Brzezinsky on US-hegemony - Sue US, Saudis! - Peace talks falter, truce is breached - Offensive against Al Qaida by Emirati and Hadi's armies
Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Klassifizierung / Classification
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp2 Allgemein / General
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
cp4 Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
cp9 USA
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms trade
cp13b Flüchtlinge / Refugees
cp14 Offensive gegen Al Qaida / Offensive against Al Qaida
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
Klassifizierung / Classification
***
**
*
(Kein Stern / No star)
A = Aktuell / Current news
B = Hintergrund / Background
C = Chronik / Chronicle
D = Details
E = Wirtschaft / Economy
H = Humanitäre Fragen / Humanitarian questions
K = Krieg / War
P = Politik / Politics
PH = Pro-Houthi
PS = Pro-Saudi
T = Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
19.4.2016 – Change.org (** A K P)
Petition by Alistar Reign
Stop Canada's Sale of Military Equipment to Saudi Arabia
Canada is applying a 'double standard' when it comes to human rights, Amnesty International says.
The Liberal government continued to defend Canada’s $15-billion sale of “light-armoured” vehicles to Saudi Arabia as “a matter of principle,” just as a new report highlighting the U.S government’s concerns with widespread human rights violations in Saudi Arabia was released.
21.4.2016 – Katehon (** B P)
Zbigniew Brzezinsky Forced to Downsize US Imperial Ambitions
Famous American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski once again frightened mankind by saying that “the end of America's global role ... would most probably be global chaos”. To avoid this, the supporter of the American hegemony of the United States suggested Global Realignment. That's the name of his article in the JournalThe American Interest. So, what is the American Interest according to Brzezinski?Famous American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski once again frightened mankind by saying that “the end of America's global role ... would most probably be global chaos”. To avoid this, the supporter of the American hegemony of the United States suggested Global Realignment. That's the name of his article in the Journal The American Interest. So, what is the American Interest according to Brzezinski?
To briefly summarize the content of Brzezinski’s article it boils down to two theses:
1) The United States is no longer a global imperial power.
2) As was already mentioned above - the probable chaos as a result of the collapse of the US imperial hegemony. In order for the United States to maintain its power, Brzezinski offers several recipes:
a) Make the main geopolitical rivals of America - Russia and China - work towards US interests. This is supposed to use the crisis in the Middle East as a source of supposed common threats to all three powers.
b) Making the Islamic world work towards US interests. To do this, Brzezinski once again recalls his doctrine of "global democratic awakening", which justifies US involvement in Arab Springs. The gist of it is simple: use the anti-American forces to strengthen US domination through the various mechanisms of influence and direct infiltration. Brzezinski states that special attention should be focused on the non-Western world's newly politically aroused masses, and this can be understood only in the context of his theory of global democratic awakening. The emergence of ISIS, and before that the color revolutions of the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Islamic world can be regarded as the practical application of this particular strategy. These forces “surprisingly” create problems for anyone except the United States.
c) To maintain the US military presence in the Middle East by any means. The text states that this is crucial for the United States, as withdrawal will immediately trigger the collapse of American hegemony:
n other words, Brzezinski offers the following strategy, where the Middle East is playing a key role:
1. To foment chaos and war in the region, relying on the strength of "global democratic awakening."
2. Declare war on terrorism and to shift the burden onto Russia and China, drawing them into a hopeless conflict in the region.
3. Maintain or even increase its military presence under the pretext of preserving stability in the Middle East.
Of course, all of this is masked by the theses of the struggle against terrorism and paying attention to the suffering of Muslims and the inhabitants of the Third World in general, and because the main actors in the crisis in the Middle East chessboard of Eurasia - Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Europe, and Saudi Arabia - are invited to participate in it. The pretext is that they are all interested in resolving the conflict, but in fact it will only lead to a conflict of interest and increase the chaos.
"The overall threat of Islamic terrorism" is not a “threat” per se. The US were seriously hit by Islamism only once in its history, on September 11th, 2001. In the US, Muslims consist of around 1% of all citizens, as opposed to the multi-million Muslim populations of Russia and China. And unlike these two countries, there is no region in the US where the threat of Islamist separatism may emerge.
The US is separated from the conflict region by the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, the US can afford to play at two tables at once - to covertly support extremists and combat terrorism, drawing Russia and China into the conflict and subsequently weakening the Islamic world as well.
America hopes to use the US-grown Islamic extremists to re-engage Russia into their orbit, as has been noted - probably post-Putin. It will be the threat of Islamism that will be used in order to engage Russia in an America-centric system. Brzezinski openly declared that this pro-Western strategy relies on Russian nationalism, or on Russia’s transition from the Byzantine imperial expansionist ideology to the concept of Russian national bourgeois European states as part of the Western world:
“Russia's own future depends on its ability to become a major and influential nation-state that is part of a unifying Europe”.
It is significant that Brzezinski, in accordance with the classical geopolitical tradition, considers the main US enemy to be Russia, not China.
Brzezinski’s analysis is based on a manipulation of facts and outright lies, designed to hide the rough edges of his vision.
Firstly, he is absolutely wrong when he assesses Russia's position. From the point of view of Brzezinski, this country is in the latest convulsive phase of its imperial devolution.
Secondly, Brzezinski did not take into account the new rising superpowers: India, Brazil, and South Africa. Indirectly, this may mean that the United States dropped them off, hoping to overthrow their independent elite by color revolutions and coups, like what is currently happening in Brazil. However, their demographic, economic, and, as in the case of India, ideologically anti-Western potential is extremely high.
Thirdly, he overlooks the potential for disintegration within the " European Union".
Fourthly, Brzezinski demonstrates thinking within the neorealist paradigm of "hegemonic stability". The collapse of US hegemony in his opinion would mean the collapse of the world order as such. But, first of all, the US does in no way contribute to the preservation of world order, turning the whole world into a zone of controlled chaos using the theory by another American analyst - Steven Mann. Why would it be a factor of stability in the future? Secondly, a number of neo-realists believe that the bipolar world will have a greater equilibrium than a unipolar one. Thirdly, there is a model of a multipolar world as a world divided by the imperial "big spaces", which takes into account the diversity of the world’s civilizations. It is also not chaos, but the most adequate alternative to American unilateralism.
It may be concluded that Brzezinski’s article demonstrates the desperate attempts of the American elite to maintain its hegemony in the world. At the same time it is full of propaganda clichés, and in many cases its assessment of the situation does not correspond to reality.
http://katehon.com/node/25730 = http://russia-insider.com/en/zbigniew-brzezinsky-downsizes-imperial-ambitions/ri14037
19.4.2016 – Reuters (** B K)
Yemen’s guerrilla war tests military ambitions of big-spending Saudis
Riyadh has spent tens of billions on new US weaponry. But its intervention in neighbouring Yemen has not gone smoothly
As President Barack Obama makes his final visit to Riyadh this week, Saudi Arabia’s military capabilities remain a work in progress – and the gap in perceptions between Washington and Riyadh has widened dramatically.
The biggest stumble has come in Yemen.
But while Saudi Arabia has the third-largest defence budget in the world behind the United States and China, its military performance in Yemen has been mixed, current and former U.S. officials said. The kingdom’s armed forces have often appeared unprepared and prone to mistakes.
On the ground, Saudi-led forces have often struggled to achieve their goals, making slow headway in areas where support for Iran-allied Houthi rebels runs strong.
And along the Saudi border, the Houthis and allied forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh have attacked almost daily since July, killing hundreds of Saudi troops.
Instead of being the centrepiece of a more assertive Saudi regional strategy, the Yemen intervention has called into question Riyadh’s military influence, said one former senior Obama administration official.
Saudi officials see the intervention as a qualified success, halting Iranian expansionism in Yemen and bringing their opponents to the negotiating table. They compare it to the 1991 Gulf War when a military threat was addressed overwhelmingly by military power.
Some of the largest beneficiaries of the alliance have been U.S. defence contractors. Vinnell Arabia, now a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, has received multimillion-dollar contracts to train Saudi Arabia’s National Guard since 1975, for instance, including a five-year contract worth up to $550 million in 2010.
In an effort to counter Iran, U.S. arms sales grew under President George W. Bush and even more under the Obama White House.
Whatever the motivation, between 2009 and 2015, IHS Jane’s estimates that General Dynamics delivered $5 billion worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, Boeing $2.9 billion and Raytheon $2.5 billion.
European defence contractors profited as well, with Eurofighter, a European consortium, delivering $5.6 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and U.K.-based BAE Systems delivering $2.9 billion during the same period, according to Jane’s estimates.
“We sold them that stuff,” said one U.S. official, “because that’s what creates jobs in America.”
“Initially there was far too much reliance on the (Riyadh-backed) Yemeni government for intelligence and far too little effort to confirm it,” said a Saudi with knowledge of the campaign. He said targeting rules had improved in the second half of last year.
Problems with targeting are particularly embarrassing because they were also issues during the border war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in 2009-2010, U.S. embassy cables released by WikiLeaks show.
Six years on, errors are still occurring.
American officials said they have repeatedly tried to find ways to improve Saudi targeting. As well as the extra precision-guided bombs, the Pentagon sent U.S. military lawyers to train their Saudi counterparts on how to ensure the legality of coalition strikes. They say the Saudis have American software designed to help them determine whether certain munitions might cause destruction beyond the target.
Michael Knights, an expert on the conflict in Yemen at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the fact that the Saudi military had been able to maintain a year-long intervention in a country as complex as Yemen has surprised some observers.
Asseri said the Saudi air force uses the same procedures as those of the U.S. air force to assess targets, and checks information against images from drones and a no-hit list. He said munitions were selected to avoid causing harm beyond the selected target.
U.S. officials said they have urged the Saudi-led coalition to better distinguish between military targets and civilians. Asseri said a Saudi colonel with a doctorate in law has been appointed to run an investigative commission into civilian deaths and is now selecting members.
One of the stated goals of the Saudi-led campaign was to protect the kingdom’s borders. In many ways, though, the war has made them less secure.
Beginning in July 2015, though, when the coalition regained complete control of Aden after three months of brutal street fighting and airstrikes, the Houthis and Saleh’s forces began to launch near daily attacks across the border.
The assaults have killed and injured around 400 civilians inside Saudi Arabia, the coalition said. Diplomats say around 400 Saudi soldiers and border guards have died.
Saudi officials said they had been hampered by the decision not to take territory inside Yemen, which they feared would feed Houthi propaganda that Riyadh’s war goals were territorial. “It is the most difficult thing to conduct a static defence,” said Asseri.
Between July 2015 and the beginning of the tentative truce last month, an average of 130 mortars, shells and rockets were fired at Saudi Arabia’s frontier every day, the coalition said. The Houthis and their allies also staged frequent incursions, overrunning villages, pushing several kilometers into Saudi territory and laying large numbers of explosive devices, according to both Western and Saudi officials.
Riyadh concedes it underestimated the number of Houthi ballistic missiles. Days into the conflict, Asseri said the Houthis’ ability to fire rockets at Saudi Arabia had been neutralised. But the Houthis continued to fire Scuds at the kingdom until well into 2016.
The Saudi with knowledge of the campaign said the performance of the army had been patchy and varied greatly from one unit to another. He and other Saudi and Western officials said the kingdom’s forces on the border have been hampered by their lack of battlefield surveillance technology, which meant they were often unable to watch threats emerge in real time – by Angus McDowall, Phil Stewart and David Rohde
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/saudi-military/
Comment: These are only small excerpts of a much longer article you must read at the original site.
There stays quite a mixed feeling when reading this article. In all length, it deals with the military failure of the Saudi interference in Yemen. Above all, the Saudis by no means reached their goals. But that is not the main point of this article. It partially tries to whitewash the Saudis and the Americans supporting them alike, describing as failure (speaking of “errors”) what in most cases just is a crime. It is hardly “error” that mostly civilians and civilian infrastructure are hit by the Saudi air strikes – in most cases with no military target all around, or in other cases based on a quite strange definition of “military “ targets”. Remember that in northern Yemen, the whole province of Saada was declared a “military target”. No, they deliberately HAVE TARGETED civilians, as the results of the air strikes clearly show.
And as far as the Houthi successes at the Yemeni-Saudi border are concerned, the article partially traces back to tactics (“Saudi officials said they had been hampered by the decision not to take territory inside Yemen, which they feared would feed Houthi propaganda that Riyadh’s war goals were territorial. “It is the most difficult thing to conduct a static defence,” said Asseri) what obviously just is failure. And, as in the paragraph cited here, it’s a general weakness of this article that for many conclusions it uncritically relies on Saudi sources like General Asseri: sources which obviously are propaganda, fairy tales and obscuration. Asseri in special is known as a story-teller who has told such a bulk of crazy stories and lies, so that he really cannot be taken for sincere, as this article does.
18.4.2016 – American Herald Tribune (** A K P)
Sue Saudi for 9/11, and U.S. for all its wars
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry say that allowing family members of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for its complicity in that crime would set a terrible precedent that would open the United States up to lawsuits from abroad.
Wonderful! Let the lawsuits rain down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream!
Suing Saudis over 9/11 will only set a precedent if it succeeds, which is to say if there is evidence of Saudi complicity. We know that there is, according to former Senator Bob Graham and others who have read 28 pages censored from a U.S. Senate report. Pressure is building in Congress both to reveal those 28 pages and to allow lawsuits. And yet another Senate bill gaining support would block further U.S. arming of Saudi Arabia.
The precedent of allowing international victims to sue those complicit in murder would not place you, dear reader, or I at risk of any lawsuits. It would, however, put numerous top U.S. officials and former officials at risk of suits from many corners of the globe, including from the seven nations that President Obama has bragged about bombing: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya. It's not as if any of these wars is legal under Kellogg-Briand or the U.N. Charter.
Combined with the possible precedent of allowing victims of U.S. domestic gun violence to sue gun manufacturers, the possibility could emerge for countless parents, children, and siblings of U.S. killings in countless countries to begin suing Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, etc.
Even just the precedent of allowing suits against Saudi Arabia could have far-reaching consequences before expanding it to other countries. Imagine if Yemenis could sue Saudis for the current slaughter from the air? If they could, then what about Boeing? And what about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who allowed Boeing to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia after Boeing gave her family foundation $900,000 and Saudi Arabia gave over $10 million?
In her last ditch effort at the presidency, Clinton has joined Senator Bernie Sanders in claiming that she supports allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia -- something she is highly unlikely to take any other steps to advance.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is threatening to sell off $750 billion worth of U.S. properties. (No word on whether Hillary Clinton is listed among those properties.) I say let the sales commence! Let the U.S. government take three-quarter's of one-year's military spending, buy those properties, and give them to the public or use them to compensate the people of Yemen. Or freeze those assets now without buying them, and give them to the U.S. and Yemeni people.
Of course, Obama and Kerry may be raising the notion of a precedent for suing the U.S. mostly as cover for the fact that they are showing greater loyalty to the Saudi royalty than to 9/11 victims. The U.S. public needs only the slightest excuse to avoid recognizing where its rulers true loyalties lie. Italy has convicted CIA agents of kidnapping to torture, and never sought their extradition. Pakistani courts have already ruled against U.S. drone murders, and the U.S. has failed to so much as yawn in response. The U.S. has refused to join the International Criminal Court, and claims a unique status outside the rule of law -- a rogue status for which it would urge sanctions on any other nation claiming something similar while possessing too much oil or not enough U.S. weaponry.
Still, precedents can be set politically and legally, even against the will of one of the parties involved. For U.S. foreign policy to be compelled to treat 9/11 as the crime that it was, a crime committed by certain individuals, could mean a few important things: (1) a serious investigation of 9/11, (2) rejection of the idea that 9/11 was part of a war launched by the entire world, or the Muslim portion of the world, and in which the United States is entitled to seek revenge thousands of times over and without limits in time or space, (3) greater understanding that U.S. terrorism, just like 9/11 but on a larger scale, is criminal activity for which particular individuals can be held accountable.
What could answer the deepest needs of the 9/11 victims and family members could also answer many needs of U.S. victims in Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, etc., and that is a truth and reconciliation commission. Getting to that will be accomplished by precedents and changes in thinking in our culture, not by any particular legal development. Such a procedure would be a success if afterwards the U.S. and Saudi and other governments began paying reparations in the form of humanitarian aid, costing them far less than they are now putting into wars, but doing a world of good for people rather than the criminal harm being done right now and for years past – by David Swanson
Full article. American Herald Tribune is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
http://ahtribune.com/opinion/831-saudi-911.html
cp2 Allgemein / General
25.4.2016 – ARD (* B K)
Film: Jemen: Ein Staat kollabiert
Binnenflüchtlinge im Jemen, dem Armenhaus der arabischen Welt. Gestrandet in Steinhütten, Notunterkünften und Höhlen. Geflohen vor einem Krieg, den sie nicht verstehen
Einen Tag lang hat Vater Mahdy nach seinem Sohn Ahmed gesucht, in den Trümmern des von saudischen Kampfjets zerstörten Hauses. Ahmeds gebrochener Fuß ist bislang nicht behandelt worden. Es gibt fast keine Worte für das Leid, das uns aus diesen Gesichtern förmlich entgegenspringt.
"Wir haben nicht mal die einfachsten Dinge. Die Kinder sind krank, wir haben keine Häuser, die man so nennen kann, kein Essen, das diese Bezeichnung verdient, keine Hilfsorganisation hat sich hier blicken lassen, kein Mensch hat sich um uns gekümmert.“
Mahdy, der Scheich, ist Stammeschef einer Gruppe von 48 Familien, die vor den Bomben in die Nähe der Hauptstadt Sanaa geflüchtet sind. Keiner von ihnen hätte das Geld, um sich eine Wohnung leisten zu können. Mahdy kümmert sich, so gut er kann, um diejenigen, denen es besonders schlecht geht.
"Diese Flüchtlinge haben alles verloren und sie kommen hierher, weil sie krank sind. Aber wir haben nichts, was wir ihnen geben können. Überhaupt nichts! Nicht mal ein einfaches Breitband-Antibiotikum. An wirklich schwere Fälle gar nicht zu denken: Niere, Haut, Blut. Ich schwöre zu Gott: jedes Mal bricht mein Herz!“
Scheich Mahdy ist verzweifelt: "Wir Flüchtlinge sind an den Rand gedrängt in unserem eigenen Land! Und der Jemen wird von Saudi–Arabien zu Land und in der Luft blockiert. Und was bedeutet das? Es bedeutet, dass unsere Kinder sterben werden!“Selbst der mächtigste Mann seines Stammes schafft es nicht, einem chronisch kranken Kind zu helfen, so sehr er auch gekämpft hat. Um den fünfjährigen Murad steht es nicht gut.
http://www.daserste.de/information/politik-weltgeschehen/weltspiegel/jemen-hoffnung-auf-frieden-100.html und der Film http://www.ardmediathek.de/tv/Weltspiegel/Jemen-Ein-Staat-kollabiert/Das-Erste/Video-Podcast?bcastId=329478&documentId=34907178
Heftige Kritik an diesem Film:
25.4.2016 – Propagandaschau (A K P)
Heuchler der Woche: Michael Strempel im Weltspiegel über den “Bürgerkrieg” im Jemen
Wie der Krieg in Syrien, wäre auch das Morden im Jemen in diesem Ausmaß ohne die Beteiligung Saudi-Arabiens und der USA nicht möglich.
Das sind Fakten, die der Propaganda, wie wir sie tagtäglich vorgesetzt bekommen, natürlich nicht ins Konzept passen, denn ein US-Präsident darf nicht als Weltterrorist wahrgenommen werden, sondern muss zum Weltpolizisten umlackiert werden.
Im Weltspiegel der ARD werden die Fakten hinter dem Krieg einmal mehr vorsätzlich verschwiegen. “Ein Staat kollabiert”, heißt es lapidar – gerade so, als würde das Land durch unausweichliche Naturgewalten langsam und unaufhaltsam zerrüttet.
Das ist natürlich nichts anderes, als freche und vorsätzliche Lüge und Desinformation mit dem Ziel, die Wahrheit zu unterdrücken. Die USA werden in dem von Thomas Aders präsentierten Märchen aus tausendundeiner Alptraumnacht nicht ein einziges Mal erwähnt. Die deutsche Öffentlichkeit soll genauso für dumm verkauft werden, wie die Jemeniten, die den Krieg laut Aders angeblich “nicht verstehen”.
Die Ausrede, mit der Strempel [in der Anmoderation] das systematische und in Wahrheit politisch motivierte Wegsehen dann rechtfertigen will, ist ausgerechnet ein anderer Schauplatz transatlantischen Massenmords und Propaganda, auf dem USA und Saudi-Arabien seit Jahren wüten und wüten lassen: der Krieg in Syrien “überlagert alles”. Da verschlägt es einem die Sprache.
In Wahrheit geht es natürlich darum, die Öffentlichkeit ganz gezielt über die Konflikte in Syrien, Jemen, Ukraine, etc. in die Irre zu führen, damit die Bürger gar nicht erst anfangen, zu verstehen, was dort gespielt wird, wessen Interessen jeweils hinter diesen Stellvertreterkriegen stehen und was man selbst als Bürger Deutschlands tun könnte, um diese Konflikte – und damit das Leid der Menschen – zu beenden.
19.4.2016 – Council on Foreign Relations (*B K P)
Backgrounder: Yemen in Crisis
Yemen faces its biggest crisis in decades with the overthrow of its government by the Houthis, a Zaydi Shia movement, which prompted a Saudi-led counteroffensive. The fighting has had devastating humanitarian consequences, and while the Saudi-led coalition and pro-government forces have rolled back the Houthis, they are no closer to reinstating the internationally recognized government in the capital of Sana’a.
Amid factional fighting, al-Qaeda’s Arabian Peninsula franchise has captured expanses of coastal territory. Meanwhile, the United Nations has designated the humanitarian emergency in Yemen as severe and complex as those in Iraq, South Sudan, and Syria. The fighting, and a Saudi-imposed blockade meant to enforce an arms embargo, has brought the country to the brink of famine.
The Saudi intervention was spurred by perceived Iranian backing of the Houthis, and analysts worry that escalating foreign involvement could introduce sectarian conflict resembling fighting in Syria and Iraq. Numerous armed factions may be able to spoil any potential settlement, challenging UN-led efforts to broker a halt to the fighting. Even more difficult will be resolving the fundamental disputes over how power should be distributed in the Yemeni state, which had been the region’s poorest country even prior to the fighting.
What are Yemen’s divisions?
What are the causes of the crisis?
Who are the parties to this conflict?
Saudi Arabia has led the coalition air campaign to roll back the Houthis and reinstate Hadi’s government. Riyadh perceives that Houthi control of Yemen would mean a hostile neighbor that threatens its southern border. It also considers Yemen a front in its contest with Iran for regional dominance, and losing Sana’a would only add to what it perceives as an ascendant Iran that has allies in power in Baghdad, Beirut, and Damascus. Riyadh’s concerns have been compounded by its perception that the United States is retrenching from the region and that its nuclear accord with Iran will embolden Tehran. Journalist Peter Salisbury writes that Saudi Arabia may be trying to restore its long-standing strategy of “containment and maintenance” vis-à-vis its southern neighbor: Keep Yemen weak, and therefore beholden to Riyadh, but not so weak that state collapse could threaten it with an influx of migrants. The conflict is the first major one undertaken by the new king, Salman, and a test for his son, Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman, who is pursuing a more adventurist foreign policy than his predecessors.
Saudi Arabia has cobbled together a coalition of Sunni-majority Arab states: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan, and the UAE. (That includes all the Gulf Cooperation Council states except for Oman.) The operation seems toconsolidate Saudi Arabia’s leadership over the bloc, which has split over other regional issues, and signals consensus against allowing Iran to gain influence in Yemen. But in practice, only the UAE has played a significant military role, including contributing ground troops that enabled Hadi's return to Aden.
The United States has backed the Saudi-led coalition, albeit reluctantly, along with the United Kingdom and France. U.S. interests include maintaining stability in Yemen and security for Saudi borders; free passage in the Bab al-Mandeb, the chokepoint between the Arabian and Red Seas through which 4.7 million barrels of oil per day transit; and a government in Sana’a that will cooperate with U.S. counterterrorism programs (PDF). In the current conflict, Washington has provided the Saudi-led coalition with logistical and intelligence support. It is also the largest provider of arms to Saudi Arabia, and in November 2015 approved a $1.3 billion sale to restock depleted munitions. But while the United States continues to support coalition operations, U.S. officials have pressed the Saudis for restraint, warning that the intensity of the bombing campaign was undercutting shared political goals.
What is the role of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula?
What is the humanitarian situation?
What are the prospects for a solution to the crisis?
Conditions appear daunting for a negotiated settlement. The Houthis’ assertion of power and the Saudi-led air campaign have militarized the divisions between the parties.
The Houthis, who long felt marginalized from Yemeni politics, “think that if they even compromise, that will mean defeat and their eventual elimination,” journalist Adam Baron told PBS Frontline, while southerners believe that the Houthis pose a reciprocal threat to them. Saudi Arabia and Iran are likely to escalate their commitments to their local allies as they compete for influence in Yemen and the broader region. That could introduce a sectarian dimension to Yemen’s civil conflict, making the conflict even more toxic. Meanwhile, the Houthis have indiscriminately shelled Saudi border towns, raising pressure on Riyadh.
But the Saudi-led intervention passed its one-year anniversary with its main objective, returning the Hadi-led administration to Sana’a, as elusive as ever, and with thefinancial and humanitarian costs of the conflict mounting, the parties have signaled some flexibility. UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed announced in late March 2016 that the parties had agreed to a cessation of hostilities, following confidence-building prisoner swaps, to facilitate the start of negotiations in Kuwait. A pause in fighting could allow Yemeni forces to focus on pushing back al-Qaeda.
The underlying causes of this conflict, however, will prove difficult to resolve: Political factions are unlikely to find a mutually acceptable compromise on the distribution of power, and militias will be reluctant to give up their arms. Reconstruction will depend not just on peace but regional donors at a time when Gulf oil revenues are shrinking. “Yemen was not just already incredibly impoverished before the war began but also at the brink of financial insolvency,” Baron writes. “If the war were to end in the coming weeks or months the damage that Yemen has suffered will take years if not decades to bring Yemen to a point where it is merely ‘underdeveloped.’”
Additional Resources – by Zachary Laub
http://www.cfr.org/yemen/yemen-crisis/p36488?cid=soc-twitter-in-yemen_in-crisis-bgr-041916
Comment: Background on Yemen, current players, humanitarian situation. A good read.
19.4.2016 – Guernica Mag (** B K)
Laura Kasinof: The Violence Was Once Mine
A journalist confronts her feeling of helplessness in watching a war from afar
When the war in Yemen began, when Saudi jets started bombing Sanaa, part of me wanted to forget that the city being reduced to rubble had also been my home. It ruined my day to worry about how the lives of people I once lived among were in danger. Worse: it sent my already burnt out nervous system reeling. Maybe people I know are doing the killing. What good does it do to dwell on a war faraway? I didn’t want to watch the city that I loved be bombed by a foreign force. To watch other cities that I loved, Taiz and Aden, get desecrated from within. To know that it will be hard for the country to come back from this, not just because of the bombs, but also because of retaliatory fighting and killing.
When I lived in Yemen, while my situation was far easier than most Yemenis’ (I could afford the rising prices, I could leave the country whenever I chose to), I did experience some of life as an equal to my neighbors. I felt fear when the shelling started. I felt hope when peace was near. The violence was also mine. Now I don’t feel any of the things my former neighbors feel. Without living alongside Yemenis to see their strength in times of war, all I see is destruction.
I can fly to Europe and immigration doesn’t question me, and my friends can’t. I don’t have to sit in my house awake at night knowing that at anytime a bomb might hit my house, and I’ll die instantly along with my family. I don’t have to worry about when a rebel militia will release my kidnapped father. I have the luxury to turn it off. How do I not feel guilty about all that?
My futility in this current war made me want to pretend the war wasn’t there. As if it still was all about me.
When I saw my friend in the Beirut coffee shop, denial was no longer possible. This thing I tried to escape was staring at me in the face. There’s a war in Yemen and that’s why you, my friend, are right here in front of me. A wall broke, or at least shifted: the reality of war is not reduced to a great amalgamation of suffering for which I have the choice to respond to or not. It is full of individual stories like my friend’s whose lives are at times interwoven into my own.
With this realization I traveled to Djibouti to record refugees’ stories for an article in an American magazine. I sat all day, chewing qat on the floor with Yemenis, and heard that the home I once lived in, loved, taught me to be a better person, existed no more. I saw the chips in the stone. When I first moved to Yemen, I used to idealize the integrity of Yemenis and their tribal codes, but they’re people just like me, the conflict laid that bare, and I could no longer deny this war.
This trip to Djibouti also opened the well of sadness and trauma that I had tried to avoid.
Then, the way I reacted to the war in Yemen became erratic, swinging from obsession to abstinence every other day. I would sit for an hour and watch footage from the war in Yemen that I had been intentionally ignoring. I tried to force myself to witness war in heavy doses, to feel the weight of what all this violence meant for Yemenis whom I used to live beside. Often, I felt nothing, emotions stunted, the mind turned protective.
Soon it became the new normal that Yemen is overrun by violence and that an agreement for peace will be difficult to come by. The country has become one of those wars that happens in the far off distance of American consciousness that a few well-read, internationally minded people keep up with here and there.
“Look at people dying in Yemen! Look at them! Children are dying!” I could yell.
But children are dying everywhere, children are dying on the path to Europe, and why should I expect an American to care in particular about Yemeni children dying when I don’t always give the war the attention it deserves.
News of a besieged hospital in Taiz floats across my laptop screen. People I know, who have shown me great kindness, are affected by this. Medical supplies there are running thin. I choose to look away – by Laura Kasinof
https://www.guernicamag.com/daily/laura-kasinof-the-violence-was-once-mine/
Comment: A tribute to Yemen and coping with the war, even if from safe distance. A beautiful read.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1013838282002535&id=961126490607048
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
25.4.2016 – Al Arabiya (B K)
Médecins Sans Frontières recognizes Saudi coalition’s help in Yemen
Médecins Sans Frontières on Monday acknowledged the efforts being made by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen in facilitating humanitarian help on the ground.
A letter, made available to Al Arabiya English, the MSF addresses General Abdulrahman bin Saleh Al Bunyan of the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation. In the letter, the humanitarian group says that “the coordination of movements were imperative and especially challenging in a country at war.”
“MSF would like to acknowledge the efforts done by the Coalition in order to facilitate the work of its teams on the ground. MSF is the witness of the endeavor exerted by the Coalition and especially its Evacuation and Humanitarian Cell (EHO) in order to make sure MSF is able to run its operations,” the letter, written by MSF International Representative in the Middle East Antoine Bieler, said.
Over the past year, MSF has helped treat more than 37,000 wounded and carried out nearly 15,000 surgeries. A total of nearly 1,100 tons of medical supplies have been sent to Yemen over the past year, according to MSF figures.
Ahead of a planned meeting between MSF and coalition officials in Riyadh, the humanitarian group also raised certain queries and issues in the letter. Chief among these are prior notifications on movement requests, evacuation of MSF structure, access to decision makers of the coalition and establishment of a Saudi-MSF hotline.
The letter also highlights the issue of driving MSF cars in Yemen without their logos. “Due to the situation on the ground in Yemen, there are zones where MSF judges that from a ground safety perspective it is safer to drive in an unmarked car than a marked one. MSF expects to make such decisions on its own and requires some understanding from the Coalition about this process,” Bieler said in the letter.
Comment: Introducing one’s demands by praising those who have the force to bomb me (and who did) gives them the opportunity for propaganda, off course.
24.4.2016 – Oxfam (A H)
Oxfam Yemen Situation Report #18, 04 April 2016
Recent data released by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, has highlighted the repeated shocks to the YER exchange rate. The report stated reasons were difficulties in physical foreign currency transfers and reduced foreign currency reserves. The update also highlighted reduced donor development support as a priority inmitigating the impending crisis. Despite the establishment of UNVIM in February, this has yet to be operationalised. Imports remain highly variable with unconfirmed reports of the coalition continuing to block commercial vessels.
The UNSG Envoy to Yemen said that a nationwide ceasefire is to begin on April 10 in advance of April 18 peace talks in Kuwait. The ceasefire is intended to allow humanitarian access to all affected areas. Meanwhile, the WFP warns of looming famine in nearly half of Yemen
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/oxfam-yemen-situation-report-18-04-april-2016-enar and in full http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OxfamYemenSitrep18040416.pdf
cp4 Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
24.4.2016 – The Guardian (* B K)
British Museum displays Yemeni artefact to highlight civil war
The British Museum and others around the world including the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in St Petersburg and the Metropolitan in New York are taking part in a Unesco-backed programme of exhibitions and events to highlight the destruction of thousands of years worth of archaeological and architectural sites in Yemen.
A civil war has been ripping the country apart and, aside from the human misery, sites have been destroyed by the various factions and in Saudi airstrikes.
St John Simpson, a senior curator in the Middle East department of the British Museum, said the destruction included ancient castles and forts, temples and town walls, Sufi shrines, residential areas of the world heritage site of the city of Sana’a, and the national museum in Taez where the library and antiquities store were gutted.
“This is an under-reported conflict and one which is getting worse by all accounts. The destructive effect on museums, historic buildings and archaeological sites seems small in comparison with human suffering but is still a crime against humanity,” Simpson said.
He said the international museum community had a moral duty to ensure it was not a forgotten war – by Maev Kennedy
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
24.4.2016 – Fatik Al Rodaini (A P)
Thousands of Yemenis protesting in Hodeida against Saudi blockade on the country
https://twitter.com/Fatikr/status/724341001909886976
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
25.4.2016 – Press TV Iran (A K P)
S Arabia killing hope for peace in Yemen: Author
Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevin Barrett, author and political commentator from Madison, about the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen amid the Yemeni peace talks in Kuwait.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: How optimistic are you about the outcome and the positive outcome of this ongoing round of talks in Kuwait?
Barrett: Well, it’s good they’re having the talks but I’m not that optimistic. It doesn't seem that the Saudis are willing to admit their mistake. They told the Americans when they first proposed this war on Yemen that it would be over within a few weeks. And it was on that basis apparently that the Obama administration agreed to back them.
And now they’re falling into a Vietnam-style quagmire. One would expect them to cut their losses and be willing to seek some kind of face-saving settlement that could unify the country especially since in the areas with the people they support. They’re facing al-Qaeda insurgencies and so on that they may be supporting or they may be opposing, it’s hard, maybe both, I don’t know.
But it’s a chaotic situation and the Saudis have led this coalition of the bribed into Yemen into this ever deepening quagmire. And I would hope that at some point they would finally say enough is enough, let’s do something more productive.
The problem though is I think that they have profited from this not so much by having any success in the war, which they haven’t had, but rather by creating the smoke-screen sectarian strife to camouflage the fact that they are committing all kinds of crimes, atrocities that they’re rubbing their own people, they’re rubbing the people of the region, they’re acting as a puppet state for the imperial cabal out of Washington, DC and the other banksters behind them.
So, I think that they really are not yet ready to pull out, because they’re basically using this whole situation to camouflage their own bad actions elsewhere.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/04/25/462447/Yemen-Saudi-Arabia-Peace-Talks-US-Barrett/
24.4.2016 – Press TV Iran (A K P)
Ansarullah: All but Saudi Arabia agree on truce in Yemen
Yemen’s Ansarullah movement says all Yemeni warring sides are ready to stop fighting except Saudi Arabia and loyalists of the former government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P87N2wldR0M
24.4.2016 – Xinhua (A K P)
Major differences overshadow Yemen peace talks in Kuwait
After days of delay, the negotiations to end Yemen's disastrous civil war are finally underway in Kuwait despite major differences between the warring sides still overshadow the latest peace attempt.
In the talks, the rival parties, the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Shiite Houthi militia along with forces loyal to ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, insisted on different agendas and traded accusations over breaches to a truce that went into effect at midnight on April 10.
Local residents said nothing has changed after the cease-fire, as the conflicting sides were reportedly reinforcing their frontlines and re-positioning heavy weapons for further advances.
In Kuwait city and only one day into the talks, the session came to a deadlock and was adjourned shortly after, said the sources close to the negotiations.
On Friday, Yemeni rival delegations disagreed over a previously agreed agenda, which was first declared in March by the UN, and was repeated publicly in Thursday's opening ceremony by the UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
The agenda calls on the Houthi group to cede power to the internationally recognized government, disarm and withdraw from cities to establish permanent peace and resume the political process.
The envoy said these demands are based on the UN Security Council resolution 2216 on Yemen conflict, which was issued to restore the power to Hadi's government.
However, the Houthis and Saleh's delegates expressed reservations. They want the formation of a new national sharing government before implementing those points.
Houthi and Saleh delegates told Ould Cheick Ahmed that they didn't come to Kuwait "to surrender their arms to their adversaries," demanding to "prioritize political steps" before implementing "other clauses."
The move was rejected by the government's negotiators, which "refused to accept any changes about the agreed agendas for the Kuwait-based talks," said the sources on condition of anonymity.
However, the envoy said during a press conference in Kuwait that Friday's meeting focused on the cease-fire file and there is a positive response from the warring parties.
"The discussions held today were promising and constructive and concluded amid positive atmosphere," he added. "We are closer to peace than ever."
Meanwhile, the talks were also expected to end a Saudi Arabia-led military intervention, which has claimed more than 6,400 lives, over half being civilians, and has driven Yemen, already one of the world's poorest countries, into suffering from an ever worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
Fuad Alsalahi, a political sociology professor at Sanaa University, said the Kuwait talks are very crucial for both Yemen and Saudi Arabia amid obvious military and political failures.
"Saudi Arabia has failed to contain the situation in Yemen. In other words, Saudi Arabia is playing a too big role," he said.
Abubakar Abdullah, head of the future media foundation, criticized Saudi Arabia for using its financial and diplomatic influence to manipulate the peace process.
The international community is now seeking an end to the Saudi intervention which only resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe and other serious consequences including expansion of al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS) group, he said.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/24/c_135307715.htm
24.4.2016 – Aljazeera (A K P)
Yemen peace talks in Kuwait stall over differences
UN envoy suspends session as representatives of rival Houthi and government delegations fail to make progress.
The UN-brokered Yemen peace talks are continuing on the fourth day in Kuwait, but with government and Houthi rebel delegations far from reaching an agreement to end the conflict.
The delegations resumed the negotiations on Sunday, but an hour into the talks, "it was obvious for the UN special envoy [Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed] that the talks were going nowhere", said Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Kuwait City.
"There has been no progress here because of huge differences. The envoy had to suspend the session.
"The Houthis later said they are in consultation with their leaders in Yemen about whether to return to the talks or pack up and leave."
The Houthis and the forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi have observed a fragile ceasefire since April 11.
However, the two sides differ on how to move forward.
"The Houthis say they are willing to negotiate a settlement but they are the ones who have the upper hand therefore they have to have a bigger say in the government," our correspondent said.
"The government says the Houthis used force to seize power so they are the ones who should be held responsible.
"They have to hand over their weapons and pull out from the main cities. Then the talks can start."
The Houthis are demanding an immediate halt to air strikes that the Arab coalition has been carrying out since March last year in support of Hadi.
The government delegation said a ceasefire should include opening safe passages to all besieged areas and releasing political prisoners as well as those abducted as part of confidence-building measures.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/yemen-peace-talks-kuwait-hit-impasse-160424142733651.html
24.4.2016 – Yemen Post (A K P)
Step BACKWARDS: Day 4 of #Yemen Peace talks cancelled with both sides blaming the other for ceasefire breaches
https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/724287951606259712
24.4.2016 – Pars Today (A K P)
Einigung zum Einsatz von zwei Beobachtern nach Jemen
UN-Sondergesandter für Jemen, Ismail Walad, Al-Scheich Ahmad, hat angekündigt, jemenitische Parteien hätten sich bei den Gesprächen in Kuwait darauf geeinigt, zwei hohe Beobachter zur Aufsicht der Waffenruhe im Jemen einzusetzen.
Ahmad teilte mit, die Beobachter sollen die Arbeit des Koordinierungskomitees und die Feuerpause beaufsichtigen und damit das Ende des Krieges im Jemen sicherstellen.
Samstagnachmittag hatte die Volksbewegung Ansarollah Al-Scheich Ahmad, aufgefordert, die Verhandlungen einzustellen und die Umsetzung der Waffenruhe zu beaufsichtigen.
Die dritte Verhandlungsrunde zwischen jemenitischen Gruppen hat am Samstag in Kuwait begonnen.
http://parstoday.com/de/news/middle_east-i6016-einigung_zum_einsatz_von_zwei_beobachtern_nach_jemen
24.4.2016 – AFP (A K P)
Day 3 of Yemen peace talks winds up without progress
UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement late on Saturday the talks had achieved "common ground to build on" but acknowledged that the negotiations were difficult.
A third day of UN-brokered peace negotiations in Kuwait between the Yemeni government and rebels wound up Saturday (Apr 23) without progress, sources close to the talks said.
The sources told AFP the two sides remained far apart, especially on the need to firm up a fragile ceasefire that went into effect on April 11.
UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement late on Saturday the talks had achieved "common ground to build on" but acknowledged that the negotiations were difficult.
"The atmosphere of the talks is promising and there is common ground to build on in order to reconcile differences," he said.
"We must realise that these difficult negotiations require time because they aim at reaching a solid agreement on a package of contentious issues so that the solution would be comprehensive and hollistic," Ould Cheikh Ahmed said.
He added that the delegates agreed to the proposed agenda and to "work in parallel committees on political and security issues".
A senior government delegate, however, denied that his delegation agreed to form parallel committees.
"Our delegation has not agreed to form the parallel committees as stated in the UN communique," the delegate told AFP, requesting anonymity.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/day-3-of-yemen-peace/2725170.html = http://www.timesofisrael.com/no-progress-in-day-3-of-yemen-peace-talks/
23.4.2016 – APA (A P)
Friedensgespräche in Kuwait "konstruktiv und positiv"
Derweil entwickeln sich die seit Donnerstag in Kuwait laufenden Friedensgespräche für das Land nach Einschätzung des UN-Vermittlers Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed "konstruktiv und positiv". Man sei dem Frieden im Jemen näher als jemals zuvor, auch wenn die Verhandlungen in den kommenden Tagen eine Herausforderung würden, sagte Ould Cheikh Ahmed am Freitagabend.
http://derstandard.at/2000035600546/Offensive-gegen-Al-Kaida-im-Jemen = http://orf.at/stories/2336337/
23.4.2016 – Countercurrents (* A K P)
The Yemen Conflict: Solutions To An Unnecessary War
A four-step conflict resolution outline has been proposed by a number of governments and non-governmental organizations, including the Association of World Citizens:
1) an immediate ceasefire ending all foreign military attacks;
2) humanitarian assistance, especially important for hard-to-reach zones;
3) a broad national dialogue;
4) through this dialogue, the establishment of an inclusive unity government.
The title of the aggression of Saudi Arabia against Yemen changed its name from “Operation Decisive Storm” to “Operation Restoring Hope” probably on the advice of the public relations firm which advises the US Pentagon on the names of its operations. Saudi bombing from the air of cities, hospitals and refugee camps, created a storm, but the results were in no way “decisive.” It is not likely that Saudi bombing will “Restore Hope.”
There is wide agreement in UN circles and among conflict-resolution NGOs that Yemen is a quagmire, with a free-fall of its economic and social infrastructure and with constant violations of the laws of war. The country is on the eve of a new division between the north and the south. Yemen's present form dates from 1990 when south Yemen (Aden) was more or less integrated into the north, but the country remains highly fractured on tribal, sectarian, and ideological lines, with the tribal structures being the most important.
Negotiations among the multitude of factions in Yemen will be difficult. The most likely pattern will be for the country to split into two again with each half having a number of relatively autonomous regions. In the best of worlds, one could envisage a federal Yemen with the rule of law. More realistically, we can hope that these autonomous tribal areas do not fight each other actively. On a short term basis, we can hope that there will be minimum cooperation among the factions to allow necessary food imports and medical supplies.
Poverty and the lack of a peaceful political horizon seem to be the continuing fate of Yemen, but violent internal conflict and Saudi aggression may not be permanent. With the start of negotiations, there is a role for NGOs to encourage the efforts in contacting organizations and individuals that might have a positive impact on events. There are many geopolitical and economic interests who want “peace” on their terms. Thus, our role as world citizens seeking a relatively just compromise solution is ever more important – by Rene Wadlow, President and a representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens.
http://www.countercurrents.org/wadlow230416.htm
23.4.2016 – Hakim Almasmari (A P)
Talk about baby steps!!! Day 3 of UN sponsored #Yemen peace talks & political sides haven't even agreed on agenda!! Way to go
https://twitter.com/HakimAlmasmari/status/723883708793630720
23.4.2016 – Reuters (A K P)
Yemen sides appoint ceasefire observers as army fights al Qaeda
Representatives gathered in Kuwait on Thursday to begin peace talks after agreeing a ceasefire across the country.
However, as talks moved into a third day disputes continued over both the agenda and accusations from the government that the Houthis and Saleh's forces had breached the truce in the city of Taiz, a source from Hadi's government said.
The government wants the Houthis and Saleh's forces to release prisoners, withdraw from cities and hand over weapons before discussing a solution to the political disagreements. The Houthis and its allies want coalition air missions to stop and a unity government to be formed before disarmament talks.
The government delegation on Saturday said it would only meet U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad and not sit directly with the Houthis, the source said. However, later on Saturday Ould Cheikh Ahmad said the sides had agreed to appoint delegates to oversee the ceasefire process, a small step forward.
Ceasefire documents shown to Reuters by the Saudi-led coalition showed agreements for each of Yemen's provinces where fighting was taking place signed by representatives of each side, who had formed committees to monitor the truce.
(Reporting by Mohammed al-Mukhashaf and Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-qaeda-idUSKCN0XK07R
23.4.2016 – Aljazeera (A K P)
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN envoy for Yemen, described as "constructive" the first full day of peace talks while calling for a halt to air strikes by an Arab coalition and missile fire by Houthi rebels.
He said reinforcing an April 11 ceasefire was essential to the success of the negotiations in Kuwait.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who spent months getting the rival sides to the negotiating table, said Friday's talks had been "very constructive".
"There was a consensus on strengthening the ceasefire and the two sides were committed to the need to achieve peace and that this is the last opportunity," he said.
AQAP has taken advantage of chaos in Yemen since last year to win control over swathes of southern and eastern Yemen, creating a local government there and introducing services.
The Houthis have held Yemen's capital, Sanaa, since September 2014 and their advance prompted an Arab coalition air campaign in support of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government.
Despite Ould Cheikh Ahmed's positive comments, a government source said disputes continued in the talks over both the agenda and accusations from the government that the Houthis and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh's forces had breached the truce in the city of Taiz.
The government wants the Houthis and Saleh's forces to withdraw from cities and hand over weapons before discussing a solution to the political disagreements.
The Houthis and its allies want a unity government to be formed before disarmament talks.
Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the talks in Kuwait City, said a major hurdle in the negotiations was a "huge trust deficit" between the warring sides.
"The UN envoy along with the different factions are trying to work on confidence-building measures and start a political process with the aim of forming a national unity government," he said.
"For the UN this is a very critical moment. They have to seize the opportunity or there is not going to be peace any time soon."
Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN envoy, said the rebels complained of continuing air strikes by the Arab coalition while the government side complained of continued ceasefire violations by the rebels.
The envoy said he had contacted Saudi Arabia about the coalition air strikes and they had said the raids were ordered only in response to ceasefire violations by the rebels.
"The ceasefire is respected between 70 percent to 80 percent all over Yemen," he said.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/fighting-continues-yemen-constructive-talks-160423173538875.html and from AFP http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2016/04/23/Yemen-foes-hold-new-talks-under-truce-pressure.html
23.4.2016 – Yemen East Online (A P)
Yemen rivals hold new talks under pressure to firm up fragile truce
UN envoy acknowledges that truce is still only between 70 and 80 percent respected, says there are violations by both sides.
Yemen's warring parties held a new session of peace talks in Kuwait on Saturday under pressure to firm up a fragile ceasefire that went into effect on April 11.
"The meeting has started," Charbel Raji, spokesman for UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said, without providing details.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed told a press conference on Friday that the delegations had "constructive" negotiations and were committed to firming up the ceasefire.
He acknowledged that the truce was still only between 70 and 80 percent respected and said there were violations by both sides.
Sources close to the government delegation said it would submit a complaint listing 260 ceasefire breaches by the rebels on Friday alone.
Rebel delegation spokesman Mohamed Abdulsalam said the priority was to end the fighting that has killed more than 6,800 people and driven 2.8 million from their homes since March last year.
"Stopping the war and all forms of military action is the priority of the Yemeni people and the priority of their representatives," he said on Facebook.
Third city Taez, where forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi have been under rebel siege for months, has been a particular source of friction.
Three rebels and two loyalists were killed on Saturday in fierce fighting in Kirsh, a town on the main highway to Taez from the southern port of Aden where Hadi's government is based, military sources said.
The government delegation is to press for the swift implementation of a package of confidence-building measures agreed at the last -- abortive -- round of peace talks in Switzerland in December.
They include the release of prisoners and the lifting of blockades and other obstacles to the the delivery of relief supplies.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=76480
23.4.2016 – Shiite News (A K P)
YEMEN’S HOUTHIS, PRO-HADI MILITIAS EXCHANGE PRISONERS AS PEACE TALKS BEGIN
Yemen’s Houthis and militiamen loyal to former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi have exchanged hundreds of prisoners captured during the Saudi-led war on the Arab country.
The swap involved 71 Houthis fighters as well as 50 pro-Hadi militiamen.
It occurred in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on Thursday, the same day that UN-brokered peace talks between the Houthis and the Hadi loyalists began in Kuwait, reports said.
22.4.2016 – UN (A P)
Yemen stands ‘closer than ever to peace,’ says UN envoy, as talks continue in Kuwait
The United Nations envoy for Yemen said that today’s sessions of the UN-brokered peace negotiations among Yemeni parties were “positive and promising,” as both sides continue to work towards achieving an agreement on ending the violence and devastation in the country.
“We hope they will forge a long-awaited new phase, the phase of peace, security and respect for human rights,” said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, UN Special Envoy for Yemen, in a press release.
The envoy said that despite “alarming breaches” in some areas to the cessation of hostilities pact that came into force at midnight on 10 April, there has been a marked improvement in security, according to independent sources. This morning, he heard about clashes in Taiz and other regions.
“We have called on all concerned parties to address these violations and we are actively following up on these issues,” the envoy said from Kuwait, where the talks are under way.
In particular, he commended the De-escalation and Coordination Committee (DCC) and local committees for their continuing efforts to strengthen the cessation of hostilities.
The envoy said that the current round of the talks will focus on five points that are based on UN Security Council resolution 2216 and the agreed-upon agenda that guided the Biel Talks this past December.
“We in the United Nations do not believe that these points have to be implemented sequentially. We have proposed that committees working in parallel to discuss implementation mechanisms in each area,” the envoy said.
The overall objective of the peace talks – which opened yesterday in Kuwait after a three-day delay – is to reach a comprehensive agreement that lays the foundations for a return to a “peaceful and orderly transition” based on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative and its implementation mechanism and the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference.
The proposed working plan constitutes a strong framework for a new political process that would help Yemen and Yemenis achieve stability and live in peace, Mr. Ould Cheikh Ahmed noted.
“Reaching a practical and positive solution undoubtedly requires concessions from all sides. These concessions will reflect their commitment and efforts to reach an inclusive agreement,” the special envoy said.
“Today’s sessions were positive and promising,” he added.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53762
Comment: With UN resolution 2216, there hardly will be peace in Yemen.
Looking back half a year:
3.10.2015 – Secular Talk (C P)
U.S. Sits Quietly As Saudi Arabia Blocks UN Human Rights Inquiry Into Yemen
A Dutch-led effort to create a human rights mission for Yemen was abandoned Wednesday amid intense Saudi opposition at the UN, but human rights experts are laying blame in part at the feet of the United States, which failed to vigorously back the Netherlands — and may have worked behind the scenes to head off the independent investigation...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJVlyuLA38g
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
24.4.2016 – Strategic Culture (** B P)
What Obama Shares with Assad, Russia and Yemen's Houthis – Saudi Blackmail
The Saudi rulers reacted furiously when it emerged last weekend that a bill going through the US Congress could give families of 9/11 victims the right to sue Saudi Arabia in a federal court. If, that is, evidence showed a state link to the atrocity in 2001 when some 3,000 American citizens were killed. Families and campaigners believe there is an incriminating connection to Saudi rulers over the terror attacks because 15 of the alleged 19 attackers were Saudi citizens.
That move could be nothing more than a royal bluff by the Saudis. Some commentators and even US officials expressed disbelief that the Saudi rulers would take such a drastic measure as it could rebound badly to destabilize the fragile Saudi economy, which has fallen on hard times anyway over sinking oil prices and its costly war in Yemen.
Nevertheless, in theory at least, the threatened Saudi sell-off of US treasury bonds would strike a debilitating blow to the American economy. This gets to the heart of the US-Saudi strategic relationship. That relationship revolves around the world’s biggest oil exporter trading its commodity solely in dollars in perpetuity. The US-Saudi petrodollar system means that the rest of the world is obliged to follow suit in using the American greenback as the standard financial means of transaction. That is the basis for the dollar being the world’s reserve currency and it allows the US to continue printing dollars and forever running up a gargantuan national debt (now at $19 trillion).
So, the petrodollar system, which is the lifeline for the chronically indebted US economy, may continue for the moment to dominate, but it is in a perilously delicate balance.
That’s why the Saudi threat to sell off US debt holdings resonated with such trepidation when it was announced this week. It is also why, at least partly, the Obama administration emphatically expressed that it would quash the 9/11 legislation wending its way through Congress.
In any case, here is the takeaway. The Obama White House just got the Saudi blackmail treatment. The thrust of this is: tell your citizens to back off awkward litigation or else we’ll pull the plug on your economy and bring you down in ignominy with us.
Despite the veneer of patch-up and can-do alliance this week in Riyadh between Obama and King Salman one amusing upshot is this: Obama finds himself in the same unseemly position as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Moscow and the Yemeni revolutionaries led by the Houthi rebels.
All of these parties are being subjected in one way or another to the Saudi modus operandi of diplomacy-by-blackmail.
On Syria […]
Meanwhile, in Yemen the same tactic of diplomacy-by-blackmail is also extant. Peace talks are due to get underway in Kuwait between, on the one hand, Saudi Arabia and a faction loyal to the ousted Saudi puppet-president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and on the other hand, the so-called Popular Committees led by the Houthi rebels.
A ceasefire purportedly came into effect in Yemen on April 11 to pave the way for peace talks. However, the Houthi-led Popular Committees claim that the Saudi aerial bombardment has continued unremittingly, despite the official declaration of ceasefire. The rebels rejected Saudi demands for their retreat from formerly loyalist-held territories and the laying down of weapons as a precondition for political negotiations. It is claimed that is why the Saudi air raids have continued – as a means of pressuring the Houthis to make concessions at the negotiating table. In other words, blackmail under threat of violence.
The unmistakable pattern here is the use of blackmail by Saudi Arabia as a means of achieving political goals. Blackmail plus coercive violence.
While the Yemenis, Syrians and Russians have by now become seasoned observers of this low-ball Saudi way of doing politics, US President Obama – the long-term strategic ally of Saudi Arabia – appears also to have undergone an initiation of sorts this week.
Smiles and handshakes between Obama and King Salman in Riyadh this week belie the sordid reality – by Finian Cunningham
24.4.2016 – Noto Wahabism (B H)
Sex slavery in Saudi Arabia ; Trying to Defame Islam. A wealthy 70 yo saudi who wants a MAXIMUM 13 yo girl...
https://www.facebook.com/NotoWahabism/videos/879874805474436/
24.4.2016 – Middle East Eye (A P)
Saudi king sacks utilities minister over price rises
High-profile sacking comes as Saudi Arabia grapples with the effects of a global slump in oil prices
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-king-sacks-utilities-minister-over-price-rises-1467712124
Comment: Façade. Sacking one Minister will not solve the problem.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1013328368720193&id=961126490607048
23.4.2016 – The Economist (A E P)
The new oil order: An impetuous prince is rattling the Middle East, but may also bring bold reform
Prince Muhammad also has striking ideas about how to diversify the Saudi economy. The world’s biggest oil power relies on crude oil for nine-tenths of government revenues. With the collapse in prices, the country is expected to post a budget deficit of 13.5% of GDP this year; it is having to cut spending, draw down its reserves and borrow abroad. The rentier model, whereby the Al Sauds distributed largesse and do-nothing public jobs in return for obedience, was under strain even when oil was booming.
Prince Muhammad’s plans include abolishing subsidies, raising new taxes, the part-privatisation of public services and an industrial reform involving Saudi Aramco and SABIC, a petrochemicals giant. But it faces obstacles. One is the weak capacity of the kingdom’s civil service to act on such ambition. Another is the power of the sprawling ruling family and ultra-conservative clerics to block the other reforms needed to attract investment: promoting a vigorous private sector, fostering transparency and the rule of law, and empowering women.
Some of the pain is self-inflicted.
23.4.2016 – Forbes (A E P)
Five Questions About The New Saudi Economic Plan
Saudi Arabia is preparing to unveil what may be the greatest changes the country has undergone since the discovery of oil in 1938. This is coming against the backdrop of a controversial visit by President Obama to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, rising tensions with Iran, and ongoing violence in neighboring Yemen. On Monday, the Kingdom will introduce its plan for an economic and financial restructuring of its sovereign wealth fund.
On the scale of $2 trillion, this new Public Investment Fund (PIF) would be the largest in the world and would include a compelling IPO of a small portion of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Saudi Aramco. The country relies almost exclusively on oil profits to fund the government. No one outside of the government knows the exact numbers, but some estimates say 90% of the Kingdom’s budget comes from Aramco. Therefore, the shift towards funding the government through an investment company raises vital questions and concerns. Monday’s “Vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” announcement may answer them.
5) Can Muhammad bin Salman’s vision be trusted as the will of the Saudi royal family? Much of the news about Saudi Arabia’s financial plans are currently sourced to Muhammad bin Salman, but is he the authority? Change in Saudi Arabia is a tricky and slow process. The 30 year old Mohammad bin Salman’s proposals are not radical, but they do restructure the Saudi government and reorient its relationship with Aramco. Traditionally, the Saudi royal family has allowed the technocrats to run the oil business, a relationship that has served them well over the years. The word in Saudi Arabia is that if you want something done, get Aramco to do it. This is one reason why former Aramco CEO and current chairman Khalid al-Falih was tapped to run the health ministry in the wake of the MERS scandal. The new plan appears to bring the company under stronger royal oversight, a move which could threaten Aramco’s world-class efficiency.
Yet, Mohammad bin Salman is only 30 years old. His youth presents dual problems – by Ellen R. Wald
cp9 USA
23.4.2016 – The Globalist (**B P)
Saudi Arabia: Six Questions the United States Must Ask
What is amazing is that Washington, rather than asking tough and urgent questions of the Saudis, is hell-bent on placating the new leadership of the semi-senile King Salman and the ruthless, power hungry Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed.
As the continuing debate over releasing the “Saudi pages” from the Report of the 9/11 Commission underscores, it does not behoove the United States to play an understudy to Saudi Arabia.
Instead, Washington should zero in on the following set of questions in order to regain its proper balance:
1. Why does it serve United States’ interests to adopt the Saudi line that Iran is an implacably hostile force that sows instability throughout the Middle East and with whom any form of normalization is dangerous?
2. Why does it serve U.S. interests to act in a manner that strongly suggests that we have chosen the Sunni side in Islam’s sectarian confrontation?
3. Why does it serve U.S. interests to participate in the bloody Saudi-led assault on Yemen that has led to a vast strengthening of the al-Qaeda branch, which Washington long has judged to be the most menacing?
4. Why do we tolerate the Saudi-led forces fighting side-by-side with al-Qaeda units?
5. Why should we assiduously avoid even raising the issue of Saudi and friends’ backing of ISIL and their promotion of al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Shem in Syria – against the backdrop of aggressive projection of their anti-Western Wahhabist creed across the Islamic world?
6. Should we really give priority to removing Assad when his downfall will bring to power violent Salafist groups of the most extreme kind, whom the Saudis now see as shock troops in their war against Iranian led Shi’ism?
There are no answers given to the questions asked above. They are not even really posed in political circles. They are ignored by most media, and Washington’s official commentariat only rarely raises its timid hand – by Michael J. Brenner
http://www.theglobalist.com/saudi-arabia-six-questions-the-united-states-must-ask/
23.4.2016 – The Express (A P)
Trump says Saudi Arabia WOULDN’T EXIST without the US and threatens to stop buying its oil
DONALD Trump has declared Saudi Arabia would not exist “without the cloak of American protection” as he threatened to stop the US from buying its oil.
The brazen presidential hopeful said he would pull oil trade with the Sunni Kingdom unless the country’s government provides troops to fight the Islamic State.
Outlining his foreign policy, the Republican frontrunner also said America should be reimbursed by the countries it provides protection – including Saudi Arabia.
The billionaire’s candid comments came after the New York Times asked him if he would halt oil purchases from US allies unless they provided ground-based troops against the depraved death cult – also known as Daesh.
He said: “The answer is, probably yes.”
“We’re not being reimbursed for the kind of tremendous service that we’re performing by protecting various countries.
“Now Saudi Arabia’s one of them.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/655873/Donald-Trump-Oil-Saudi-Arabia-Islamic-State-ISIS-Daesh-Republican-Presidential-America = http://knowterrorists.com/trump-says-saudi-arabia-wouldnt-exist-without-the-us-and-threatens-to-stop-buying-its-oil/
22.4.2016 – Belkis Wille (* A K P)
We Need to Know More About the US’s Role in Yemen
A crowd quickly gathered when I arrived last month in what remained of the market in Mastaba, a small highway town in northern Yemen. A week earlier, on March 15, warplanes from the Saudi Arabia-led coalition had dropped two bombs there, killing perhaps 10 Houthi rebel fighters and at least 97 civilians, including 25 children. My questions, after a year investigating bomb sites and other alleged atrocities by both sides in Yemen, had become routine: Where did the bombs strike? What was damaged and destroyed? When I asked if any bomb remnants had been found, three men came forward with chunks of metal. As I pulled out a measuring tape, one asked, “Do you know what it is?”
US-made bombs, it turned out. Analysis showed that the remnants were from a GBU-31 satellite-guided bomb, which consists of a 2,000-pound MK-84 general purpose bomb and a JDAM satellite guidance kit. A couple of days earlier, a team from the British news channel ITV had visited the devastated market and had found remnants of another MK-84 bomb paired with a Paveway laser guidance kit. When and to whom the US provided them is uncertain.
The crowd in Mastaba, however, had already made up their minds about the bombs’ origins. A man who had lost 17 family members in the strike asked, “[w]hy did America kill my relatives?” Another wanted to know, “[w]ill the US government give us money to repair the remaining buildings and rebuild the market?” I only had questions, no answers.
The US has supplied weapons for airstrikes in Yemen and American forces have also provided the Saudi-led coalition with intelligence and aerial refueling support. Beyond these basic facts, we know too little about the US’s involvement in the airstrikes conducted by the coalition in Yemen that may have violated the law of armed conflict. Why do we need to know more? Because the nature of the US involvement determines whether the US is a party to the conflict – as a party the US is obligated to investigate alleged war crimes in which its forces took part. A general contribution, such as with financial assistance, weaponry or moral support, is insufficient. However, a country that plays a direct even if supporting role in military operations, including by providing intelligence used to strike targets or refueling planes on bombing missions, would become a party to the conflict.
The Obama administration has largely been silent on the region’s most underreported armed conflict. When questioned about the US bomb remnants found at Mastaba, a spokesman for the US Central Command, Col. Patrick Ryder, said that “final vettings of targets” were decided by the Saudis. He expressed confidence that the information and support the US provided was “the best option for military success consistent with international norms and mitigating civilian casualties.”
These claims blur rather than clarify the US role in the fighting. Early on in the war, the US military said that it provided advice on specific targeting decisions and aerial refueling during bombing raids, actions that could make the US a party to the armed conflict under international law. Being party to the conflict has important implications. It means the US is obligated to investigate potentially unlawful attacks in which it took part — and that US military personnel involved could be subject to criminal prosecution for war crimes.
Little is known about the US contribution to specific, apparently unlawful, attacks.
Whether or not the latest proposed ceasefire takes hold, the administration should come clean about the exact role the US is playing in the Yemen conflict as well as plans to provide new weapons to the Saudi-coalition.
This should be a reminder that the US government not only has to answer to the American people for its conduct in the war, but also to civilians who are being killed and maimed and whose homes and markets are being destroyed by US-supplied bombs – by Belkis Wille, Yemen and Kuwait researcher with Human Rights Watch.
https://www.justsecurity.org/?p=30711/
21.4.2016 – The Guardian (*** B K)
After drones: the indelible mark of America's remote control warfare
The strikes last a moment, but the consequences last forever. Six families explain how Obama’s secret drone war has left them struggling for answers after loved ones were wiped out without warning
[a chilling piece about drone warfare in Pakistan and Yemen. In it, six families recount how the remote-controlled planes of death changed their lives forever.
In one example, a 14-year-old boy named Sadaullah lost his home and some family members on Sept. 7, 2009, in a drone strike in north Waziristan, Pakistan. After the attack, he had to have both legs amputated and lost the use of one eye. His remaining family members went bankrupt because of his medical bills. The reason for the attack remains unknown.
Another attack in the same area took the lives of 40 civilians on March 17, 2011, during a tribal gathering over timber and mining claims on a mountain. According to the report, the drone strikes were part of an unrelated geopolitical tussle. No terrorists were killed in that attack.
Another drone strike in Pakistan on Dec. 31, 2009, may have targeted journalist Kareem Khan, who survived the attack but lost his son and brother.
Ahmed Jan survived the strike on the tribal gathering and now is heavily medicated, with a rod lodged in his leg; has gone bankrupt; and has lost all of his land.
“The agony continues after the drone,” Jan told The Guardian. “You’re worse off injured than being dead. You have to live with the pain and the suffering that continues.”]
Because US drone strikes are cloaked in secrecy, occur in remote or dangerous locales and target people presumed to be terrorists, Americans rarely hear from survivors or their relatives. But a theme emerges in interviews the Guardian has conducted with more than half a dozen drone survivors: the pain from the strike never ends, as the apparatus of secrecy renders closure unobtainable.
According to six people in Pakistan and Yemen who have lost their brothers, sons and grandparents to drone strikes, the strike lasts a moment and the consequences last a lifetime. Most of them have never told their stories to an American reporter. Some of them have theories about whom the US was targeting, while others are left guessing. The interviews were facilitated by the human rights group Reprieve and the Foundation for Fundamental Rights and conducted in translation.
The people are left impoverished, anguished and infuriated. Justice, let alone apologies, never arrives, even as a modest amount of blood money flows from the local governments. The United States, which styles itself a force for justice in the world, is to them the remote force that introduced death into their lives and treats them like they are subhuman, fit only to be targeted. At any moment, they fear, another drone could come for them.
The White House has said it will soon release of a tally of drone deaths. Relatives of the dead and survivors of the attacks expect little of it to include the truth, and doubt it will lead to the public apologies they desire – particularly since a senior aide to Barack Obama recently told the Atlantic that the president “has not had a second thought about drones”.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/21/drone-war-obama-pakistan-cia and http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/drone_victims_in_pakistan_and_yemen_recount_20160423#below
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
24.4.2016 – Telepolis (* B K P)
Auch Großbritannien führt eine Drohnen-Todesliste
Das Land tritt gegen die Todesstrafe ein, aber praktiziert die Hinrichtung von Menschen ohne jegliche Gerichtsverfahren
Seit fast fünfzehn Jahren führen die Vereinigten Staaten ihren Drohnen-Krieg. Im Zentrum dieses Schattenkrieges steht vor allem die Todesliste, auf der die Namen von Zielpersonen vermerkt sind - die sogenannte "Kill List". Wie mittlerweile bekannt ist, wird sie vom US-Präsidenten höchstpersönlich wöchentlich, an jedem Dienstag, unterzeichnet und abgesegnet.
Vor wenigen Tagen wurde allerdings bekannt, dass die USA nicht der einzige Staat dieser Welt sind, der eine solche Drohnen-Todesliste führt. Ein ausführlicher Bericht der britischen Menschenrechtsorganisation Reprieve macht deutlich, dass auch die Briten, die ebenfalls bewaffnete Drohnen einsetzen, eine derartige Liste führen - und ihren Opfern teils merkwürdige Codenamen geben, etwa jene von Musikern, Comicfiguren oder Pornodarstellern.
So wurden manche der Ziele, hauptsächlich Terrorverdächtige, allerdings auch angebliche Drogenschmuggler, unter anderem als Britney Spears, Drake, Krusty the Clown, Iron Man oder Garfield bezeichnet.
Laut Reprieve würde diese ungewöhnliche Namensgebung für die Öffentlichkeit besonders schockierend sein, da sie den gesamten Prozess der Tötung vollkommen entmenschlichen soll.
Abgesehen davon macht der Bericht deutlich, dass Großbritannien schon früh nach Beginn des "Krieges gegen Terror" seine eigene Todesliste erstellte und in diesem Zusammenhang eng mit Washington zusammenarbeitete. Prekär ist die Tatsache, dass Großbritannien seinen Schattenkrieg nicht nur in bekannten Kriegszonen, etwa in Afghanistan, führt, sondern auch in Staaten wie Pakistan. Offiziell herrscht in diesem Land jedoch kein Krieg. Des Weiteren zählt die Regierung in Islamabad zu den engsten Verbündeten Londons.
In diesem Kontext wird auch klar, dass die britische Regierung bezüglich ihrer Kriegsaktivitäten mehrmals gelogen hat – von Emran Feroz
http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/48/48020/1.html
22.4.2016 – Jamila Hanan (A P)
UK publishes their "Human Rights and Democracy Report 2015" but who cares to read what hypocrites have to say?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/human-rights-and-democracy-report-2015
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/723766067168968704
20.4.2016 – Middle East Monitor (A P)
Imagine if a Conservative MP was on the payroll of the Saudi royal family. By payroll, I mean receiving a monthly salary paid into their bank account. Imagine if that MP was asking for British airmen to risk their lives defending Saudi ground troops. Imagine if that MP was repeating Saudi Arabian propaganda on the floor of the House of Commons about the execution of peaceful dissidents.
Imagine… well, actually, you don’t have to imagine this scenario, because a Conservative MP really is acting as a paid adviser to a think tank with close ties to the Saudi Arabian intelligence services. He has a history of advising foreign governments and defecting between political parties. We should be very wary of his intentions.
Pakistan-born Rehman Chishti was a vice-chairman of Labour students in Wales and a Labour councillor in Medway, Kent, before defecting to the Conservative Party in 2006. The turncoat is now the Conservative MP for Gillingham and Vice-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Saudi Arabia, an advocacy group operating in Westminster for the Saudi government. It is chaired by fellow Tory MP Daniel Kawzynski, whose nickname has been the “honourable member for Saudi Arabia” since he criticised Justice Secretary Michael Gove’s decision to cancel a training contract for the Saudi prison service last October. Kawzynski’s nickname is, however, no longer exclusive, for Chishti is at his side.
Parliamentary records reveal that the MP for Gillingham now gets paid £2,000 per month to provide advice on “international relations covering Europe and the Middle East” to the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, based in Riyadh. According to the group’s website, the areas of research include Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Mahgreb (north-west Africa), but not, funnily enough, Europe. So what exactly is Chishti “advising” the Saudi government on?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20160420-meet-the-conservative-mp-on-the-saudi-payroll/ and also http://www.thecanary.co/2016/04/20/tory-mp-calling-british-troops-risk-death-saudi-arabia-kingdoms-payroll/
Comment: That’s really fine.
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
24.4.2016 – Tagesanzeiger (A K P)
Schweiz liefert Ersatzteile für den Jemen-Krieg
Gemäss einem Bericht werden Schweizer Komponenten für Kriegseinsätze verwendet.
Entgegen Beteuerungen des Bundesrats exportiert die Schweiz offenbar Ersatzteile für Panzerhaubitzen und Kampfjets, die im Jemen-Krieg eingesetzt werden. Davon zeugen Fotos und Artikel auf spezialisierten Internetplattformen, wie die «NZZ am Sonntag» schreibt. Die Bilder und Texte zeigen, dass Bahrain F-5-Kampfflugzeuge im Jemen-Konflikt verwendet, ebenso wie die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate M109-Panzerhaubitzen dort benutzen. Genau für die F-5-Jets und die M109-Haubitzen bewilligte der Bundesrat am Mittwoch Ersatzteillieferungen nach Bahrain und in die Arabischen Emirate.
http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/standard/Schweiz-liefert-Ersatzteile-fuer-den-JemenKrieg/story/30975766 und der NZZ-Artikel: http://webpaper.nzz.ch/2016/04/24/schweiz/O8YG1/schweiz-liefert-gueter-fuer-den-jemen-krieg?guest_pass=667d698fcf%3AO8YG1%3A6b7ea16c821f4bac953a4ce47fdd04e240c9d2cf
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms trade
24.4.2016 – Op Ed News (** A K P)
"Liberal" Trudeau joins blood-soaked race for arms deals with Mideast despots
Duplicity of Western governments doing business with despotic regimes is nothing new.
Massive arms sales to tyrannical regimes give the real meaning to hackneyed euphemisms spouted by the likes of Obama, Cameron, Hollande and Trudeau, when they cite "regional partners for stability." What they mean by stability is uninterrupted orders for weapons.
What is new, though, is the lack of discretion in how the West now pursues arms deals in the Mideast.
Western governments are apparently falling over themselves to bid for business. Yet this unseemly rush for arms selling is sharply at odds with not only intensifying repression within Middle Eastern "partner" regimes; it has also become abundantly clear that some of these same regimes are directly responsible for sponsoring terrorism in the region. The case of Saudi Arabia and its sponsorship of Wahhabi terror proxies in Syria, Libya and Iraq is perhaps the most glaring.
Part of the burgeoning Western race for arms business is related to the historical demise of their capitalist economies and the emergence of military industries as key components in whatever remains of gutted manufacturing sectors.
No doubt, critics will point out that Russia is also a major arms supplier to Middle Eastern regimes. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia is indeed a prominent weapons exporter to the region and globally.
However, there is an important distinction. Western governments never cease to proclaim democracy, human rights and international law as foundational policies. Washington, London, Paris and so on continually invoke such rights as criteria by which they sanction, censure and even invade other countries to ostensibly uphold.
What is therefore more transparent than ever from Western countries soliciting arms deals in the Middle East is their shameless, sordid hypocrisy.
That Canada's fresh face of "liberal values," Justin Trudeau, has joined the throng of Western leaders cutting deals with tyrants and dictators just goes to show how cosmetic Western noble pretensions are.
Why should citizens in these countries believe anything that their governments tell them on any issue? Their governments all too evidently do not have a scrap of integrity or principle.
Official Western treachery, duplicity and hypocrisy have become a chronic condition that is no longer veiled by lofty rhetoric, as it once was. So-called liberal values are being stabbed in the back -- left, right and center – by Finian Cunningham
cp13b Flüchtlinge / Refugees
25.4.2016 – UN High Commissioner for Refugees (A H)
New Arrivals in Yemen Comparison 2013 - 2016 (As of 31 March 2016)
cp14 Offensive gegen Al Qaida / Offensive against Al Qaida
25.4.2016 – Aljazeera (A K T)
Yemen war: Al-Qaeda fighters leave Mukalla
Yemeni forces and Arab allies enter port city of Mukalla, held by al-Qaeda for a year.
emeni government troops and allies from a Saudi-led coalition have entered a city held by al-Qaeda for a year after the group's fighters left.
Local Yemeni officials and residents told the Reuters news agency on Sunday that some 2,000 Yemeni and Emirati troops advanced into Mukalla, taking control of its port and airport and setting up checkpoints throughout the southern city.
The coalition said in a statement, carried by the official Saudi news agency SPA, that "more than 800 al-Qaeda elements" had been killed and that the rest of the fighters had fled the city, the provincial capital of Hadramout.
The death toll could not be independently verified.
Iona Craig, a journalist who was in Mukalla last month and who said she regularly communicates with residents there, described the coalition's claim as "ridiculous".
"There weren't even 800 fighters left there," she told Al Jazeera by phone from the UK. "There was no fighting inside the city because al-Qaeda had already left."
Craig said the only clashes she had heard of were on roads coming into Mukalla, and that air strikes on Saturday had mainly targeted places repeatedly bombed before.
She added that negotiations had been ongoing for the last two weeks to let fighters leave and that they had been given free passage out of the city.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/yemen-mukalla-al-qaeda-160425063257940.html
25.4.2016 – Spiegel Online (A K T)
Offensive der Militärkoalition: Mehr als 800 al-Qaida-Kämpfer im Jemen getötet
Die Küstenstadt Mukalla gilt als Hochburg der Terrororganisation "al-Qaida auf der Arabischen Halbinsel" (AQAP) im Jemen . In einer gemeinsamen Aktion haben die jemenitische Armee und die Militärkoalition unter Führung Saudi-Arabiens die Stadt nun nach eigenen Angaben zurückerobert. Bei der Offensive im Süden des Landes seien 800 Qaida-Kämpfer getötet worden, darunter mehrere Anführer der Gruppe, meldete die amtliche Nachrichtenagentur SPA.
Jemenitische Truppen hatten demnach am Sonntag mit Luftunterstützung der Koalition die 200.000-Einwohner-Stadt Mukalla von den Dschihadisten wieder eingenommen. Einige Terroristen flohen.
25.4.2016 - Deutschlandfunk (A K T)
Militär-Koalition erobert Ölumschlagsplatz zurück
Im Jemen hat die von Saudi-Arabien geführte Militärkoalition nach eigenen Angaben den größten Ölumschlagsplatz des Landes vom Terrornetzwerk al-Kaida zurückerobert.
25.4.2016 – ORF (A K T)
Jemen: Armee erobert Al-Kaida-Hochburg zurück
Truppen des Jemen und der Arabischen Emiraten haben offenbar die Al-Kaida-Hochburg Mukalla im Süden des Landes zurückerobert. Rund 2.000 Soldaten seien in die Küstenstadt vorgerückt, sagten Anwohner. Kämpfer der Extremisten-Organisation hätten sich im Gegenzug aus Mukalla zurückgezogen.
Zuvor waren bei Luftangriffen nach Angaben von Augenzeugen 30 Kämpfer der Extremistenmiliz getötet worden. Al-Kaida-Kämpfer waren vor rund einem Jahr in die Stadt eingefallen und hatten sie besetzt.
http://orf.at/stories/2336482/
25.4.2016 – Zeit Online (A K T)
Saudiarabische Koalition: 800 Al-Kaida-Kämpfer im Jemen getötet
25. April 2016, 4:46 Uhr Quelle: afp
Riad (AFP) Die von Saudi-Arabien angeführte Militärkoalition hat bei einer Offensive im Süden des Jemen nach eigenen Angaben mehr als 800 Kämpfer des Terrornetzwerks Al-Kaida getötet. Unter den Getöteten seien auch mehrere Anführer der Gruppe, meldete die amtliche Nachrichtenagentur SPA am Montag. Einige andere hätten fliehen können. Jemenitische Truppen hatten demnach am Sonntag mit Luft-Unterstützung der saudiarabischen Koalition die 200.000-Einwohner-Stadt Mukalla von den Dschihadisten zurückerobert.
http://www.zeit.de/news/2016-04/25/saudi-saudiarabische-koalition-800-al-kaida-kaempfer-im-jemen-getoetet-25044603 und NZZ http://www.nzz.ch/international/jemenitische-und-emiratische-truppen-dringen-in-kaida-hochburg-ein-1.18731177
25.4.2016 – Bild (A K T)
Jemen: 800 al-Qaida-Kämpfer getötet
Die von Saudi-Arabien angeführte Militärkoalition hat bei einer Offensive im Süden des Jemen nach eigenen Angaben mehr als 800 Kämpfer des Terrornetzwerks al-Quaida getötet.
Unter den Getöteten seien auch mehrere Anführer der Gruppe, meldete die amtliche Nachrichtenagentur SPA am Montag. Einige andere hätten fliehen können. Jemenitische Truppen hatten demnach am Sonntag mit Luft-Unterstützung der saudiarabischen Koalition die 200 000-Einwohner-Stadt Mukalla von den Dschihadisten zurückerobert.
http://www.bild.de/bildlive/2016/04-jemen-45519968.bild.html
Kommentar: 800 ist wohl eine große Aufschneiderei, andere Quellen melden 37. Es spricht sicher nicht für die deutschsprachige Presse, wenn ausgerechnet das Contra-Magazin als einziger Berichterstatter diese Zahl unzweideutig ins Reich der Propaganda verweist. Die meisten begnügen sich mit einem nichtssagenden „angeblich“.
25.4.2016 – Reuters (* A K T)
Coalition troops seize main Yemen oil terminal from al Qaeda – sources
Yemeni government forces and their Emirati allies took control of the country’s largest oil export terminal from al Qaeda on Monday, Yemeni security officials said, a day after sweeping the militant group from its nearby stronghold.
The lightning advance is a major shift in strategy for the Saudi-led coalition, which for over a year has focused its firepower on the Iran-allied Houthi group that seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa further West and drove the government into exile.
In 48 hours, the coalition deprived the Islamist militants of a lucrative mini-state they had built up over the course of a year, based around the port city of Mukalla.
Around 80 percent of Yemen’s modest oil reserves were exported in peacetime from the Ash Shihr terminal, which has been closed since the war began and al Qaeda seized the area.
A statement by the mostly Gulf Arab coalition said on Monday that its offensive had killed 800 Al Qaeda members and several leaders, though Mukalla residents said the number appeared unlikely and the group withdrew largely without a fight.
Residents said local clerics and tribesmen had earlier been in talks with the group to exit quietly and that fighters withdrew westward to the neighbouring province of Shabwa.
Local Yemeni officials said on Sunday that some 2,000 Yemeni and Emirati troops advanced into Mukalla, taking control of its maritime port and airport and setting up checkpoints throughout the southern city.
The coalition offensive is now seeking to advance on AQAP-held towns along an almost 600-km (370-mile) stretch of Arabian Sea coastline between Mukalla and the government’s base in Aden, where militants appeared to be mounting fiercer resistance.
(Writing by Noah Browning; editing by John Stonestreet)
http://www.euronews.com/newswires/3185057-saudi-led-coalition-says-kills-more-than-800-militants-in-yemen/ see also Xinhua http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/25/c_135310516.htm and Vice News https://news.vice.com/article/yemeni-troops-retake-al-qaeda-port-city-stronghold and RT https://www.rt.com/news/340814-yemen-saudi-kill-qaeda/
25.4.2016 – Saudi Press Agency (A K T)
Command of coalition to support legitimacy in Yemen announces military operation Against Al-Qaeda
The command of the coalition forces to support the legitimacy in Yemen announced launching a joint military operation against al-Qaeda in Yemen.
The operation's participants include the Yemeni army and elements of Saudi and United Arab Emirates special forces.
The coalition command said in a statement today that the operation resulted in its first hours in the killing of more than 800 elements of Al-Qaeda and a number of their leaders and that the rest of them fled.
The statement added that this comes as part of the joint international efforts to defeat the terrorist groups in Yemen and support the Yemeni legitimate government to extend its influence and control over the Yemeni cities that fell under the control of Al-Qaeda the most important of which is the city of Al Mukalla which is considered the stronghold of the organization. The operations aim at clearing it and help the legitimacy to extend its control over it and over the rest of the Yemeni cities.
The statement added that this process will allow intensifying humanitarian relief efforts in those cities and alleviate suffering of the brotherly people of Yemen.
The countries participating in this operation emphasizes their continuation of chasing the terrorist organizations in all Yemeni cities, defeating them and depriving them from safe haven till the return of security and stability to the region.
http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewstory.php?lang=en&newsid=1493412
Comment: That sound like a great lot of bragging. There are photos of AQAP line of cars leaving Mukalla. The Oman Daily Observer mentions 37 killed: http://omanobserver.om/37-killed-in-yemen-as-coalition-attacks-al-qaeda/ . And, look at the Orwellian name of the Saudi command. There is no legitimacy with “president” Hadi’s government – and off course also not at all with the Saudi intervention and aerial war.
25.4.2016 – Yemen Post (A K T)
36 hour AlQaeda DEATH toll: 60 suspected AQ fighters killed in #Yemen region of Hadramout. AlArabiya tolls not true.
https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/724500095249600512
25.4.2016 – Hisham Al-Omeisy (A K T)
In 12hrs AQAP's few hundred leave city & no real battle. Coalition capitalize, claim huge battle killed 800
https://twitter.com/omeisy/status/724383745495687168
25.4.2016 – Reuters (A K T)
UAE troops storm into besieged Yemen city
Yemeni and UAE troops advanced into the southern port city of Mukalla on Sunday, officials and residents said, entering a stronghold of Al Qaeda's Yemeni wing for the first time in over a year of war.
Fighter jets from the mostly Gulf Arab alliance pounded the city on Sunday and killed 30 militants, residents said, as the military coalition ramped up an offensive to wrest swathes of southern Yemen from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Mukalla has been the centre of a rich mini-state that Al Qaeda built up over the past year as it took control of an almost 600km band of Arabian Sea coastline and pocketed customs revenues from the port.
Losing Mukalla would take away the AQAP's main source of revenue, which has enabled it to thrive for over a year, but the alliance offensive appeared too strong for it to withstand.
"The liberation of Mukalla from the hands of the Al Qaeda terrorist organisation has begun," local governor Ahmed Saeed bin Breik said in a statement.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/region/mena/uae-troops-storm-into-besieged-yemen-city and by AFP http://www.france24.com/en/20160424-yemen-govt-troops-retake-key-qaeda-held-city-army
24.4.2016 – AFP (* A K T)
Yemen government forces make key gains against Qaeda
Yemeni troops backed by Arab coalition air strikes on Sunday recaptured a southeastern provincial capital held by Al-Qaeda for the past year and an oil terminal, military sources told AFP.
The gains come after pro-government forces began an offensive aimed at securing parts of the country captured by jihadist militants who have exploited a 13-month war between Gulf-backed loyalists and rebels supported by Iran.
"We entered the city centre (of Mukalla) and were met by no resistance from Al-Qaeda militants who withdrew west" towards the vast desert in Hadramawt and Shabwa provinces, a military officer told AFP by phone from the city the jihadists seized last April.
The officer, who requested anonymity, said residents of Mukalla, home to an estimated 200,000 people, had appealed to the jihadists to spare the city the destruction of fighting and to withdraw.
Yemeni military sources said Emirati military vehicles were used in the operation and that troops from the Gulf country, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition, were among the forces that entered Mukalla.
AFP could not immediately confirm these reports from officials in the United Arab Emirates.
The Arab coalition carried out air strikes against Al-Qaeda positions in Mukalla to pave the way for the ground troops, military sources said.
Troops also recaptured Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal in Shehr further east, the sources said.
Earlier Sunday, military sources said pro-government forces seized Riyan airport and an army brigade headquarters Al-Qaeda had held for a year on Mukalla's outskirts.
A provincial official in Shabwa said jihadists also fled from the town of Azzan on Sunday which they seized in February.
As the anti-jihadist offensive gained momentum, a bomb-laden vehicle exploded Sunday, killing seven soldiers and wounding 14. They were in a convoy entering another southern jihadist stronghold -- Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, said military sources, blaming Al-Qaeda for the attack.
The coalition, led by Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia, has deployed Apache helicopters to support loyalists fighting on the ground.
Forces loyal to internationally recognised President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government have retreated from Zinjibar after entering it late Saturday, an officer in Abyan told AFP.
"The withdrawal was decided following information that Al-Qaeda was preparing other car-bomb attacks against our troops," added the officer who requested anonymity.
Government forces also launched an offensive Saturday to drive the jihadists from the neighbouring town of Jaar.
Fighting on Saturday killed 25 Al-Qaeda fighters and four soldiers as loyalists seized Al-Kud, five kilometres (three miles) south of Zinjibar, military and medical sources said.
"After our withdrawal, Apache helicopters will target Al-Qaeda positions to secure the town," said another officer, adding that helicopters had foiled two attempts to attack troops using vehicle bombs in Al-Kud.
Similar assaults have pushed the jihadists from other areas in the south in recent months – by Fawaz al-Haidari
https://www.yahoo.com/news/yemen-govt-troops-retake-key-qaeda-held-city-184557226.html = http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemen-government-forces-make-key-gains-against-al-qaeda-2082383515 and see Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/war-in-yemen-takes-a-major-turn-with-offensive-against-al-qaeda/2016/04/24/b8e73a3e-0a2c-11e6-bc53-db634ca94a2a_story.html and see image: and Al Kaida removing from Mukalla to Shabwa https://twitter.com/AdenNowNews/status/724306124229476352
Comment to image:
Lesson to be learnt from the ISIS/Al Qaeda pull-out in Mukhalla: You can do it freely as drones are used only to strike private cars, weddings, funerals, markets. No harm to a polite, tidy drive away to a known destination with black flags waving.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1014055205314176&id=961126490607048
24.4.2016 – Reuters (* A K P)
AL-QAEDA MILITANTS KILLED IN PUSH TO FREE YEMEN CITY
Warplanes pounded the Al-Qaeda-held port city of Mukalla on Sunday and killed 30 militants, residents said, as a Gulf Arab military coalition ramped up an offensive to wrest swathes of southern Yemen from the fighters' grip.
In the past year, Al-Qaeda gradually took control of an almost 370-mile band of Arabian Sea coastline and built a rich mini-state centered in Mukalla sustained largely by customs revenue from the port.
Sunday's air strikes on Al-Qaeda were carried out in coordination with a ground offensive in militant-controlled territory further west, a Yemeni military official said.
The push is being led by the United Arab Emirates, (UAE) which has been training and arming local recruits for months, according to southern Yemeni tribal and political sources.
"The liberation of Mukalla from the hands of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization has begun," governor Ahmed Saeed Bin Breik said in a statement.
Local officials said dozens of armored vehicles and hundreds of troops are gathered in Ramah, around 44 miles north of Mukalla in preparation for a ground push.
http://europe.newsweek.com/al-qaeda-militants-killed-push-free-yemen-city-451828?rm=eu
24.4.2016 – AFP (A K T)
Bombing kills 7 Yemen soldiers in anti Al-Qaeda offensive
The attack, which also wounded another 14 soldiers, targeted an army convoy as it entered jihadist stronghold Zinjibar, capital of Abyan province, said the sources, blaming Al-Qaeda for the bombing.
23.4.2016 – APA (A K T)
Regierung im Jemen startet Offensive gegen Al-Kaida
Jemenitische Regierungstruppen haben zusammen mit einer saudisch geführten Militärkoalition eine Offensive gegen den mächtigen Ableger des Terrornetzwerkes Al-Kaida im Süden des Landes gestartet. Der Angriff habe zum Ziel, die Dschihadisten von Al-Kaida auf der Arabischen Halbinsel (AQAP) aus der Stadt Sindschibar zu vertreiben, sagte der lokale Politiker Hussein Saleh.
Es seien Kämpfe am Stadtrand ausgebrochen, so Saleh zur Nachrichtenagentur dpa. Sindschibar ist seit Dezember in der Hand der Al-Kaida. Das Terrornetzwerk macht sich das Machtvakuum in dem Bürgerkriegsland zunutze und wurde im vergangenen Jahr immer stärker.
http://orf.at/stories/2336337/ = http://derstandard.at/2000035600546/Offensive-gegen-Al-Kaida-im-Jemen
24.4.2016 – AP (* A K T)
YEMEN TROOPS, SAUDI-LED COALITION ATTACK AL-QAIDA IN SOUTH
Hundreds of Yemeni troops loyal to the internationally recognized president have launched an operation to drive al-Qaida and Islamic State fighters out of southern coastal areas the extremists have seized amid the country's complex civil war, security officials said Sunday.
They said the forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are receiving air support from the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition, which until now has mainly targeted Shiite Houthi rebels. The aircraft struck targets in Mukalla, an al-Qaida stronghold and the capital of Hadramawt province, they said.
The deployment, which began a day earlier, is the latest operation against al-Qaida in Yemen's south. Troops loyal to Hadi also advanced Saturday in the town of Koud in the southern Abyan province, the province's governor said, killing 25 militants from the group in heavy clashes. The coalition has also carried out airstrikes against al-Qaida positions in the area.
The troops had been preparing for the offensive for months with the coalition's support, the officials said, adding that heavy fighting continued with al-Qaida gunmen in Abyan, near the cities of Zinjibar and Jaar. Residents say al-Qaida fighters are holing up in buildings and digging trenches to defend their positions from the advancing troops, and the security officials say the extremists have also laid mines
There were no official casualty figures from the weekend's fighting, but medical officials and witnesses said ambulances were transporting wounded and killed al-Qaida fighters in the area. Hadramawt residents said Apache helicopters and F-16 warplanes were sighted over coastal areas including Mukalla, and had struck several targets, including port facilities – by Ahmed Al-Haj
Comment by Judith Brown: What this article doesn't say is that the Saudi regime has been openly working alongside the Saudi regime in places like Mukalla and Aden.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10154307226658641
Comment by Haykal Bafana: It is not a "victory" when only 10 to 20 AQAP get killed & hundreds more drive west with their arms. It's a political deal.
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/724296700622462980
24.4.2016 – Reuters (* A K T)
Gulf Arab air strikes kill 30 in Qaeda-held Yemeni city: residents
Warplanes pounded the al Qaeda-held port city of Mukalla on Sunday and killed 30 militants, residents said, as a Gulf Arab military coalition ramped up an offensive to wrest swathes of southern Yemen from the fighters' grip.
In the past year, Al Qaeda gradually took control of an almost 600-km (370-mile) band of Arabian Sea coastline and built a rich mini-state centered in Mukalla sustained largely by customs revenue from the port.
Sunday's air strikes on al Qaeda were carried out in coordination with a ground offensive in militant-controlled territory further West, a Yemeni military official said.
The push is being led by the United Arab Emirates, which has been training and arming local recruits for months, according to southern Yemeni tribal and political sources.
"The liberation of Mukalla from the hands of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization has begun," governor Ahmed Saeed Bin Breik said in a statement.
Local officials said dozens of armored vehicles and hundreds of troops are gathered in Ramah, around 70 km (44 miles) north of Mukalla in preparation for a ground push.
Fearing more air strikes, residents reported that local families were bundling into cars and driving out of town.
On Saturday, Yemeni troops battled al Qaeda at al-Koud near Zinjibar, another southern city considered an al Qaeda stronghold, while an air strike from a drone killed two suspected al Qaeda fighters south of the city of Marib.
In a statement on its official Twitter account, AQAP said it carried out a suicide bombing attack against the government troops pushing into al-Koud – by Mohammed Mukhashaf
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-qaeda-idUSKCN0XL0BM
24.4.2016 – Reuters (A K T)
Air strikes kill 10 al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen
A Saudi-led coalition carried out air strikes on the al-Qaeda-held port of Mukalla in southern Yemen on Sunday, killing at least ten militants, medical sources and residents said, part of an offensive to recapture the city.
Mukalla, a shipping hub and provincial capital, is a stronghold of the powerful al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which has taken advantage of Yemen's year-long civil war to win control over parts of the south and east.
Residents said air strikes hit a building that AQAP was using as its headquarters, as well as gatherings of the group elsewhere in Mukalla.
A Yemeni military source said the air strikes were being coordinated with troops on the ground. In recent days, residents and local officials have reported preparations for a pro-government ground offensive on Mukalla.
On Saturday, government forces battled al Qaeda at al-Koud near Zinjibar, another southern city considered an al Qaeda stronghold, while an air strike from a drone killed two suspected al Qaeda fighters south of the city of Marib.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/air-strikes-kill-10-al-qaeda-fighters-in-yemen-2013687
Comment: Situation is catastrophic in Al Mukhalla with people trying to flee trapped between airstrikes and heavy clashes on the ground. There are no safe corridors
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1013328875386809&id=961126490607048
24.4.2016 – Ahmed Alghobary (A K PH)
2 hours ago , 5 airstrikes targeted al Rayan airport in Hadramoot #Yemen
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/724248681491378176
24.4.2016 – Jamila Hanan (A K)
Doesn't matter if you're chasing Houthis or AQAP, no good comes from dropping bombs.
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/724127802891599872
24.4.2016 – Dissolution (A K)
the 2 men killed today in Mareb region, east #Yemen by #US drone strike are civilians and has nothing to do with #al-Qaeda
https://twitter.com/shapban/status/723849200195244033
23.4.2016 – Yemen Post News (A K T)
NEW WAR: 45 AlQaeda/ISIS fighters killed in #Yemen over 24 hours, launch of new intl alliance against terror groups.
https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/723866334287810560
23.4.2016 – Xinhua (A K T)
Security forces launch anti-terror offensive in southern Yemen
Yemeni security forces newly trained by the Saudi-led Arab coalition launched an anti-terror offensive to flush out al-Qaida militants from the southern province of Abyan on Saturday, a provincial security source told Xinhua.
The troops and allied pro-government tribal militias, known as Southern Resistance, supported by UAE armored vehicles advanced into the al-Qaida-held city of Zinjibar, Abyan's provincial capital, after intense clashes with al-Qaida militants there, the security source said on condition of anonymity.
A high-ranking commander of the Special Security Forces in Abyan told Xinhua that the UAE-backed security forces "made significant progress against al-Qaida key hideouts in Abyan, and several areas surrounding Zinjibar were totally cleansed from the terrorists."
He said that the all-out military operation against al-Qaida militants will continue during the upcoming hours until liberating Zinjibar, Abyan's provincial capital, and all the surrounding cities from the terrorists.
So far, the troops have made slow progress due to large number of roadside bombs and landmines leading to the al-Qaida-held city of Zinjibar, a tribal source who is participating in the attack alongside the security forces told Xinhua.
More than 16 al-Qaida militants were killed and dozens injured in the ongoing fighting, the trial source said, adding that five security member were also killed.
Scores of the extremist militants fled from Al-Kud village and headed into Zinjibar after sustaining heavy casualties among their fighters and vehicles, according to the local sources.
Hundreds of families were forced to leave their houses in Zinjibar city due to the exchange of random shelling between the security forces and al-Qaida militants, according to local residents.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/23/c_135305872.htm and by AFP https://www.yahoo.com/news/yemen-launches-southern-operation-against-qaeda-militants-100118952.html
Images: Helicopters over Mukalla https://twitter.com/JosephJo1221/status/724249464899272705 and Mukalla under fire https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/723992248619270144 and fabric bombed https://twitter.com/Fatikr/status/724339259621158912 and Al Kaida removing from Mukalla to Shabwa https://twitter.com/AdenNowNews/status/724306124229476352
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
4.2016 – Legal Center for Rights and Development (A K PH)
Saudi air raids day by day (not complete)
22. April
24.4.2016 – Wafa Yahya (A K PH)
During #Kuwait peace talks , Saudi jets commits new Mascara in Taiz this morning all family members was killed
https://twitter.com/WafaYahya4/status/724322806566125568 and https://twitter.com/I4Yemen/status/724307305429266432 (graphic)
23.4.2016 – Press TV Iran (A K PH)
Video: Saudi jets target Yemen as peace talks underway in Kuwait
In their latest attack, Saudi warplanes carried out three airstrikes on the southern province of Ta'izz. Earlier, the Saudi jets attacked a residential area in Bayda province killing at least four civilians, including a child. The airstrikes are carried out despite calls by the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ould Sheikh for a halt. eace talks are now underway between the Saudi-backed government of ousted president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Ansarullah delegation. Participants in the talks said on Friday that the warring factions failed to agree on an agenda but they will meet again for further discussions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc3M3DT24HE
Comment: Enforcing peace through airstrikes
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1012824315437265&id=961126490607048
23.4.2016 – Aggression Y (A K PH)
KSA-US aggression's warplanes are re-hovering over #Sadaa, #Haja ,#Al-Hodeida, and #Taiz ....
https://twitter.com/AggressionY/status/723963339211177984
23.4.2016 – Aggression Y (A K PH)
#Taiz: KSA-US aggression's warplanes launched 3 air strikes on Al-janad area, Al-Taizia district....
https://twitter.com/AggressionY/status/723823113482461184
23.4.2016 – Khabar Agency (A K PH)
Saudi warplanes launced 8 raids in several areas of #Taiz since Satarday morning #news #breaking
https://twitter.com/khabaragency/status/723973785930608640
23.4.2016 – Yemen Post (A K)
#Breaking Saudi warplanes roaming skies of #Yemen capital flying in very low altitude causing fear of millions just before midnight.
https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/723976251136987136
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
24.4.2016 – Al Arabiya (A K PS)
Shells from Yemen fall on Saudi border province
Four shells from Yemen landed in a town in the western Saudi border province of Jazan late Saturday without causing any injuries or casualities, Al Arabiya News Channel reported.
The shells, which landed in the town of Samtah, caused only light damages in some homes.
The correspondent said Saudi forces hitting back at the source of the shelling was heard.
24.4.2016 – Yemen TV (A K)
Continued violations of Saudi aggression and his mercenaries in Al-Jawf, despite the signing of an agreement for a ceasefire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DmAirnqTfc
23.4.2016 – Yemen Post News (A K)
Houthi Landmine KILLS 5 civilians today in #Yemen city of Taiz in a roadside explosion, says local official.
https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/723901209166417921
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
25.4.2016 – Middle East Eye (* B E)
IMF urges spending cuts in Gulf states over lower oil prices
The crash in oil prices has forced Gulf countries to rethink their economic policies and Saudi Arabia is set to launch a new vision for its future
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday forecast economic growth in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will be 1.8 percent this year, down from 3.3 percent in 2015, and urged spending cutbacks.
In an interview with AFP, IMF regional chief Masood Ahmed also said the oil-exporting Gulf states should press forward with diversifying their revenue-base faced with persistent low crude prices.
OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia is expected on Monday to announce reforms aimed at diversifying its almost total economic reliance on crumbling oil prices.
This year will see "a continuation of a low oil-price environment, so we are going to see further - maybe $100bn or so, in terms of lower revenues from oil exports," Ahmed said of the GCC which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
"This is now beginning to affect not just the financing [of governments] but also the economies in terms of their economic activities," he said in Dubai, where he launched the IMF's regional economic outlook update.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/imf-urges-spending-cuts-gulf-states-over-lower-oil-prices-88752987
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/krieg-im-jemen-neue-artikel-zum-nachlesen-133
Neue Artikel zum Nachlesen 1-133: / Yemen Press Reader 1-133:
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