwar.com/2020/02/03/saudi-newspaper-calls-for-replacing-yemens-hadi-government/
and this is Taleb’s article:
(* A P)
Is it possible to save Yemen with such a government ?!
The legitimate Yemeni government residing abroad, day after day, faces more resentment because of its conditions and practices, some mistakes, in addition to the different visions, attitudes, and loyalties of its members divided into different blocs of goals, and the goal that must be agreed upon and sought by all, and the worst and perhaps most dangerous is what seemed to become more clear From the bias of some members of this government to the side of the main opponent, the Houthi group, and the inclusion of others in the media and propaganda to the axis against the Arab coalition led by the Kingdom, and the rest of the suspicious silence regarding this dangerous situation on Yemen and the mission of the Arab coalition.
There are many events and attitudes that confirmed the aforementioned, but what happened recently does not indicate that some members of this government deserve the great support that they receive, financially, militarily and diplomatically from the Arab coalition, and the Kingdom in particular.
When an official in the site of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior accuses the Arab alliance regarding the conduct of the military battles and targeting the camp of the reception camp in Marib Governorate, and from media platforms hostile to the Kingdom such as Al-Jazeera, then the government does not interact with such statements with more than a brief statement to an official source “surprising” what Al-Mayesri said, this is a slackness and negligence that puts this government in the category of accusing its incompetence and fragmentation, so that some of its members work against Yemen and against the Arab project to rescue it from the Iranian ambitions carried out by its agents inside.
Al-Misiri is not alone in adopting the agenda of the attack on the coalition and the kingdom, but there is another minister who appeared with him on the same disk [who told the same things] , and media advisers in the government, who appeared a lot in the media with a skeptical speech, and sometimes accusative, of the alliance's mission. As for some of the Islah Party infiltrated cadres in the government, there is no need to provide more evidence of their duplication and complicity with the Houthis after the recent statements of some of the group's officials. Now, after some members of this government have proven that they are a burden on the just cause of Yemen and its supporters, especially accomplices to the Qatari-Turkish axis, and others to the Iranian Houthi axis. Here it becomes in vain to count on such people who are distributed between capitals, and conspire against Yemen and the alliance from their luxury hotels, receive salaries paid to them, while the Yemeni citizen suffers from the types of threat. Look for an alternative solution to this government that is draining Yemen and colluding with its enemies and the enemies of the coalition.
https://www.okaz.com.sa/articles/authors/2008089
(A P)
After 10yrs of reporting on Yemen this kind of thing from US media still never ceases to amaze. A background graf on previous attempt to kill/capture AQAP’s al-Raymi, notes death of Navy SEAL while completely omitting US killing dozens of civilians including at least 10 children. (text in image)
https://twitter.com/ionacraig/status/1224541548341288960
This kind of reporting epitomises the American view and value of Yemeni lives as being unimportant, worthless. We as journalists are shaping a narrative used by politicians that makes it perfectly okay to keep killing the never mentioned. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
Should also add that @ForeignPolicy isn’t alone in this. @nytimes did exactly the same
https://twitter.com/ionacraig/status/1224541837496668161
(* B K)
YEMEN'S VIOLENCE ESCALATES AGAIN
Violence rapidly spread elsewhere, including outside the capital city Sanaa. Now, government forces have re-advanced on Sanaa and residents in the capital report that Saudi-led war planes have recommenced some operations on the Houthi-controlled city following the latest escalation.
Even in the western coastal Hodeidah governorate, ongoing violence between Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi Government-aligned and Houthi forces have dashed UN-sponsored peace talks in Stockholm of December 2018, which aimed to end fighting around the vital port city through which most of Yemen’s aid flows.
“Clashes have erupted again on the outskirts of the city and there is daily suffering as a result of it,” Manel, an east Hodeidah resident, told Byline Times.
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/02/04/yemens-violence-escalates-again-as-peace-efforts-fail/
cp2a Saudische Blockade / Saudi blockade
(* A K P)
US-Saudi Aggression Navy Prevents Arrival of 205,000 Tons of Food, Oil to Yemen
The coalition of aggression continues maritime piracy on 10 oil and food ships and prevents the arrival of nearly 205,000 tons to Hodeidah port, an official source in the port stated on Tuesday.
The source said in a press statement that the coalition navy is still holding 10 ships loaded with oil and food derivatives in front of the Jizan port.
He stressed that the detained ships carry more than 189 thousand tons of gasoline and diesel, 8518 tons of gas and 7,312 tons of flour.
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=11080
(A K P)
Oil company condemns UN silence towards aggression violations against oil ships
A protest rally was staged by dozens of oil company employees on Tuesday to condemn the United Nations' silence towards Saudi-led coalition violation against oil tankers.
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3086868.htm
(* A K P)
UN Informs [Sanaa] Health Ministry of Only 4 Flights Carrying 30 Patients on Non-medically Equipped Planes
The Director General of Air Transport, Dr. Mazen Ghanem, called on the United Nations to abide by its pledges to launch the Humanitarian Medical Air Bridge to save the thousands of patients stuck in Sana'a due to the closure of Sana'a International Airport by the forces of aggression. Dr. Ghanem told to Almasirah TV that the talk about the initiating of the Medical Air Bridge is far from the truth. It's a media play and meant to distract the world from the suffering of thousands of patients, and a clear evasion from the United Nations and the World Health Organization in fulfilling its pledges.
He pointed out that the Air Bridge is a series of continuous and repeated flights via specialized planes to transport patients, while the United Nations informed authorities of only 4 flights carrying 30 patients on private plane, used to transport the UN envoy, not patients.
He emphasized that the United Nations has not established a plan to transfer the remaining 32,000, registered patients, and there are approximately 300,000 patients awaiting the start of flights. He pointed out that the siege and preventing the Yemeni People from traveling is a war crime and genocide against the patients.
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=11075
(A K P)
For a while, Sanaa airport became too closely linked to the issue of providing a humanitarian corridor for #Taiz. The life is being choked out of Taiz and Houthis are not showing any good faith in that city. Sanaa airport is now open, but Taiz is still under siege;
Sanaa airport was a contentious issue during the Stockholm agreement. Houthis flat out refused to open it as a domestic airport w/ flights to Sayoun or Aden and wanted it as an international flight. Coalition agreeing to this now means only two things:
https://twitter.com/YemeniFatima/status/1224364729298292741
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
Siehe / Look at cp1
(B H P)
Film by World Bank: Yemen: Fighting a Full Blown Famine
To minimize the impact of war of Yemenis and prevent a full blown famine, the World Bank and UNDP are working together with national entities to provide living income and vital services. The Emergency Crisis Response Project in Yemen has provided economic stimuli in the form of large cash-for-work projects, support to small businesses, and labor-intensive repairs of socio-economic assets, benefiting vulnerable local households and communities across the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ekctlDPhM
(* B H P)
Citizens offer their organs for sale to buy food
The bad living standards have made some Yemenis to think for selling their organs to pay their debts amidst recession that made several firms to shut down.
Human rights reports say that citizens in Yemen particularly in Sana’a resort to trade one of the kidneys as a solution to cover their basic needs.
Those reports cited advertisements of human organs on the social media networks by some citizens as evidence on the existence of the phenomenon.
Rafeef, a female human rights activist said in a conversation with the Alsahwa Net that she remembers that some time ago, one woman asked her to run a short post for her on Twitter and Facebook to advertise her interest on selling one of her kidneys to spend money on her family’s expenses.
She said that she saw similar cases during the past two years despite serious health and legal consequences to the organs trade.
“But, they do not care anymore to consequences as opportunities ran out,” she said.
Over 2,700 cases of human organs sales were reported between 2014 to 2018 and majority of those cases took place in Sana’a alone, according to Fayz Al-Salmi, a human rights activist.
However, this figure needs more investigation as the real number is much bigger because sales operations are handled confidentially, Al-Salmi noted.
A security source in Sana’a said that the Houthis militia encourages the trade in human organs and some senior Houthis leaders manage organized networks on the organ trade.
“I can say that they [Houthis officials] generate good money out of the organ trade and that is why they [the Houthis] create policies that aggravate hunger and worsen living standards,” the source said.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-37715
My comment: This happens all over Yemen. This report is by a pro-Islah Party news site; therefor, an anti-Houthi propaganda spin is to be found here.
(B H)
JAMILA'S PERSONAL MESSAGE
Ahmad Algohbary is well known for helping save severely malnourished children in Yemen.
But now Ahmad has a challenge of his own. He is suffering from a condition called keratoconus which is making it increasingly difficult for Ahmad to see, causing him blurred and double vision as well as sensitivity to light.
One year ago Ahmad underwent a procedure called 'cross-linking' to treat his condition, but this was unsuccessful and since then his eyesight has deteriorated further.
Now Ahmad struggles to use Twitter which has been his way of communicating with the world about his aid work in Yemen.
Ahmad has now travelled to Barcelona to receive treatment at the IMO hospital, which has an excellent reputation for treating eye con
https://www.totalgiving.co.uk/mypage/ahmad
(B H)
National Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response: NFDHR provides health services in 3 governorates to over 245,000 beneficiaries in 2019
The National Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response (NFDHR) provided health services to more than 245,000 beneficiaries throughout 2019 in the governorates of Al Bayda, Hajjah and Al Hudaydah.
According to NFDHR’s Health and Nutrition Program statistics, a total of 245,660 people from displaced and host communities in the targeted areas received free health services. This included 37,449 men, 76,626 women, 66,668 boys and 64,917 girls.
NFDHR implemented 5 health projects during the past year in those governorates thanks to funding from UNICEF, the Yemen Humanitarian Fund (YHF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). These projects were mainly aimed at providing primary health care services and strengthening the health system through providing operational support, rehabilitating health facilities and hospitals, and providing incentives for health workers.
(B H)
National Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response: NFDHr Activities January 2020
The completion of the works to rehabilitate Ar-Rumiya water project, installation of the solar energy system, and the start of water pumping to 3300 beneficiaries in As-Sawma’ah District, Al-Bayda Governorate.
The completion of the works to rehabilitate Nawfan water project, installation of the solar energy system, and the start of water pumping to 2200 beneficiaries in Walad Rabi’e District, Al-Bayda Governorate.
Emergency Food assistance distributed to 125,845 IDPs and conflict-affected households in Ibb, Al-Bayda, Al-Hodeidah, Hajjah, Marib, Amran and Al-Jawf Governorates.
NFDHR, with the participation of 140 displaced people, implemented a large-scale hygiene campaign in the IDPs’ camps for the displaced people in Sharqi and Gharbi Al-Khamissin sub-districts, Khayran Al Muharraq District, Hajjah Governorate.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/nfdhr-activities-january-2020
(A H)
Film: I met a lot of children in a very bad healthy case on Aslam area, suffering and tragic stories that broken hearts, Baby Amira one of these children. Put your hands on our hands to alleviate their suffering http://gofundme.com/food-and-medicine-for-yemen
https://twitter.com/ghalebalsudmy/status/1224708387046293504
(B H)
WFP Yemen Situation Report #12, December 2019
WFP provided general food assistance to 12.7 million Yemeni people in December.
Milling operations for WFP wheat at the Red Sea Mills commenced on 12 December.
WFP requires USD 665 million to continue operations unimpeded over the next six months (February 2020 – July 2020).
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/wfp-yemen-situation-report-12-december-2019
(B H)
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: Yemen Humanitarian Issue 1/19 December 2019 - 31 January 2020
Fighting in Sana’a, Marib and Al Jawf governorates displaces 3,825 families in January
Emergency Relief Coordinator condemns December attacks on NGOs in Al Dhale’e that led to the temporary suspension of humanitarian activities
Civilian casualties fall in the year since the Stockholm Agreement
Humanitarians respond to changing patterns of displacement
Clusters develop a coordinated response to increasing number of eviction threats
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-issue-119-december-2019-31-january-2020
(* B H)
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, CCCM Cluster, Shelter Cluster: Republic of Yemen: Shelter/NFIs Fact Sheet, December 2019
The continuation of the conflict prevented the majority of the conflict-affected population from recovering their livelihoods, and that more people have by now exhausted their financial savings and are not able to prepare adequately for the winter season. IDPs, in particular, their needs are heightened in the winter as the lack of basic NFIs, adequate shelter, jobs and other essential needs aggravate their already dire conditions and puts them in further risk of deteriorating their wellbeing and triggering deseases and morbidity which may sometimes lead to mortality.
Shelter Cluster provided assistance to xxx people during the fourth quarter of 2019, 215,000 assisted with NFIs, 52,000 assisted with Emergency Shelter, 1,600 living in damaged houses supported with rehabilitation cash grants, 190,000 assisted with cash assistance for rental subsidies, 2,100 people supported with cash assistance to reconstruct their damaged and 11,000 people assisted with the construction or rehabilitation of transitional shelters.
Efforts to scale up the provision of winterization support succeed to reach 163,228 people.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/republic-yemen-shelternfis-fact-sheet-december-2019
cp4 Flüchtlinge / Refugees
(B H)
UN High Commissioner for Refugees: Yemen Fact Sheet, August - December 2019
According to IOM, there are now more than 66,499 families displaced since the beginning of 2019, with the majority in Hajjah, Hudaydah and Al Dhale’e Governorates. It is estimated that more than oneeighth of the 30.5 M Yemeni population are IDPs. The fighting in Taizz and Al Dhale’e Governorates has been particularly tense, forcing more than 18,000 families to flee, which is close to one-third of the total number of newly displaced this year.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-fact-sheet-august-december-2019
(B H)
Photos: Displaced people seen in Razih district, Yemen
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/05/c_138757925_2.htm
(* A H K)
UN: More than 3,800 families displaced as fighting escalates in Nihm, Marib and Al-Jawf
Up to 15,500 households could be affected if fighting continues, the UN said
More than 3,800 families have been displaced as fighting intensifies between the Houthis and Yemeni army forces in Sana’a, Al-Jawf and Marib governorates in the past two weeks, according to a recent report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
Covering the period from Jan. 19 to Feb. 2, the report estimated a total of 3,825 families were displaced in Nihm district in eastern Sana'a governorate, Sirwah district in Marib governorate, and Al-Mutoon in Al-Jawf governorate, after a Houthi ballistic missile struck the Reception military camp in Marib on Jan. 18, killing more than 110 government soldiers.
There were no civilian casualties in an attack on the Al-Khaneq camp for internally displaced people in Marib’s Majzar district, which was shelled on Jan. 26, forcing 1,550 families to leave the camp for Marib’s Medghal district. Another 500 families were displaced inside Nihm, and 400 families were forced to move in Al-Jawf governorate.
Another 180 displaced families were registered in Bani Hushaysh district, and 100 families were displaced from Sirwah district in Marib to Khawlan district in Sana'a.
Many of those fleeing frontline areas are being displaced for the second time and their financial resources have depleted, according to the report. The conflict refugees live in dire conditions on the streets or in crowded areas and are in urgent need of emergency shelter and non-food items including tents, and warm items for winter.
The UNOCHA report warned that if hostilities continued to increase, further displacements are likely in Al-Hazm, Nihm, Majzar, Sirwah, and Medghal districts, and could affect up to 15,500 households.
https://al-masdaronline.net/national/310
while Saudi propaganda blames just the Houthis:
https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2116336/yemen-houthi-escalations-displace-over-3800
My comment: The pro-Saudi militia/army came for traffic regulation??
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
Siehe / Look at cp1
( AP)
Ankündigung der Union der jemenitischen Studenten im Iran
In Teheran fand im Beisein von Vertretern der jemenitischen Botschaft eine Gründungs- und Bekanntmachungszeremonie für die jemenitische Studentenvereinigung im Iran statt.
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3087014.htm
(* A P)
Organized Houthi Looting of State Lands in Ibb, Yemen
Local Yemeni sources in Ibb Governorate (south of Sanaa) have reported increased competition between Houthi militia leaders when it comes to the robbery of state lands and properties through armed gangs.
At the beginning of 2019, Houthi militias, according to sources, expanded their systematic campaign to seize remaining private and public real-estate properties in the governorate of Ibb and the rest of its districts.
Houthis’ looting has affected hundreds of land plots. Mountains, cemeteries, and public parks were not spared.
Most recently, Houthi militias seized a land plot that was allotted for a future zoo project.
Sources spoke of Houthis selling lands they seized to investors that are closely affiliated with the Iran-backed militia. The seizures were authorized by the Houthi-appointed governor of Ibb, Abdulwahad Salah.
Houthis have forced Salah to accept their taking of the land in exchange for remaining governor. This came after rumors spread of the group working to force Salah’s resignation.
https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2118016/organized-houthi-looting-state-lands-ibb-yemen = http://en.adenpress.news/news/18377
My comment: By a Saudi news site, to be read with care regarding the propaganda spin..
(* A K P)
Funeral held for 200 Houthis militants in one week
A funeral of over 224 Houthis fighters among them 80 Houthis leaders took place in the past week in Sana’a, according to lists of recently dead militants who were killed in Nehm, east of Sana’a.
Funeral of 24 of the dead militants was held on Sunday alone, in Sana’a.
Hospitals received bodies of 32 militants who mostly come from districts of Sana’a and few number from Sa’ada, Hajja and Taiz.
Public hospitals in Sana’a including the Kuwait Hospital, the Military Hospital and the Police Hospital are on emergency and stopped taking civilian patients because medical wards are already full of the Houthis-wounded fighters, a source in Sana’a said.
“This deprives the civilians from medical care access in the public hospitals,” the source said.
He added that the Houthis militia are on crisis because the tribes accuse the Houthis officials of sending their sons to loosing battles.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-37716
(B P)
In control of Yemen's internet, Shia extremists conceal their atrocities
As an international submarine cable suffered a break on January 9 and Yemen was left with only 80% drop in internet capacity, the militia reserved the remaining 20% to the capital Sana'a which they control and knocked the government-held parts of Yemen offline and unable to communicate with the outside world.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-37721
(A P)
19 Saudi aggression coalition-deceived men freed in Ibb
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3086972.htm
(* B E P)
The Yemeni Marib Press also published a UN report on Sunday about money leader of the Houthis Abdel-Malek Al-Houthi was investing in Iranian banks.
The report of a UN Security Council expert team said Al-Houthi had invested more than $30 billion in Iranian banks, transferred in batches since 2015 through the port of Hodeidah.
The port and its facilities have been used for smuggling foreign currencies during the past two years via Iranian ships anchored in international waters. The UN report added that at a time when the salaries of hundreds of thousands of employees in Houthi-controlled regions had been seized and the majority were enduring miserable conditions, the Houthis had invested billions of dollars in Iran.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1203/362940/AlAhram-Weekly/World/Yemen-goes-dark.aspx
My comment: ?????????????????
(* A P)
32 ägyptische Seeleute wurden unter der Leitung von Präsident Al-Mashat freigelassen
Am Dienstag Die nationale Rettungsregierung ließ am Dienstag 32 ägyptische Seeleute unter Amnestie des Vorsitzenden des Obersten Politischen Rates, Bruder Mahdi al-Mashat, frei. Die Küstenwache nahm sie früher fest, als sie sich illegal in den Gewässern des jemenitischen Territoriums aufhielten.
Ein ägyptisches Flugzeug mit Vertretern der schwesterlichen Republik Ägypten ist heute am internationalen Flughafen von Sanaa eingetroffen, um die freigelassenen Seeleute zu empfangen.
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3086888.htm
(* A P)
Yemeni rebels free detained Egyptian fishermen
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen released dozens of Egyptian fishermen on Tuesday after detaining them for weeks on charges of trespassing into territorial waters.
The 32 fishermen were ferried on a chartered flight home to Cairo from Yemen´s rebel-held capital, according to the Houthi-run news agency.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi hailed their return on Twitter, saying that "intensive efforts" by the government "saved (the fishermen´s) lives and yielded their safe transfer to Egyptian lands."
Government ministers waving Egyptian flags greeted the freed fishermen as they descended onto the tarmac.
Immigration Minister Nabila Makram told Egypt's pro-government CBC Extra channel that the government had been trying to negotiate the release with Yemeni and Saudi authorities since mid-December.
The Houthi coast guard plucked the fishermen from the Red Sea, accusing them of violating the sea border off the southern coast.
and also https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/81299/Egypt-brings-back-32-fishermen-detained-in-Yemen
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/05/c_138756069.htm
My comment: “Every year, the Houthis detain dozens of fishing boats and other vessels that pass through their waters.”: There had been no reports at all within more than four years. This obviously is propaganda.
(* B E P)
The Yemeni E-rial: A Digital Projection of Monetary Authority
The Houthis are unlikely to find immediate solutions in their nascent electronic currency, but, for the rebel group, this financial technology nevertheless serves a political purpose.
The ongoing war between the U.N.-recognized Yemeni government and the rebel Houthis has expanded into the financial sphere with the introduction of a 21st century weapon: digital currencies. In mid-December 2019, the Sanaa central bank, which is controlled by the Houthis, banned Yemenis in Houthi-controlled areas from using new banknotes printed by the Aden central bank, controlled by the government of ousted President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Residents had 30 days to exchange the new banknotes for either older banknotes or electronic rials. The e-rial concept appears destined to fail from an economic policy standpoint, but the existence of this financial technology nevertheless serves a political purpose for the Houthis.
The prospects for the e-rial are not so rosy, nor is regulation the biggest problem confronting Yemen’s digital currency. Instead, the promotion of an e-rial is part and parcel of monetary policies that have fractured the country’s weak financial system, which is analyzed in a detailed economic bulletin by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies. Rather than streamline and improve access to the country’s financial system, the e-rial adds new layers of complexity to the country’s financial market and increases opportunities for intermediaries to exploit distortions in the economy. Yemenis are flocking toward hard currencies, such as Saudi riyals and U.S. dollars, as the Yemeni rial continues to depreciate.
The e-rial has been in an experimental stage since 2018. Though the project remains in its early stages, the limited usage of the digital currency demonstrates that the utility of financial mechanisms depends greatly upon the vested interests of monetary authorities and the constraints imposed by political and economic environments.
The Houthis’ promotion of a digital currency seems to be a genuine initiative but nevertheless appears to reflect a shorter-term pressure strategy rather than longer-term monetary policy. The Houthis accuse the central bank in Aden of flooding the economy with newly printed Yemeni banknotes starting in 2017.
Access to any digital currency in Yemen remains a challenge. Electronic payments desperately need to be institutionalized and expanded through the broader system of Yemeni banks, according to David Harden, who oversaw U.S. assistance to Yemen for the U.S. Agency for International Development until April 2018.
A trust deficit and the currency’s minimal utility help explain why the e-rial has been slow to build momentum. Several state-run firms rejected plans to pay employees with the e-rial, and holders of e-rials can only pay for a small number of essential services – namely mobile phone service, water, and electricity – with the currency – by Robert Mogielnicki
https://agsiw.org/the-yemeni-e-rial-a-digital-projection-of-monetary-authority/
https://agsiw.org/the-yemeni-e-rial-a-digital-projection-of-monetary-authority/
(A H P)
Film: Yemen's Sanaa residents stand in solidarity with China over coronavirus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6OU7akeUgA
(A)
Ibb tribesmen use Houthi tactics to settle scores
Tribal gunmen from one family blew up two houses of a neighboring family after an altercation over a wall that separates the two plots of land
The recent clashes, which killed two people and injured eight, in the village of Al-Sharnama in Ibb district highlights the security lapse in the war-weary country.
https://al-masdaronline.net/local/303
(A P)
Houthis militants storm residence of government diplomat
The Houthis militants stormed on Sunday a residence belongs to Ali Al-Amrani, Yemen’s ambassador to Jordan, Al-Amrani said on Sunday.
“I’m not shocked by such acts, but by those who still friends with the Houthis despite their constant horrific acts that caused unprecedented crisis in Yemen’s history,” Al-Amrani wrote on his Facebook page.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-37683
(A P)
Parliament summons gov't side to discuss sales tax law amendments
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3086835.htm
(A P)
Parlament billigt den Bericht des Ausschusses für Wasser und Umwelt
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3086751.htm
Fortsetzung / Sequel: cp6 – cp18
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-622b-yemen-war-mosaic-622b
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-621-yemen-war-mosaic-621
Jemenkrieg-Mosaik 1-621/ Yemen War Mosaic 1-621:
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/
Liste aller Luftangriffe / and list of all air raids:
http://yemendataproject.org/data/
Untersuchung ausgewählter Luftangriffe durch Bellingcat / Bellingcat investigations of selected air raids:
Untersuchungen von Angriffen, hunderte von Filmen / Investigations of attacks, hundreds of films:
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