Yemen

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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 21, 2021 2:28 pm

Yemen: genesis of a "forgotten" imperialist war

by Alberto Ferretti

Image

Western media speak of "forgotten war" when they deign to pay attention to the situation in Yemen where by now, according to the Global Humanitarian Overview 2021 , published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs , on 30 million inhabitants, 25 million live in need and 3.5 million are displaced by a conflict that has so far caused the death of 233,000 people, of which 131,000 due to indirect causes such as lack of food, health services and infrastructure. In short, as NGOs, the UN and the bourgeois press do not fail to affirm, we are facing the "worst humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century".

Catastrophe , as if it were a natural event, forgottenby journalists who are certainly too busy denouncing the threats to the free world of China, Russia and Venezuela, but who are careful not to arouse in this case the collective indignation that they usually unleash for other issues. Consequently, something incomprehensible to the Western public is underway in Yemen: a "civil war", an ambiguous and politically oriented formula that attributes the blame only to Yemenis, excluding the role played by foreign interests; or "a war directed by the Saudis" for inscrutable reasons (when not "to counter Iran in the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis that upsets the Middle East" and other sectarian nonsense passed off as geopolitical analysis). Saudi Arabia to which our governments remain naively or treacherously, depending on the version, allies,

Ultimately, what happens in Yemen does not concern us; in fact, neither professional right-humanist politicians - those who rush to tear their clothes in Belarus - nor obviously the right-wing reactionaries mention them. Yet, we believe that this conspiracy of silence is indicative of the strategic importance of the game currently taking place in the country, which we will try to clarify in this article.

Colonialism and decolonization
The history of Yemen is that of a country placed in a strategic axis of world trade and in an area rich in natural resources, coveted by the colonial powers, between the two world wars represented by the British in the Arabian Peninsula and by the Italians in the Horn of Africa. After the Second World War the decolonization process took place on a double track: in the north of the country a monarchy reigned in search of autonomy from the commercial penetration of the new dominus in the region, the USA, which also intended to ensure that the North did not gravitate excessively in Soviet orbit. This monarchy was deposed in 1962 by a coup d'etat inspired by Arab nationalism which resulted in theArab Republic of Yemen , which was experiencing chaotic moments, between coups and a conflict in which Egypt (supporter of the Republic) and Saudi Arabia (supporter of the Monarchy) were playing their game for hegemony in the Arab world. Only the rise to power of Ali Abdullah Saleh in 1978 conferred "stability" (we will see later how), to the Republic. At the center of national politics, modernization, without much success, and attempts to insert the country's economy into the global circulation of capital, amidst pushes forward and resistance.

Meanwhile, in the South , then a British protectorate known as the Federation of Southern Arabia , a strong anti-colonial resistance was developing that certainly did not contribute to making the country more accessible to the US or tolerable in the eyes of the bulky Saudi neighbor. In the city of Aden , an important commercial port that controls access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, social struggles took hold which in 1956 led to the creation of a trade union center, which was then the center of a political force organized in the National Liberation Front . This FLN, of marked socialist character, freed the south from the colonial yoke after four years of armed struggle, giving life, in 1967 , toPeople's Democratic Republic of Yemen, the first and only Marxist state in the Arab world.

The red flag on Aden
Since its foundation, the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen followed the "classic" trajectory of 20th century socialism, receiving economic and military support from the socialist world, from the USSR to Cuba, although the country was regionally isolated (and sporadically attacked by Saudi Arabia) as the West is considered an outpost of the socialist bloc in the Arab world, and therefore a potential threat to hegemony.

However, the revolutionary regime carried out, during the 70s and 80s, important political, social and economic reforms: from universal education to free health care, formal equality for women and the struggle for tribalism. As a result, the southern Yemenis had achieved a satisfactory standard of living with a markedly reduced gap between rural and urban conditions, despite the low population density compared to the urban agglomeration of Aden and the vast geographical extent of the country. Household incomes, although modest, were sufficient to meet all basic needs.

However, a serious legitimacy crisis ran from 1986, due to the bitter internal struggles within the ruling Socialist Party and the waning of Soviet support, which led to the prevalence of a reformist faction that induced the South to open negotiations with the north for a national reunification seen as an alternative to the socialist project. The south, from a proud bastion of anti-capitalism, was preparing to become an accommodating minority shareholder in the new national project. [ii]

Unification and counter-revolution
Saleh meanwhile ruled in the north, proposing himself as the local guarantor of Western capitalism through the good offices of Saudi Arabia. The occasion of reunification with the leadership of the south in difficulty allowed him to manage the process under the sign of economic liberalization against the background of the collapse of the Soviet camp: it was configured as the possibility, for the strong part, that is, the one linked to the dynamics of capitalism globalized winner of the Cold War, to plunder the resources of the south. Thus was born in 1990 the current Republic of Yemen , with the capital Sana'a .

Unification introduced multi-partyism and bourgeois-democratic institutions: in addition to the Socialist Party and the General People's Congress(Saleh's party) other actors appeared on the political scene. But it also and above all brought about the notorious "structural adjustment" policies of the International Monetary Fund: the privatizations of public companies in the south (about forty thousand) in order to receive "development" loans, layoffs and impoverishment fueled a spiral of generalized discontent (with the rise of a separatist movement in the south, which resulted in a war in 1994 with the central government); this discontent connected with the simultaneous privatization of public education, was intercepted by the new Islamist parties financed by Saudi Arabia, and was fertile ground for the rise of Islah(which includes both the Muslim Brotherhood and the local Salafists) as the first opposition party [iii] .

Meanwhile, in the far north, on the border with Saudi Arabia, a resistance was taking shape led by a former parliamentarian, Hussein al-Houthi , spokesman for the demands of local rural communities, which have long been considered discriminated and in economic difficulties, afflicted by recent problems due to the privatization of land advocated by "structural adjustment" programs and the semi-occupation of water sources, pastures and roads by Saudi border patrols. Exasperated by Saleh's concessions to this expansionism [iv] , al-Houthi, his allies and followers took up arms, accusing Saleh of being now in fief of the Americans and Saudis, at the expense of the Yemeni people and sovereignty. He was killed by government forces in September 2004[v] during the conflict that until 2009 opposed the insurgents to the central government, but its cause had by now gained national resonance. The Houthis also proved to be effective fighters against Al Qaeda, in the meantime having settled in the country, but Saleh did not hesitate to consider them "terrorists" and "foreign agents" (of Iran, only because they belong to the Zaydite minority, a variant of Shiism present only in Yemen) and to direct the maneuvers of the self-styled "war on terror", which made US killer drones roam the skies of the country, even on Houti positions.

“Arab Spring” in Sana 'a
This decaying imperial order is shaken definitively in 2011 when it explodes in the country - where poverty now touches 35% of the inhabitants and the unemployment rate, according to estimates, varies between 20 and 40% [vi] - a vast movement of protest against corruption and the economic crisis. A revolt in the wake of the so-called "Arab Spring" which sees the initial confluence of all Yemeni political and social currents against Saleh.

Over the months and the violent clashes with the government, however, the ambiguous nature of the movement emerges, at least with respect to the structural causes that had provoked it: on the one hand it is praised by the international media that celebrate the "young revolutionaries" expression of "civil society "Fighting for" democracy "and" freedom ", presented by Western liberal propaganda as a new generation capable of ensuring a complete palingenesis of Arab societies against the" regimes "and against the traditional opponents of the" regimes "themselves: by other was firmly hegemonized by the Islamists of Islah , also in the good graces of the imperialist circles as evidenced by the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Islamist leader Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman.

Given these premises, the possibility for the riot to be co-opted according to strategies acceptable to imperialism quickly becomes a reality: Saleh was ousted in 2012 and replaced by a transitional executive led by his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, in alliance with Islah , under the Saudi aegis. The government was anything but hostile to the policies that had prevailed up to that moment, which indeed took the liberal and conservative aspects to extremes and made the living conditions of the population further precipitate. Between austerity to repay the debt accumulated towards the IMF and creditors, proposals to sell off assetsto Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the name of a free trade agreement approved by the IMF itself and problems of regional autonomy to which Hadi responded with a federalization project that was configured as a local re-proposal of the divide and rule strategy already attempted in Iraq, Libya and Syria [vii] .

The War and the Resistance
It is in this context that in September 2014 Ansarollha (Partisans of God) - a political alliance formed by the Houti fighters and part of the regular army that approached them in an anti- Islah key - deposed the Hadi government , blocking the sale of the economic future of Yemen and its dismemberment. [viii] Having in the meantime taken over the anti-corruption slogans that animated the revolt against Saleh, Ansarollha had gained widespread support by becoming by far the country's leading political force. Strengthened by this legitimacy, they created a provisional government headed by a Revolutionary Committee (among whose leaders is Abdel al Houthi, brother of Hussein) who now controls the north where a third of the country's population lives, including the capital Sana'a.

Losing his lieutenants in Yemen in this way was logically unacceptable for imperialism. In March 2015, under the cover of a United Nations Resolution (UNSCR 2216), the US, Great Britain and Saudi Arabia are authorized (or better authorized) to intervene under the pretext of restoring the "legitimate and recognized government of Hadi". at this moment all the international media will scrupulously and disciplinedly adhere to the official war propaganda: this is a "military operation led by Saudi Arabia" against "the Houthi coup rebels maneuvered by Iran".

Yet on closer inspection, the only "maneuvers" here are Obama's USA, which immediately supports the Gulf Cooperation Council - an organization that includes all the reactionary regimes in the region such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. - offering more than just "support", but weapons (and Italy contributes to this by sending bombs produced by a German plant from Sardinia), intelligence for the identification of targets, refueling of warplanes, political and diplomatic cover in each location. It is clear to anyone that the Saudi Air Force could not have operated at all if the West had decided to cease its "involvement", or had opposed the intervention.

On the contrary, the West will escalate the war, with Trump also sending special forces on the ground to the Saudi-Yemeni border, while the coalition mercilessly bombs bridges, roads, ports, food processing plants, farmland, grocery stores. , markets and water wells. The result was a famine with few exceptions censored by the media, and the largest cholera epidemic ever recorded in history, with over 85,000 children under five dying of malnutrition and disease without access to food, medicine and water due to the blockade. naval and land imposed by the coalition. A chain of pure terror, a controlled demolition and a final solution imposed on the country, all to prevent it from leaving the imperialist orbit and autonomously exploiting its resources [ix] .

To the waged war is added the media war against the forces of the resistance painted in a caricatural and manipulative way as religious sectaries linked to Iran, when in reality it is an anti-imperialist movement of national liberation, led by those who do not accept that the fate of the country is managed by Ryad in continuation of the policies that have brought misery for the people and enrichment of a small circle of imperial proconsul [x] . This is enough in this part of western Asia to be put on the index by the imperialist West as evidenced by Pompeo's intention to include the Houthis in the list of sponsorsterrorism (a genocidal move condemned by all humanitarian organizations as the Ansarollha movement coordinates humanitarian aid in the north and center of the country on which the Yemeni population depends. [xi] )

In Yemen, therefore, a collective crime of imperialism against humanity is underway, those responsible are the same for the demolition of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, the occupation of Palestine , the destabilization of Lebanon. The task of the Communists is to become aware of this and to alert not so much to the generic atrocities of war which, in the absence of a careful political analysis, are best attributed "to both sides" (when not directly attributed to the resistance), but to the anti-imperialist nature of the clash in progress. The Resistance to imperialist violence that sees the US at the head of aggression against the country in the broader context of subjugation of an entire region, must be supported without hesitation as national redemption movements to be evaluated from the general point of view of the global struggle against imperialism. and the effects they produce on the enemy field; his every defeat is a victory of the oppressed on a planetary scale, be they the western workers and the oppressed peoples in the global South, who, conscious or not,

https://gho.unocha.org/inter-agency-app ... rth-africa ; https://www.electiondaynews.it/il-nuovo ... o-ad-aden/

[ii] https://orientxxi.info/magazine/quand-l ... ?no_js=oui

[iii] Destroying Yemen: what chaos in Arabia tells us about the world - https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykb ... 5nfnsjfluk? % 20Tells% 20Us% 20about% 20the% 20World-University% 20of% 20California% 20Press% 20% 282018% 29.pdf

[iv] Destroying Yemen: what chaos in Arabia tells us about the world - https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykb ... 5nfnsjfluk? % 20Tells% 20Us% 20about% 20the% 20World-University% 20of% 20California% 20Press% 20% 282018% 29.pdf

[v] https://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/ar ... _3218.html

[vi] The structuration de la révolution yéménite - https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise- ... ge-895.htm

[vii] Destroying Yemen: what chaos in Arabia tells us about the world - https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykb ... 5nfnsjfluk? % 20Tells% 20Us% 20about% 20the% 20World-University% 20of% 20California% 20Press% 20% 282018% 29.pdf

[viii] https://www.limesonline.com/in-yemen-fi ... ione/66882

[ix] https://inthesetimes.com/article/yemen- ... na-sanders ; newsweek.com/us-soldiers-secretly-fighting-saudi-arabias-war-yemen-report-says-910041

[x] https://web.archive.org/web/20150217094 ... men-Times- ; https://thegrayzone.com/2019/03/13/yeme ... 4PLT_-GmvA

[xi] http://web.archive.org/web/202101141159 ... o-disaster -predicts-a

https://ottobre.info/2021/01/21/yemen-g ... menticata/

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:05 pm

With the battle for Marib, Yemen is at a crossroads
A battle is going on for control of the vital city of Marib in Yemen. The nature of the engagement has also led to proposals of a ceasefire and behind-the-scenes talks. However, it is essential that the US not play a disruptive role

April 25, 2021 by Abdul Rahman

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A displaced family in Marib: Photo: Xinhua

The last major bastion of the Saudi-backed Abdu Rabbuh Mansour Hadi government’s forces in northern Yemen is facing a strong offensive from the Houthi forces since February. Control over Marib city, which is of strategic importance due to its oil and gas reserves, and is home to over 2 million people, will have a significant impact on the outcome of the six-year war in the country. On the one hand, the battle for control over the city will test the Joe Biden administration’s resolve to end American intervention. On the other hand, it also provides the Saudis an opportunity to end their devastating war in Yemen.

The significance of Marib
The Houthis want to control Marib due to its economic and political significance. In addition to its proximity to key oil and gas reserves, control over the city will be a blow to the already fragile legitimacy of Hadi and his Saudi backers. In the southern port city of Aden, the authority of the Hadi government has already been severely challenged by the Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces.

The fighting, which had escalated in the second week of April, has subsided a bit. Over 100 combatants were killed between April 10 and April 16. The battle has caused a fresh round of displacement as the city was already home to around 800,000 refugees living in camps.

The Saudi-led coalition has been able to maintain its control over the city only due to superior air power. The Saudi air force has launched hundreds of attacks at the Houthi frontline 19 miles from the Marib city center. This also reveals the extent of the vulnerability of its ground forces. The city is governed by Sultan al-Aradah who is a Hadi loyalist but enjoys his own local following.

This vulnerability is one of the reasons that Saudi Arabia proposed a ceasefire last month. This was rejected by the Houthis who are demanding a complete end to all air strikes, as well the end of all blockades before any ceasefire.

Biden’s dilemma
There are over a dozen countries in the Saudi-led coalition. However, the US, which is not directly involved, is its pillar of strength. Joe Biden has gone on record saying he wishes to end the US involvement in the war. However, he has so far failed to give any concrete indication of the same. The administration announced the halt of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE shortly after coming to power in January. However, it did say it would continue to provide assistance for Saudi Arabia’s defense, and also allowed the sale of weapons to the UAE earlier this month.

Meanwhile, the US has doubled down on its rhetoric of painting the Houthis as mere proxies of Iran, ignoring the context of their battles against Hadi and his Saudi-led allies. Last week, the newly appointed US special envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, termed the Iranian help to the Houthis as “significant and lethal” and questioned the independent standing of the Houthis. As in the past, he offered no evidence to support his claim.

In response, Iran reiterated its rejection of these claims, and pointed to the fact that the prolonging of the war in Yemen is due to continued US support through weapons sales and diplomatic backing to countries such as Saudi Arabia.

Tim Lenderking has called the Marib offensive “the single biggest threat to peace efforts,” a typical pro-Saudi and pro-Hadi pronouncement and yet another attempt to place the blame of the war solely on the shoulders of the Houthis.

The irony is that Lenderking was appointed by Biden to find ways to end the US involvement in the war. Instead, his claim in front of the US Congress that “70,000 Americans living in Saudi Arabia are in danger due to possible Houthi attacks” creates doubts about America’s real intentions as the Houthis’ fight is not against the US but against its continued support to interventionist forces in the region.

Positive signals
Despite Lenderking’s war mongering, there is a small ray of hope. Representatives of Iran and Saudi Arabia are meeting in Baghdad for the first time in years to discuss the issues of Yemen. It is too early to expect results but if Saudi Arabia realizes its vulnerability and broadens last month’s proposals by agreeing to end its inhuman blockade of northern Yemen, there may yet be a chance for peace.

The six-year-long war in Yemen has devastated the country and according to the UN, has killed more than 233,000 people (including those who died due to starvation and lack of medicines) and displaced millions. Peace is essential to end the “largest humanitarian crisis of the century.” It can only be realized if the US desists from pursuing its narrow geopolitical interests and, as the Iranians have reiterated, leaves “the matter of finding a resolution to the senseless conflict in the capable hands of the regional countries”.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/04/25/ ... rossroads/
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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:55 pm

Yemen's Houthi Tell Abu Dhabi To Pull Back Its Forces

Since 2015 Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are fighting against the Houthi movement in Yemen.

The two countries are different aims. Saudi Arabia wants to destroy the Houthi movement and install a Yemeni government that it can control. The UAE wants to control the ports of Yemen and the seaways around it. For this purpose it has build its own proxy force of southern Yemeni tribes.

The Houthi have hit back at Saudi Arabia by attacking its airports, cities, and oil installations with missiles and drones. They have pushed out Saudi controlled troops from various Yemeni provinces. Recently they were on the verge of taking the the Saudi controlled city of Marib and the rich oil fields around it.

In contrast the Houthi had so far not attacked the UAE. Two years ago the UAE had pulled its troops from Yemen and mostly stopped fighting the Houthis. Their proxies kept control of the harbor cities and the islands the UAE desired to control.

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Early this year the Houthi had again warned that they intend to liberate all of Yemen, including the UAE controlled areas. They also captured a UAE owned 'hospital ship' which carried military trucks and weapons.

Meanwhile the Saudis had great difficulties to stop the Houthi attacks on Marib. Despite the loss of some support from the U.S. they resorted to an extensive bombing campaign:

Yemen Data Project @YemenData - 10:06 UTC · Jan 17, 2022
Saudi Coalition Bombings Surge in Yemen Following End of U.N. War Crimes Investigations - link

2021 ended with 224% month-on-month increase in civilian casualties in bombings. Airstrikes killed 32 civilians and injured 62 in December, more than in the 11 previous months of 2021 combined. Following GEE dissolution, air raids increased 43%, civilian casualties at 2.5yr high.

Almost half of all air raids in 2021 hit Marib. 884 air raids, up to 5,322 individual airstrikes targeted Marib up 21% from 2020. Hudaydah was the worst place for civilians in the air war in 2021 - the highest rate of air raids & civilian casualties since 2018 Stockholm Agreement.


Despite the intense bombing campaign the Houthi were still advancing.

That changed last week when suddenly the UAE came back:

Yemeni forces backed by the United Arab Emirates have joined coalition troops fighting the Houthi movement around the central city of Marib in a renewed push to secure the prize of an energy-producing region.
...
The Saudi-led coalition this week announced a new operation aimed at turning the tide after newly deployed UAE-backed Giants Brigade forces, supported by air strikes, expelled Houthi forces from oil-producing Shabwa reopening access to Marib.
The Brigades - mostly based along the western coast which has been relatively quiet over the past three years - entered Marib on Monday and have since seized large parts of Huraib district, local military sources said.

"The Giants Brigades are better armed and trained (than other Yemeni coalition forces) and fresh to the fight ... The Houthis will put up fierce resistance, but in general their ranks are exhausted," said Maysaa Shuja Al-Deen, a fellow at the Sanaa Centre for Strategic Studies.
...
The conflict is a multifaceted one with several Yemeni factions vying for power. The UAE largely ended its military presence on the ground in 2019 amid a military stalemate but continues to hold sway via Yemeni forces it armed and trained.


The Houthi could not leave that without a response. Today they gave a very public warning to the UAE by attacking it on its own ground:

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group attacked the United Arab Emirates using drones on Monday, setting off explosions in three fuel trucks and causing a fire near the airport of Abu Dhabi, capital of the region's commercial and tourism hub.
...
The UAE, a member of the coalition, has armed and trained local Yemeni forces that recently joined fighting against the Houthis in Yemen's energy-producing Shabwa and Marib regions.
...
Three people were killed and six wounded when three fuel tanker trucks exploded in the industrial Musaffah area near storage facilities of oil firm ADNOC, state news agency WAM said. It said those killed were two Indians and a Pakistani.
...
The Houthi's military spokesman said the group launched a military operation "deep in the UAE". Its chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdulsalam, whom Houthi-run media said was currently visiting Tehran, warned the UAE against "tampering in Yemen".


Life and business in the glitzy high-rises of Abu Dhabi will be become much less comfortable should the city come under sustained drone attacks.

The UAE's foreign ministry condemned the attack and said that "it will not pass without punishment."

But what can the UAE do that has not yet been done by the Saudi siege on Yemen and the permanent bombing attacks?

The UAE will have to pull back its proxy forces in Yemen or it will be hit at the core of its wealth.

Dubai, the UAE's central airport, is the world's busiest one by international passenger traffic. A few missile or drone hits on planes parked there would have immediate consequences on global passenger traffic as well as on the tourism profits the UAE gains from it.

Today's drones were a warning. If the UAE tries to ignore it it will be in for some serious hurt.

Posted by b at 18:00 UTC | Comments (35)

https://www.moonofalabama.org/

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Saudi-Led Arab Coalition Announces Start of Strikes on Sanaa

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Yemen’s Houthis claim responsibility for a military attack on the UAE, believed to be a drone attack targeting Abu Dhabi's airport & ADNOC storage facilities. | Photo: Twitter @Ash_Stewart_

Published 17 January 2022 (11 hours 11 minutes ago)

The Houthis have claimed responsibility for the series of explosions that hit the capital of the United Arab Emirates on Monday, including near a depot of the ADNOC oil company, as well as the city airport.

The Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia has started bombing the Yemeni capital Sanaa in response to the strikes carried out by Houthi rebels in the UAE, Sky News Arabia reported early on Tuesday.

According to the statement from the coalition, airstrikes began "in response to threat and military necessity." The attack is said to be targeting "terrorist leaders."

"The coalition air force is conducting an around-the-clock operation in the skies over Sanaa," the statement says. "We urge civilians to stay away from military camps and Houthi gatherings for their safety."

F-15 aircraft attacks were said to have destroyed "two ballistic missile launchers that were used on Monday to strike the territory of the UAE."

Al-Masirah, a Yemeni TV channel owned by the Houthi rebels, reported that four people were killed and five were injured as a result of the coalition attacks. Later, the number of victims increased to 12 people, including women and children.


The Houthi movement confirmed it had carried out strikes with mined drones on Abu Dhabi and Dubai airports, threatening new attacks on strategically important objects in the UAE. According to a spokesman of the Yemeni Armed Forces Yahya Sare'e, five ballistic missiles and many drones were used to perform the attack.

According to police, three fuel tanks hit by the drones exploded near the fuel depots of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Another blast set fire in the Abu Dhabi airport area. Three people died as a result of the attack – one Pakistani national and two Indian nationals; six people were injured.

Shortly after the attack, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed asked U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to reinstate the Houthis' status as a terrorist organization, Axios reported.


President Biden, who removed the movement from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) list last year, has argued that the designation hinders the delivery of humanitarian assistance for Yemen, as the world's worst humanitarian crisis hits the country.

Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces, led by President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, and the Houthi rebels for over six years. The situation was further aggravated after the Saudi-led coalition, working in cooperation with Hadi's forces, joined the conflict in 2015 and conducted occasional air, land and sea operations against the Houthis.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Sau ... -0018.html
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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 31, 2022 2:37 pm

Image

Following “Unjustifiable” UAE Bombing of Saada Prison, US & UN Condemn Yemeni Retaliation
January 30, 2022
By Ahmed Abdulkareem – Jan 25, 2022

“This is the latest in a long line of unjustifiable airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led Coalition on places like schools, hospitals, markets, wedding parties, and prisons.” – Ahmed Mahat, head of the Doctors Without Borders mission in Yemen

SAADA, YEMEN – In a scene rife with chaos and crying, volunteers and a rescue squad pulled the bodies of 91 prisoners from the rubble of the Sa’ada City Remand Prison in southern Yemen on Tuesday. Early last Friday morning, United Arab Emirates (UAE) warplanes supported by the United States targeted the overcrowded prison, which houses up to 3,000 inmates from across Yemen and Africa. The attack was one of the deadliest since the war began in 2015.

At least 91 people were killed and more than 236 seriously injured in the attacks, which left bereaved families in shock across Yemen and Africa. Witnesses describe the scene of the attack in its first minutes as chaotic and tragic. Fighter jets were heard over the skies of Saada while people were sleeping, before three violent explosions were heard from the prison, red fires mixed with dust and smoke illuminated flying rubble. The bodies of prisoners fueled the inferno as the screams and cries of those that survived the initial onslaught echoed from bombed-out buildings.

The death toll is expected to rise, as many victims of the strike remain in critical condition and hospitals struggle to cope with a lack of medical supplies as a result of a Saudi Coalition-imposed siege that began in 2015. “The hospital is facing a very difficult situation… with casualties lying on the [hospital] floor,” as rescuers continue to claw through the rubble searching for survivors, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. Yemen’s Ministry of Health has launched an urgent appeal abroad to send medical aid and doctors to Yemen, as hospitals are ​already crowded with a number of victims from previous airstrikes, as well as an urgent appeal for Yemeni citizens to donate blood.

Despite the Saudi-led Coalition denying any knowledge of the attack, international organizations – including the United Nations, International Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders – confirmed that the Coalition was responsible. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said that the UN chief had condemned the airstrikes by the Saudi-led Coalition against a detention center in Saada city. Doctors Without Borderscalled the airstrike “unjustifiable” and said that Saudi Arabia and its allies have “no way to deny that this is an airstrike; everyone in Saada city heard it.”

“This is the latest in a long line of unjustifiable airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led Coalition on places like schools, hospitals, markets, wedding parties, and prisons,” Ahmed Mahat, the head of the Doctors Without Borders mission in Yemen, said in the wake of the attack.


A series of deadly attacks

The attack – which came after the UN Human Rights Council voted to end the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, the only international and independent body tasked with investigating the full extent of violations in the war – was not the only onslaught that took place this week. More than 14 people, mostly women and children, were killed when U.S.-backed fighter jets struck the home of a former high-ranking military official in Sana’a. And on Friday, at least six civilians, including a number of children, were killed and 18 injured after Saudi jets bombed a communications center in Hodeidah. Local authorities recovered the bodies of the victims, who were mostly children playing near the building. The attack, which leveled a three-story building to the ground, targeted Yemen’s internet infrastructure in a likely bid to quell reporting on the Saudi Coalition’s attack on the prison.

A swift and angry military response

The attacks sparked anger across Yemen and around the world. On Friday, massive crowds took to the streets across Yemen not only to condemn the prison attack and the recent Coalition bombardment of Saada, Sana’a, and al-Hodeida but also to blame the United States for supporting the Riyadh and Abdu Dhabi regimes. Protesters also appealed to the Yemen Army led by Ansar Allah to seek revenge for the recent attacks.

In retaliation for the attacks, the Yemen Army, led by Ansar Allah, launched military operations against both Saudi Arabia and UAE. Dubbed “Operation Yemen Hurricane,” the operations saw a flurry of ballistic missiles and drone attacks against the Saudi-led Coalition. On Monday, Yemeni forces launched massive strikes using large Zulfiqar ballistic missiles and Sammad-3 drones against sensitive targets in UAE and Saudi Arabia, including the Al-Dhafra Air Base south of Abu Dhabi, where American forces are stationed.

Two thousand American troops at Al-Dhafra took shelter in bunkers during the attack, which was intended as a warning to the United States that its continued support for Saudi Arabia is no longer acceptable and could be met by direct attacks, a high-ranking Ansar Allah military official told MintPress. Other sites in Abdu Dhabi and Dubai were targeted, while squadrons of Sammad-1 and Qasef-2K (Striker-2K) combat drones struck a number of Saudi-led Coalition military camps in Sharurah, a town in Saudi Arabia’s southern region of Najran.

The attack is the second on the UAE. The first took place on January 17, targeting sensitive sites including oil tanks in the Musaffah ICAD 3 area in addition to a construction site at the Abu Dhabi International Airport. Despite the Coalition’s increased attacks against Yemen, Yemen`s retaliatory attacks were met with denunciation by Coalition allies, including the Biden administration (which is currently mulling re-designating Ansar Allah as a terrorist organization, a move that could have devastating effects on an already starving Yemen) and the UN Security Council. Even Israel proclaimed its support for the UAE.

None of the aforementioned have yet to condemn Saudi Arabia for the attack on the prison or for other human rights violations committed in Yemen. The reality now is that condemnations mean nothing to the many Yemenis who believe that military escalation is the only effective way to deter Saudi Arabia and the UAE. According to statements from Sana’a, the retaliatory attacks will not stop, whatever the denunciations, and will expand until the UAE withdraws from the country. “The UAE will no longer be safe. We are calling on foreign companies and investors to leave for the sake of their safety,” the Yemen Army has repeated in all its statements on the topic.

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

Featured image: People look at the covered bodies of victims of a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in the northern Saada province of Yemen, Jan. 22, 2022. Hani Mohammed | AP

(MintPress News)


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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 07, 2022 3:30 pm

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Yemen: How Many Must die Before the World Intervenes?
January 31, 2022
By Fra Hughes – Jan 26, 2022

A beautiful historic country of poetry and art, of ancient buildings and centuries-old culture, has been devastated, destroyed, and bankrupted by fierce aggression led by imperialist forces.

As the death toll rises and nearly 20 million civilians face starvation… When will the international community intervene to end this suffering? Needless slaughters, bombs, regional politicking, airstrikes, the imposed siege, weapons of mass starvation targeting the infrastructure, including hospitals, prisons, and the fabric of civil society that holds a nation together in Yemen.

As I sit here in my warm home in Belfast Ireland looking forward to the spring evenings, as the days grow longer and the temperatures increase, how blessed I am to see the horrors of the civil conflict that I lived through for 30 years, come to an end. Relative peace, prosperity and stability have now lasted over two decades.

Oh, how I wish to see the same in West Asia.

What we witnessed and went through in Ireland in the latter part of the 21st century is nothing compared to the unimaginable horror of the war that has engulfed Yemen.

A beautiful historic country of poetry and art, of ancient buildings and centuries-old culture, has been devastated, destroyed, and bankrupted by fierce aggression led by imperialist forces.

On one hand, we have the Ansar Allah who fought against the established government versus the remnants of the failed unpopular government of Abed Rabbo Mansur Hadi installed in 2012 who was forced to flee to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, when his government fell to a popular uprising and was no longer welcomed by the Yemeni people.

A power vacuum now filled with violence has ensued.

In reality, if it were not for Saudi monies, American and British bombs, and mercenaries paid for by the United Arab Emirates, the conflict would have already ended: Ansar Allah, alongside the Yemen army, would be in control, the order would be restored, the war ended, humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts supported by the international community would be already underway and the imminent threat of starvation facing 20 million people would no longer be a concern.

While the aggression continues, there will be no international support, no aid reaching those most desperately in need, and no end to the cycle of violence.

Starvation is being used as a weapon of war by the Saudi-led coalition of forces who are trying to reinstall an unpopular government that will in all probability never return to power in Sanaa.

Their only contribution to Yemen is to prolong the death, destruction and de-evolvement of the country, as the bombs take their toll, as the violence ebbs and flows, and as the siege which is creating this man-made famine takes further grip of the country only more misery can be the outcome.

The facts remain that Yemen is in the grip of a revolution that wishes to see an end to the corrupt government of Hadi which is supported by other corrupt regional and global players.

His only friends are the imperialists and the capitalist who wish to reinstall him. From Riyadh to Washington via “Tel Aviv” and London, the dark forces of western imperialism are at work. Like the orcs of Tolkien’s fantasy books, they pillage and rampage throughout the land. They have no concern for human life nor the pain and suffering they inflict.

As the Ansar Allah and the Yemini army recapture more and more land from the Saudi led coalition – the unholy, supported and rearmed by the west – the desperation of the Saudi ruling dictatorship becomes even more violent, even less humane and even more sadistic, as his bombs kill more civilians, as he tightens the siege and as he unleashes Islamic fundamental terrorists onto the helpless people of Yemen.

While the Ansar Allah and Yemeni army develop drone and ballistic technology to counteract and repay Saudi led belligerence, the toll inflicted on the Yemeni civilian population has become insufferable.

While the West is selling weapons of mass destruction to Saudi Arabia, the Yemini population is paying the price.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE must cease their military adventurism in Yemen.

The US, Britain, and “Israel” must stop interfering in the Yemen civil conflict.

The people of Yemen must be allowed to address their problems and if the people want an Ansar Allah and Yemen government, then let that be the case.

Murdering tens of thousands of people, displacing 3 million more and forcing 20 million to the brink of starvation is not ethical, moral or even politically acceptable.

Murder by proxy is still murder.

The blood of the innocents is not only on the hands of Saudi and Emirati Crown Princes Mohammad Bin Salman and Mohamed Bin Zayed, it is also on the hands of the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson who continues to allow multibillion-dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump defeated a motion by the American Senate in 2019 to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The supply line of death from America continues, now euphemistically termed lethal aid.

“Israel” is also complicit in these crimes as the normalization process between the Gulf States and the Zionist apartheid regime continues, and “Israel” supports this war.

The Yemen army recently attacked oil installations in the UAE, to try and deter further massacres perpetrated against the civilian population of Yemen by Mohamed Bin Zayed.

The response from the UAE was to further bomb Yemeni civilians and to ask “Israel” for its assistance.

While the ragtag coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia and its western sponsors tries to defeat the Yemeni people and reinstall a puppet regime aligned to Washington, “Tel Aviv” and London continue to flounder; the death toll on the civilian population of Yemen will continue to rise.

While some Arab gulf journalists blame the Ansar Allah for the Cholera epidemic that is sweeping the country, the reality is rather this: The ongoing airstrikes, focusing on civil infrastructure, are hindering any real chance for the provisional government in Yemen to get adequate freshwater supplies to the people, to repair the damaged sewage pipelines, and remove the refuse and rubbish from the streets which are exacerbating the hygienic situation.

People and animals are drinking contaminated water from the same sources, with both becoming ill.

Any entry of food, medicine, water, and aid is being denied under the barbaric Gaza-like siege imposed on Yemen.

My fear for the future is that when the Ansar Allah and the Yemeni army successfully regain all of the national territories of Yemen from these foreign-backed mercenaries and gulf stream conscripts, Yemen may well become Gaza MK 2.

There could be a continued international illegal siege forced upon the country, American and European financial sanctions, and the Saudi Arabia, the UAE and possibly “Israel” could use multi-million dollar bombs and sophisticated drones and ballistic missiles technology to simply bomb Yemen back into the Stone Age.

We must tell the truth.

While western governments continue their unipolar world hegemony over West Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, utilizing proxy friendly governments it installed under previous colonial occupations such as the Gulf undemocratic monarchies, there will be no peace in the world.

Collectively, we the people of the world must begin to understand the reality of why these wars are raging in West Asia and Africa.

While the usual suspects of Britain and America together with France and “Israel” continue to finance coups, regime change color revolutions, support dictators and monarchies in repressing their people, we will not have justice, peace or cooperation between nations.

Imperialist politics is the politics of the gun and the bomb, from gunboat diplomacy to air supremacy of the skies.

We as citizens must rise and demand an end to wars for profit, an end to regime change operations, that enable western corporations to control the national natural resources of other countries and we must dismantle the apparatus that allows the elite to continue to rule over us through a compliant media and partial media that exists merely to control the flow of information and to help create a consensus for the narrative of war.

Let us be honest, the media has blood not ink on its hands, and those in the industry who glorify war, advocate war and cheerlead war, are just as guilty as the politician for profit who start the wars, the soldiers and airmen who fight those wars when bombing children and old women, alongside the general public who support these wars when they slavishly believe what a corrupt media informs them to be morally acceptable.

We witnessed Saudi Arabian democracy with the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, butchered and dismembered in Istanbul in the Saudi embassy.

We are continuing to watch the brutal extradition of Julian Assange by Boris Johnson the British PM, demanded by US President Joe Biden, to face life imprisonment, slowly driven insane in isolation deep inside the US penal system.

Real journalists are being killed and tortured while western mainstream media fabricates the justification for these continuing wars.

While Yemen stands against foreign aggression, we must all call for an end to western imperialist interference in any sovereign nation, anywhere in the world.

https://orinocotribune.com/yemen-how-ma ... ntervenes/

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Yemeni Children Face Constant, Lethal Danger From Landmines

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A boy who has been injured by a landmine sits in his wheelchair, posing a photo along with his friends, in Hajjah province, northern Yemen, on Feb. 5, 2022. | Photo: Mohammed Al-Wafi/Xinhua

Published 6 February 2022 (15 hours 57 minutes ago)

"I remembered them (friends) calling my name: Raed, Raed ... Then I saw blood running from my body and I lost consciousness," a Yemeni boy who lost his right leg recalled. About 10,000 children in Yemen have been killed or injured because of the ongoing conflict, according to UNICEF.

For 12-year-old Yemeni child Raed Gerbhi, the terrible explosion on a cold December day last year left an indelible mark in his life. It started as a normal day when he went out to herd sheep with his friends but ended with a mutilation.

Without a warning, a landmine exploded under Gerbhi's feet, cutting off his right leg and wounding his hands. His three friends were knocked meters away by the shock wave but miraculously escaped from the explosion unscathed.

According to residents of the village of Bani Faid, district of Midi, in Yemen's northern province of Hajjah, the government army sent a military unit to cordon off the area and a demining team, along with an ambulance which took Raed and his parents to a nearby hospital and then the Saudi Arabian Red Sea city of Jazan for treatment.

Two months later, Raed returned home with his parents after recovering from the injuries. The boy, who loves playing football, lost his right leg and now lives in a wheelchair.

"My friends were standing a couple of meters away, and they survived the explosion. I remembered them calling my name: Raed, Raed ... Then I saw blood running from my body and I lost consciousness," Raed told Xinhua in his wheelchair, wearing a football jersey of his favorite club Juventus.

Raed has always managed to greet his friends with a smile, but he said he felt sad and lonely because he can no longer play with them.

Raed is just one of the many Yemeni children maimed or killed by landmines in Hajjah Province, once a fierce battleground for the Yemeni government forces and the Houthi rebels.

In a more tragic accident, Abdullah, another child in the nearby village, was killed by a landmine last month while grazing sheep.

"I found my son after three days of searching in the desert. I found him dead on the ground and some parts of his body were scattered," Shuei Bilal, a local villager, told Xinhua.

Yemen's civil war began in late 2014 when the Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.

The Yemeni army, backed by the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces, recaptured Midi District from the Houthi militia in April 2018. Demining teams spent months clearing large swaths of the area before allowing the residents to return from the internally displaced camps.

According to local authorities, despite those efforts, mines hidden under the sand dunes have since killed 20 people in Midi, most of them children.

Military experts say most of the landmines are made of tough plastic not affected by rain, hot or cold weather, so they can stay effective for years.

"In 2021, we cleared 5,000 mines of various shapes from near farms and pastures in the northwestern parts of Hajjah," Sayyaf al-Wazei of the Demining Department in the Engineering Division, told Xinhua.

The United Nations Children's Fund has warned of a growing number of child victims from landmines, cluster bombs, missiles, and remnants of war in Yemen.

"As of 31 August (2021), close to 10,000 children in Yemen have been killed or injured because of the conflict, according to the numbers the United Nations has been able to verify," the UNICEF said on its website.

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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 12, 2022 2:38 pm

Civilian casualties nearly doubled in Yemen since end of UN-mandated international monitoring

The Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen was first formed in 2017 to monitor the human rights violations and war crimes being committed by the parties in the war in Yemen. The UN Human Rights Council failed to renew its mandate in October 2021

February 11, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

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(Photo: Press TV)

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the total number of Yemenis killed in the ongoing war has doubled since the withdrawal of UN-mandated international monitoring of the human rights situation in the country in October last year. The NRC in a press release on Thursday, February 10, demanded the immediate restoration of such a mandate to ensure accountability of the parties responsible for committing human rights violations.

The data collected by the NRC, which is involved in providing humanitarian relief in war-torn countries including Yemen, states that the number of civilians killed or injured four months prior to the end of international monitoring was 823. In the four months since, the total number of civilians injured or killed went up to 1,535.

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The withdrawal of UN human rights monitoring also coincided with an increase in airstrikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen. According to the NRC, the number of airstrikes has multiplied by 39 times since October. Similar conclusions were made by the Yemen Data Project. According to them, 2021 ended with “224% month on month increase in civilian casualty from the 16 months high in November.”

According to the Yemen Data Project, both December and January have seen massive increase in airstrikes and civilian casualties inside Yemen, with January being the “most violent month in the air war in over 5 years.” At least 139 civilians were killed and 287 were injured in the air raids carried out by the Saudi-led coalition, taking the total deaths in such strikes since 2015 to over 19,000.

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The Yemen Data Project also concluded that the total number of Yemenis killed in January 2022 in the coalition airstrikes is higher than the last two years combined.

Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen

Following a global outcry on the human rights violations and war crimes being committed in Yemen, the UN Human Rights Council set up the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen (GEE) in September 2017 to investigate these allegations and prepare a report. The GEE submitted a detailed report in 2018 claiming that all sides in the war have committed human rights violations. In 2020, it recommended war crimes proceedings in the International Criminal Court (ICC) .

Despite not being a member of the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia allegedly lobbied against a resolution to extend the mandate of the GEE in October 2021. Various other countries including Russia and China opposed its extension following allegations of bias and misrepresentation of facts in its previous reports. The GEE was considered as the only international mechanism to monitor human rights violations and war crimes in Yemen.

Since its abandonment, the Saudi-led coalition has increased airstrikes inside civilian areas in Yemen. It is reported that human rights violations from the Houthis also increased in the aftermath of the GEE’s removal.

Demanding that the GEE should be reinstated, Erin Hutchinson, country director of the NRC, claimed that removal of the GEE has taken us back to “unchecked, horrific violations” without any accountability.

The war in Yemen started after the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the US and the UK, intervened against the Houthi takeover of power in 2015. The war and subsequent land, air and sea blockade imposed on Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and created the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis of the century,” according to the UN. Millions have been pushed into starvation, forced displacement, and death due to lack of adequate medical supplies.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/02/11/ ... onitoring/

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The global links of the recent escalation in the Yemen conflict

The failure of the UN to play its primary role of a peacemaker in Yemen affects its humanitarian interventions and provides opportunities for the global war industry to make profits out of human misery

January 28, 2022 by Abdul Rahman

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The UN resident coordinator for humanitarian affairs in Yemen, William David Grisley, visited the site of the Saudi-led coaltion’s bombing in the reserve prison in Sa'ada province on Thursday. (Photo: Saba)

The last month has seen a drastic escalation in the war in Yemen. According to the UN, January will most likely be the month with the highest ever casualties reported since the war began in 2014. The January 21 strike on a prison in Sa’ada which killed 91 people marked the highest death toll in a single strike in the last three years. The number of airstrikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition last December was already the highest in years. In all likelihood, this figure will be even higher by the end of January.

On the other hand, the Houthis have demonstrated their capacity and willingness to retaliate against members of the Saudi-led coalition by sending drones and missiles hundreds of miles away to Abu Dhabi.

Exactly at a time when decisive international intervention to find a political solution to end the war is needed, the UN and the international community have shown their unwillingness to take the extra efforts required. This has encouraged the Saudi-led coalition to push harder to realize their regional ambitions and the war industry to make profits despite the obvious human costs.

Battle for Marib

The recent escalation in Yemen is attributed to the UAE’s increased involvement in ground offensives against the Houthis in Marib and Sabwah provinces located in the southern parts of the country and considered crucial for the future of the Saudi-led coalition’s presence. The regions also have significant natural resources such as oil and gas.

The Houthis lost their advances made after months of being on the offensive on both the fronts earlier this month. The loss is directly attributed to the UAE’s increased intervention on the ground through the so-called Giant Brigade. The advances made by the Saudi-led coalition have helped the forces loyal to Abdrabbuh Masour Hadi and may shatter the Houthis’ hopes to gain control over resources crucial to maintain the economy to serve the majority of the population in the north.

The Houthis’ actions against the UAE, such as seizure of its ship in the Red Sea and attacks on Abu Dhabi, can be seen as a message to the country’s rulers about the consequences of their intervention in Yemen.

Failure of the UN

The United Nations has failed to play a constructive role to achieve peace in Yemen and has increasingly limited its role as a relief agency. It has refused to reconsider Resolution 2216 adopted in 2015, which imposes sanctions on the Houthis despite the changes in the reality on the ground. It has ignored the fact that the actual government in Sanaa run by the Houthis is a legitimate party in the conflict. The UN has continued to support the Hadi government, which has limited its acceptability and made it appear biased and compromised in the eyes of the Houthis.

As Nabeel Khoury told Al-Jazeera, the UN has failed to convince the parties of the war that all the natural resources in the country – in Marib and elsewhere – have to be shared by all. It has instead repeated the position taken by the Saudi-led coalition that the Hadi government is the only legitimate one in the country.

In October last year, the UN failed to renew the mandate of the Group of Imminent Experts on Yemen, effectively stopping its investigations into the war crimes and human right violations being committed in the country. With the only means of international accountability for the parties involved in the war being removed, they were given a free hand to escalate the war. The rise in the number of the Saudi coalition’s airstrikes in the aftermath of this decision acts as proof.

The failure of the UN to play any significant role in resolving the conflict in Yemen is clear as it has even failed to convince the Saudi coalition to end its criminal air, sea, and land blockade of Yemen, leading to growing disenchantment about the UN’s humanitarian role in the country. In the last two years, using the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries have reduced their funding to agencies that are working to provide crucial humanitarian aid to millions of Yemenis. This has resulted in an increase in the food insecure population and forced several UN agencies to reduce their role at a time when the people need it the most.

A war for corporate gains

The attacks on Abu Dhabi have opened new possibilities for the global war industry. After the January 17 attacks, the US, in addition to expressing solidarity with the UAE, also offered fresh supplies of weapons to the country. This was despite the expressed position of the Biden administration in the months after taking office last year of ending US involvement in the war in Yemen.

The Biden administration decided to sell USD 23 billion worth of armaments to the UAE last year and also vowed to supply so-called “defensive weapons” to Saudi Arabia. The rejoicing among the world’s largest weapon manufacturers following the Abu Dhabi attacks underlines the well-known fact of the profitability of sustained global conflicts. This also raises questions with regard to the dubious role of the Biden administration in the war in Yemen, which has also prevented political resolutions in the UN Security Council.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/01/28/ ... -conflict/
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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Sun Feb 27, 2022 2:19 pm

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Territorial Snatch-Back: Will the Yemen War Migrate to Saudi Arabia?
February 25, 2022
By Karim Shami – Feb 22, 2022

Yemen’s resistance shocked the region when it launched retaliatory strikes on UAE cities. Ansarallah’s next external move could be no less than recapturing Yemen’s northern provinces from Saudi Arabia.

In the past month, Yemen’s resistance movement, Ansarallah, has launched three rounds of retaliatory strikes on Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as part of a new deterrence strategy against UAE attacks on Yemen.

The escalation follows a UAE breach of the tacit agreement with Ansarallah to desist from targeting each other’s interests in Yemen.

In the current Yemeni military theater, that specifically meant the Emiratis must stay clear of the critical battlefield of Marib, and avoid Ansarallah’s battles in the north with Saudi Arabia and its proxies.

But as the liberation of Marib became imminent, both Washington and Riyadh urged the UAE to help halt Ansarallah’s rapid gains. The Emiratis did so through their Yemeni proxy armies – most notably, the Giant Brigades, stationed in the province of Shabwa, just south of Marib.

The moment these forces began to push northward, Ansarallah officials publicly warned the UAE that there would be consequences to face.

A UAE ship was first seized in the Red Sea, followed by a strategic decision to retaliate militarily against non-civilian targets in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The targeting of territory deep inside the UAE shocked observers who had calculated that Ansarallah was too mired in local battles to open up a new war front – and an external one at that.

It has since become clear that Ansarallah still has cards to play in countering both the UAE and Saudi Arabia in this drawn out war.

Yemeni missile and drone strikes in the heart of the UAE may force the Emiratis to exit the war with significant and unforeseen economic losses. It may also force the UAE to permanently drop its ambitious maritime schemes in the Red Sea, and reverse the country’s gains since 2015 entirely.

On yet another front – with far greater repercussions – a new strategic decision being contemplated by Ansarallah could very well catapult Saudi Arabia back into the 1930s.

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The Yemeni provinces of Asir, Najran, and Jizan were to be returned to Sanaa by Saudi Arabia in 1952.

Wresting Yemeni lands back from Saudi Arabia

Since 2018, when Ansarallah shifted from defensive operations to offensive attacks, the Yemeni resistance has been targeting military and economic locations inside Saudi territory.

To date – though mostly unreported in global media – thousands of ballistic missiles and drones have struck almost all major Saudi cities from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.

This deterrence strategy by Ansarallah resulted in significantly reducing Saudi airstrikes on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, from thousands of airstrikes each month to nearly zero strikes in 2021.

But the strategy did not lead to Riyadh’s exit from Yemen.

In fact, a barrage of recent indiscriminate airstrikes on Sanaa by the Saudi-led coalition have reset the war to its starting point, and scrapped the military deterrence Ansarallah created to protect its capital city. So, a new tactical direction is under formulation and Ansarallah’s ‘joker’ card may soon be played.

This card can be nothing less than an invasion of Saudi Arabia and the return of Yemen’s historic territories to the Yemeni people.

Back to the past to predict the future
The three southern Saudi provinces of Asir, Najran, and Jizan lie on Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen. All three provinces share the culture, religion, dialect, and architecture of Yemen. Many Saudis in those provinces also share deep family links and lineages with Yemen.

In the 1920s, assisted by both Wahhabi ideology and British colonialism, the founding monarch of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz al-Saud, began his conquest of the Arabian Peninsula from the east.

By 1932, the same year in which he established the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Al-Saud had successfully managed to conquer vast areas of the peninsula, excluding Najran, Asir, and Jizan, which he seized from Yemen.

At first, the Yemenis managed to penetrate Saudi territory from Najran, but with British support, the Saudis beat them back and advanced deep into Yemeni territory, all the way to Hodeidah.

With heavy losses on both sides, the Treaty of Taif was signed to end the conflict between the two warring states. The Saudis agreed to withdraw from Yemen under one condition: that they would keep Najran, Jizan, and Asir for 20 years in order to benefit from the agriculture of those regions and to create a buffer zone with Yemen.

Having experienced battle against Yemen and witnessed the Yemeni will to fight back, Al-Saud fundamentally recognized the acute rivalry that would persist between the two states. He then infamously declared: “The honor of Saudis is in the humiliation of Yemen, and our humiliation is in the glory of Yemen.”

These words would have monumental significance for Riyadh in the decades to come: the guiding principle and existential price for all future Saudi monarchs was to subjugate Yemen at any cost.

Twenty years later, upon the expiration of the Treaty of Taif, Yemen’s ruler Imam Yehya was assassinated, and the country descended into chaos. In 1974, its President Abdul Rahman al-Aryani, was overthrown, and Yemen once again faced political turmoil.

In 1994, Yemen’s civil war erupted between the pro-union north and the socialist/separatist south Yemeni states. The war resulted in the defeat of the southern armed forces, the reunification of Yemen, and the flight into exile of the separatist leaders.

It was not until the early 2000s that the Ansarallah movement, commanded by their leader Hussein al-Houthi, started to gain power, and – more importantly – the support of northern Yemenis.

During this time, Yemen’s Saudi-backed president Ali Abdullah Saleh launched his first war on Ansarallah in 2004, killing Hussein al-Houthi who was subsequently replaced by his brother Abdul Malik al-Houthi.

In his effort to finish Ansarallah off, Saleh launched five further wars to bring the Yemeni resistance to its knees. The first started in 2005 and the fifth ended in 2010, but with every war Ansarallah gained more power and popularity.

In 2014, after Yemenis ousted their unpopular and unelected Saudi-backed president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi during the ‘Arab uprisings,’ and entered yet another period of civil unrest, Ansarallah took control of the capital, Sanaa.

The Saudis were not expecting such a decisive outcome in Yemen; certainly not one that was outside both their calculations and control.

It was the first time since the 1930s that Riyadh had not engineered a Yemeni coup or governing body, and their fears about their southern neighbor – as articulated in the past by Al-Saud – were being transformed, as they saw it, into reality.

Can Ansarallah recapture Najran, Asir, and Jizan?
Since the beginning of the current war in 2015, Ansarallah has managed to penetrateNajran in Saudi Arabia – not because of superior military prowess, but because of the many impractical, insensitive, and forceful methods which Riyadh has employed to manage its southern territories.

One of these tactics was the Saudi attempt to instill Wahhabi beliefs among the Shia majority populations living in those areas. For example, Saudis established religious schools to convert these communities to the beliefs and ‘values’ of their rulers in Riyadh.

On a side note, southern Saudis, whose descendants were once Yemenis living in Yemen, are not allowed to attain senior rankings within either the military or the government, a clear indication that Riyadh views them as second-class citizens.

Further, many Sunnis in Yemen’s south were moved to the northern provinces to alter demographics and influence the political and religious outlook of those communities living near the Saudi border.

Of all its questionable tactics, Riyadh’s border defense strategy against Yemen stands out as possibly one of the most inefficient border security policies undertaken anywhere.

The Saudis built three lines of defense on their 400km border with Yemen. On the first line of defense stood Yemeni mercenaries; on the second stood the mercenaries from the Sudanese army; and on the third was the Saudi army – considered by many military experts as “unfit for combat.”

In 2021, Ansarallah released footage of their fighters invading Najran and taking control of vast uninhabited areas with southern Saudi Arabia.

More recently, Ansarallah took control of a Saudi base in the Haradh district, on the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and has warned Riyadh that it will take more areas in the kingdom’s south.

But will Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS), the de facto ruler of the kingdom, heed these warnings, or will he ignore them as he has done so often with warnings from his Yemen war coalition allies?

An invasion of the southern territories of Saudi Arabia, a seizure of its cities, and widespread circulation of footage showing Saudi citizens welcoming Ansarallah could break Riyadh’s morale and shake the Arabian Peninsula through and through.

A chain reaction could unfold in oil-rich, Shia-majority areas across the kingdom, where oppressed voices may rise again, triggering other dissatisfied and marginalized Saudi communities – as, for instance, the people of Hijaz who have never accepted the rule of the Al-Saud family.

An Ansarallah takeover of southern Saudi Arabia would be a nightmare for the Saudis – one they have worked hard to prevent for 90 years.

But history might repeat itself, and the circumstances that once ended the war in favor of the Saudis might end it this time in favor of the Yemenis.


Featured image: Ansarallah has been eyeing the recovery of Yemeni territory temporarily seized by Saudi Arabia in the 1930s, but never returned. Photo Credit: The Cradle

(The Cradle)


https://orinocotribune.com/territorial- ... di-arabia/

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Balhaf: The Oil Port Where UAE Loots Yemen and Imprisons and Tortures Yemenis
January 1, 2022
By Ahmed Abdulkareem – Dec 21, 2021

The UAE has not only prevented Yemenis from exporting their own natural gas from Balhaf and forcefully laid off hundreds of employees, it has converted the sprawling industrial complex into a private military camp and secret prison.

BALHAF, SHABWA, YEMEN – Al-Shabwani, a resident from Ateq city in Shabwa province who requested that only his nickname be used, told MintPress News that he was detained for months and tortured in a secret prison inside Balhaf. Since 2016, when the UAE first entered Yemen’s most productive oil and gas areas in Shabwa, Abu Dhabi has carved out Balhaf as its personal fiefdom and turned the former gas facility into a military camp and secret prison. “Balhaf should be a lifeline for us in this difficult time, not a military camp and secret prison,” al-Shabwani said. “It’s time to kick the UAE forces and their mercenaries out.”

Shabwa province is located in the center of Yemen’s southern coastline and, out of all the country’s provinces, served as a beacon of hope to all Yemenis for a better life, given its wealth of natural gas and geographical location. Today, the major gas and oil facilities in the province instead represent the theft of an entire people’s future. A case in point is Balhaf, a Yemeni industrial port town and the largest investment project in the country, thanks to its export of liquefied natural gas.

For six years, the UAE has not only prevented Yemenis from exporting their own natural gas from Balhaf and forcefully laid off hundreds of employees, it has converted the sprawling industrial complex into a private military camp and secret prison. “The UAE has turned Balhaf from an industrial facility to a military camp,” Mohammed Bin Adyo – Shabwa’s provincial governor, appointed by the Saudi-backed government – complained, adding that Abu Dhabi has prevented Yemenis from using the vital economic lifeline.

RELATED CONTENT: Grief and Anger after UAE Soldiers Torture and Kill Yemeni-American Student Trying to Visit Family

Balhaf
Oil majors in Shabwa protest the expulsion of local workers from Balhaf facilities at the Janna Hunt facility, October 2021. Photo | AlKhabar
In recent weeks, protests organized by local residents, activists, and former employees of the facility took place in the province calling for the UAE to leave Balhaf. “Balhaf should be reopened and gas exports should be resumed; in this case, the whole of Yemen would benefit,” one protester said. However, the city’s de facto authorities are divided between opponents and supporters of the UAE, and leaders of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have been silent on the issue.

Balhaf, which is located at the eastern end of Shabwa province in the Burum Coastal Area, was once an economic lifeline for the country. It is also home to the Yemen LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) terminal, which used gas from Marib’s Block 18 as feedstock for the 6.7 million t/yr liquefaction facility. Initially, Balhaf was built to export Shabwani oil from the small deposits discovered in the northern Jardan district’s Block 4 in 1987. The port was then developed in the wake of the discovery of major gas reserves in Marib’s Block 18 to receive the gas through pipelines. The first shipment of LNG left Balhaf port in November 2009. Today, Balhaf’s facilities are operated by a consortium of firms led by French multinational TotalEnergies SE.

Before the war, the annual revenue of Balhaf exceeded $4 billion; the financial returns were invested in Yemen’s infrastructure. Now, Yemenis are eager to expel the UAE and see the port once again exporting gas to help jumpstart the economy, or at least as a means to keep the value of the Yemeni Riyal from tanking. Yemen’s currency has sunk to historic lows in recent days and the humanitarian crisis in the country remains the worst in the world. An estimated 80% of the population – 24 million people – require some form of humanitarian or protective assistance, including 14.3 million who are in acute need, according to the United Nations.

RELATED CONTENT: Perpetrators of Crimes Against Yemen Should be Brought to Justice: Velayati

TotalEnergies Yemen Map
A map shows TotalEnergies publically disclosed oil and gas lines in Yemen circa 2009, 5 years before the war began
UAE digs in, divides
Perhaps feeling the pressure of increasing calls to leave Balhaf, the UAE reinforced its presence at the facility over the weekend, setting up additional checkpoints, despite local opposition, in a move that confirms that the rich Emirati Kingdom has no intention of returning the facility to Yemenis. On Sunday, the UAE mobilized more than a thousand members of the southern Shabwani Elite Forces (SEF) to oil facilities in Balhaf. Numerous checkpoints along the roads to the city have been set up by forces of UAE-backed militants, according to witnesses.

In addition to suppressing its opponents by force, and buying others off, the UAE has launched a campaign to demonize locals who oppose its presence, claiming that protesters belong to Houthis and that government officials opposed to the UAE presence in the region are an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated al-Islah Party. The UAE has even gone so far as to stoke decades-old regional tensions by claiming northern Yemeni tribes are attempting to oust the UAE in order to occupy the South. Some residents fear that UAE policies could not only rupture the social fabric of the region, but could eventually lead to violent clashes. The Balhaf issue has already become a flashpoint in tensions between pro-Saudi militants in the region and the UAE. Both sides seem ready to risk further violence in order to secure access to Balhaf`s bounties.

Local fears are justified by the reality on the ground. It is believed that up to 65% of Yemen’s oil and gas produced since 2015, when the war began, has been looted by the UAE and Saudi Arabia with the aid of international oil companies, including that refined and transferred through Balhaf port.

France says “d’accord”
Adding to the anger of local residents, Balhaf has been turned into a secret prison by the UAE. There, dozens of their relatives are held incommunicado and tortured, and some killed or disappeared forever, according to their families and former detainees, as well as the United Nations. Witness testimony suggests that the site is still being used to detain and torture prisoners, sources told MintPress.

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The presumed location of a “secret prison” at an LNG facility in Balhaf. Credit | Observatoire des armements

Officials in Balhaf who spoke to MintPress accuse French authorities of participating in the UAE’s efforts, saying that Abu Dhabi would not dare to occupy a facility in which a major French multinational has a major stake and turn it into a secret prison without the approval of Paris. Others claim that the facility is being used to smuggle stolen gas to Europe, with French participation through Total Energies. Yemeni political analysts told MintPress that the UAE obtained guarantees from France that its interests in Yemen would be protected, including ignoring the Balhaf issue, during the negotiation of a multi-billion-dollar arms deal signed by the two sides on December 3 of this year.


Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

Featured image: An aerial photo shows a TotalEnergies facility in Balhaf, Yemen. Photo | TotalEnergies


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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:02 pm

Tears for Ukraine, Sanctions for Russia, Yawns for Yemen, Arms for Saudis: The West’s Grotesque Double Standard
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 2, 2022
Ahmed Abdulkareem

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HAJJAH, YEMEN –“We’re brutally bombed every day. So why doesn’t the Western world care like it does about Ukraine?!!… Is it because we don’t have blonde hair and blue eyes like Ukrainians?” Ahmed Tamri, a Yemeni father of four, asked with furrowed brows about the outpouring of international support and media coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the lack of such a reaction to the war in Yemen.

Over the weekend, a member of Tamri’s family was killed and nine relatives injured when their family home was targeted in a Saudi-led Coalition airstrike in the remote al-Saqf area in Hajjah Governorate. Tamri claims that al-Saqf has been subjected to a brutal Saudi bombing campaign for the past seven years – more so, he says, than all of Ukraine has endured since it was invaded by Russia.

Despite the horrific bombing campaign against Yemeni civilians, Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations and war crimes have garnered nowhere near the level of coverage and sympathy that the mainstream Western media has rightfully given to Ukraine. “They shed tears for the Ukrainians, and ignore our tragedies… What hypocrisy and racism!” Tamri told MintPress News.

Yemenis ask the obvious

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues into the sixth day, an outpouring of support for Ukrainians continues to be seen across the Western world. Severe sanctions against Russia have been imposed by the United States, Europe, Australia, and the West in general, amid a flurry of emergency talks at the UN Security Council. The speed of Western retaliation – which includes banning Russia from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) international banking network and calls to treat Russians as international pariahs in sports, culture, and even science – has raised eyebrows among Yemenis who have endured a relentless bombing campaign and deadly air, land, and sea blockade for 2,520 consecutive days.

Since Thursday, when Russian forces began their wide-ranging assault on Ukraine, the Saudi-led Coalition, supported by the United States, has launched more airstrikes in Yemen than Russia has in Ukraine. In Hajjah, a province surrounded by heavy Saudi artillery, Saudi-led coalition warplanes launched more than 150 airstrikes on the cities of Haradh, Heiraan, Abbs, and Mustab, killing scores of civilians, including a father of six killed over the weekend by a Saudi drone that targeted his car as it traveled between Shafar and the Khamis Al-Wahat market.

Since Russia’s incursion into Ukraine began, dozens of civilians, including a number of African migrants, have been killed and hundreds wounded by Saudi artillery and airstrikes in Yemen’s heavily populated Saada province, declared a military area by Saudi Arabia at the start of its military campaign in March 2015.

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The bodies of civilians from a Saudi airstrike that killed at least 87 people on the Yemen-Saudi border, Jan. 22, 2022. Hani Mohammed | AP

As news cameras and solidarity protests gave much-needed sympathy to Ukrainian civilians, in Sana’a, Yemen – which has effectively been turned into a large prison for the city’s more than four million residents and refugees, thanks to a crippling Saudi blockade – warplanes bombed a number of densely populated areas, including the airport. An additional 160 airstrikes were launched on the provinces of Marib, al-Jawf, al-Baydha, Taiz, Najran, and Hodeida, the main entry point for commercial goods and aid into a country facing the worst man-made famine in the 21st century.

In fact, it seems as though the Saudi regime is taking advantage of a distracted media in order to escalate attacks on a number of sensitive targets along the Yemen-Saudi border and strengthen its hold over the Al-Mahra Governorate. The UAE, the other major Western-backed oil monarchy occupying Yemen, is likewise making hay, accelerating its project to change the demographics on the prized Socotra Island by displacing locals in favor of settlers more aligned with UAE policies. And while the U.S. readies massive shipments of arms and military aid to Ukrainian “freedom fighters” defending against a Russian invasion, Yemeni “rebels” downed an American-made MQ9-1 drone flown by the UAE in al-Jawf and two American-made Boeing Insitu ScanEagles in Marib and Hajjah.

As countries that have spent the past decades building literal and figurative walls to keep out desperate brown and black refugees fleeing violence and foreign invasion in their own lands open their arms, homes, and hearts to fleeing Ukrainian refugees, Saudi Arabia unleashed a force of Yemeni mercenaries upon their homeland with a promise of a Saudi green card and safety for their families if they turn on their fellow countrymen. Ironically named the “Happy Yemen Forces,” the unit was finalized in late 2021, according to leaked military documents, with a mandate to secure Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen and ensure Saudi security in exchange for a green card and access to the Saudi social services that come with it.

If we are to compare

In terms of the sheer cost of human life, the tragedy in Yemen has been much more deadly than that in Ukraine, where 325 Ukrainians, including 14 children have tragically lost their lives according to Ukrainian officials. Granted the war in Yemen has raged on unabated for more than six years, but comparatively the numbers are astonishing. Since 2015 the death toll has reached an estimated 400,000 people, including 3,900 children.

Those deaths have included attacks on civilians so egregious that they did garner fleeting media attention but, inevitably, no sanctions, little international condemnation, not even a cessation in the military aid and support to the perpetrators. Bombed-out schools, funerals, wedding halls, refugee camps, even a school bus full of children targeted by the most advanced U.S. weaponry on offer have not been sufficient to elicit the reaction that Ukraine has garnered in less than one week.

Since 2015, Saudi-led Coalition warplanes have pounded Yemen with over 266,000 airstrikes, according to the Yemeni Army Operations Room, which records airstrikes against civilian and military targets. Seventy percent of those strikes have hit civilian targets. The rising smoke, rubble and flames now seen in Ukraine have been the status quo in Yemen for years, with Western media often deeming the images that appear on local Yemeni television stations, of parents pulling pieces of their children out from the rubble of their homes or schools, too graphic to display.

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A nurse holds a malnourished girl at the al-Sabeen hospital in Sana’a, Yemen, October 27, 2020. Khaled Abdullah | Reuters

Thousands of Yemen’s economically vital facilities like factories, food storage facilities, fishing boats, food markets and fuel tankers have been bombed by the Western-backed Saudi Coalition. Critical infrastructure – including airports, seaports, electrical stations, water tanks, roads and bridges and countless more schools, agricultural fields, and places of worship – have been destroyed or damaged. A Saudi blockade and airstrikes on hospitals have crippled Yemen’s health system, leaving it unable to deal with even the most basic public health needs and leaving the 300 facilities that remain in the entire country barely functioning as COVID-19 spreads like wildfire.

As the outpourings of condemnation of Russia’s invasion continue, Western governments have sent massive aid packages to Ukraine and social media campaigns fill in the gaps – while in Yemen the United Nations announced that by March it would likely cut aid to 8 million people in a country that it calls home to the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. Household food insecurity in Yemen hovers at over 80%. Almost one-third of the population does not have enough food to satisfy even basic nutritional needs. Underweight and stunted children have become a regular sight and the worst is yet to come, as the Russian invasion has led to increased fuel and food prices and as humanitarian funding dries up, according to the UN World Food Programme.

Picking and choosing which invasion to condemn

In March 2015, more than 17 countries led by the oil-rich monarchy of Saudi Arabia launched a military invasion of Yemen, a sovereign state and a member of the United Nations. Ostensibly, the war was launched to restore President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to power after he was ousted following popular protests amid the Arab Spring.

By March 26 of that year, the Saudi-led Coalition, backed militarily and diplomatically by the United States, would begin a bombing campaign that has indiscriminately killed, maimed, and destroyed for seven years. Not only has Saudi Arabia, arguably the most repressive dictatorship on earth, forced Hadi back into power under the guise of protecting democracy, but it has also occupied huge swaths of southern Yemen from al-Mahara to the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Yemeni journalists, activists and politicians have been left to ponder why Western governments – in particular, the Biden administration – condemn Russia for invading Ukraine under the pretext of national security while defending the Saudi regime’s “legitimate right” to invade Yemen under the very same pretext.

Despite the horrific human rights violations carried out by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Western nations, and the United States in particular, have not only provided lethal weapons, training, maintenance, intelligence, and political and diplomatic cover to the monarchy but have imposed media restrictions on coverage of the Saudi regime’s human rights abuses in Yemen, pressuring tech and social media companies to deplatform and outright ban Yemeni activists and media critical of the war.

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Yemenis attend a demonstration against the US over its decision to designate the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization in Sanaa, Jan. 25, 2021. Hani Mohammed | AP

As mainstream Western media gives glowing coverage to Ukrainians resisting their foreign invaders and occupiers – with Western leaders applauding the steadfastness and resistance of Ukrainians and sending aid, weapons and moral support to them – they label Yemenis taking up arms as terrorists and target them with American-made smart bombs and drone attacks. Yemenis who take up arms against invading Saudi and Emirati forces are sanctioned and dismissed as proxies of Iran by liberal media institutions that claim to stand against war.

On Monday, the United Nations Security Council extended an arms embargo and travel ban on Yemeni forces. The resolution strongly condemned what it called cross-border attacks by the “Houthis,” a derogatory term used to refer to Ansar Allalh, the single largest force challenging the Saudi invasion and occupation. It went on to condemn “attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates” referring to Ansar Allah’s missile and drone attacks on Saudi-led Coalition airports and oil storage facilities.

Commenting on the resolution – which came as the UAE refused to publicly condemn Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, hoping to gain Russian backing for its own invasion of Yemen – Ansar Allah leader Mohammed al-Houthi made one simple request: that Saudi Arabia’s deliberate targeting of civilians in Yemen lead to a Saudi weapons ban. Essentially, al-Houthi asked for a lifting of double standards, apparently an impossible request in today’s political climate.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/03/ ... -standard/

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Yemen: The War the World Forgot
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 2, 2022
PHIL MILLER

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Aftermath of a Saudi-led air strike on Yemen’s capital Sanaa, 18 January 2022. (Photo: Mohammed Huwais / AFP via Getty)

While the world watches Vladimir Putin’s harrowing invasion of Ukraine, our new film shows how other despots are also getting away with wanton aggression – with British support.

Gross violations of international law. Missiles raining down on houses. Kleptocrats laundering their ill-gotten gains through London and buying political influence. Aggressive, powerful states attacking a poorer neighbour; backing separatist rebels; illegally occupying its land; dropping cluster bombs and conducting crippling cyber-attacks. Sound familiar?

This is what Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been doing to Yemen since 2015. It’s a conflict that has continued during Putin’s offensive in Ukraine, but with a fraction of the media scrutiny.

Unlike with Russia, there have been no recent calls for financial or even sporting sanctions on Gulf regimes from prominent British commentators or politicians. With the war in Yemen worsening once again – as Declassified’s new film shows below – the silence of Britain’s political class becomes ever louder.


The double standard has a simple explanation. The despotic rulers of Riyadh, Dubai and Abu Dhabi (the two major emirates in the UAE) are close British allies and reliable customers of Western weaponry.

This January, their jets killed over 90 people in the bombing of a migrant detention centre. It was one of the worst atrocities of the entire Yemen war, which has been marked by countless war crimes and civilian massacres – like we are tragically now seeing in Ukraine.

Amnesty International says a missile fragment found in the detention centre wreckage showed the weapon responsible was made by Raytheon, a US company with factories in Britain. Their equipment has been repeatedly linked to atrocities in Yemen, including the bombing of a wedding.

Laser guidance systems for Raytheon’s missiles are made at a facility in Glenrothes, east Scotland. I asked the company to show me around the site, but they refused, instead calling the police when I turned up to film outside last month.

The locals were more open, although opinion in Glenrothes is split. Many work for Raytheon and won’t comment. One passer-by said he knew about the war in Yemen but had “nae issues” with the company’s role.

Others were more concerned. Primary school teacher Sharon Rickard said she was “horrified” to hear weapons made in her town might be used on civilians. “I have a friend who works there as an engineer and she’s never really said too much about her job,” she told me, “but maybe that’s why.”

Exiled artists

An hour’s drive south of Glenrothes is Scotland’s capital Edinburgh, where I met two Yemeni artists. Saber Bamatraf, a pianist, and Shatha Altowai, a painter, fled to Scotland after receiving threats from Yemen’s socially conservative Houthi rebel group, which overran the central government in 2015, sparking the current war.

The married couple are critical of the Iran-backed Houthis, especially for firing crude rockets and drones at Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, where several civilians were recently killed.

Yet they are also horrified by the scale of retaliation from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. At least 15 people were killed in an airstrike a few doors down from their old house in Sanaa during the heavy bombing campaign in January.

Watching the latest bombardment unfold via Facebook, Bamatraf said: “Everyone was terrified…it took the people three days in order to get the dead bodies from under the rubble.”

The incident was too upsetting for his wife to talk about. Had Edinburgh University not awarded the couple an artist protection fellowship, they might have been in Yemen’s capital when it happened.

Earlier in the war, another bombardment devastated their property and left them homeless. Even their beloved piano was not spared.

Now settling into life in Edinburgh, Bamatraf told me he is “really shocked” that Raytheon has an arms factory so near his new home. He believes the company’s personnel and shareholders “receive money from a tragedy that’s happening in another part of the world.”

This is something its chief executive Greg Hayes effectively admitted in a recent conference call with investors.

Saudi Arabia also buys fighter jets from Raytheon’s rival, BAE Systems, and their pilots have trained to fly these planes in the UK. Bamatraf said: “Whenever we hear fighter jets above us in Scotland, we feel trauma like there might be an airstrike because it’s something we have experienced in Yemen.

“The fighter jet might be going to Yemen, maybe it’s a training campaign for soldiers or maybe it will supply some bombing to destroy our home country – so it’s still hard for us.”

This March was supposed to see Saudi jets come to Britain for weeks of training with the RAF, until the exercise – ‘Cobra Warrior’ – was cancelled at short notice.

Against the might of arms dealers, warlords and militias, survivors of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis still hope for a better future. “As artists we were trying to send the message, to send the other picture of Yemen to the world, instead of seeing the bombings and all the bad sad news,” Bamatraf commented.

“If the world can see and believe in the power of art and the power of the youth…then the peace process will start.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/03/ ... ld-forgot/

Older I get the more I'm convinced that most artists are naive, idealistic idiots, at least those whowould get involved in politics. Or meebe they're just 'native informants' fulfilling their role.
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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 09, 2022 3:04 pm

Millions of Yemenis hold mass rallies condemning continued war and siege
by Emad Almarshahi
March 7, 2022

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Millions of Yemenis in the capital Sana’a and other provinces have on Monday staged mass rallies to denounce the oil blockade and aggression against Yemen.

The massive rallies were held under the slogan “The Oil Blockade is an American decision, and Yemen Hurricane is our Choice.”

The participants raised Yemeni flags and slogans of freedom, condemning the US-backed Saudi-led blockade and aggression against Yemen and the prevention of entry of oil derivatives.

During the rally, speeches and poems were delivered, condemning the silence of the United Nations towards the coalition’s criminal practices against the people of Yemen.

A statement was issued during the rally in the capital Sana’a, holding that the US full responsibility for the siege of the Yemeni people, stressing that the blockade of oil derivatives and preventing them from Yemenis is an American aggression, and that it is a legitimate duty to confront it .

The statement stressed that “the Yemeni people have the right to get oil derivatives as a fundamental right guaranteed by all international laws and conventions, and preventing the entry of oil derivatives constitutes a flagrant violation of human values, principles and international conventions and laws.”

“The closure of Hodeidah port, which is the main lifeline for millions of Yemenis and the denial of entry of fuel, food and medicine ships, is a remarkable war crime,” the statement read.

The statement held the international community and the United Nations responsible for their silence for the ongoing crime of aggression and its siege of our people.

“The suffering of citizens in the occupied territories reveals the agenda of the coalition targets all Yemenis without exception,” according to the statement.

The statement called on all free people in the occupied provinces to rise up in the face of the occupation and its mercenaries.

The participants voiced their support for all the military steps taken by the leadership in deterring aggression and breaking the siege, stressing that “our choice is to respond to the siege through mobilisation of fighters and supporting the fronts with men and money.

https://hodhodyemennews.net/en_US/2022/ ... and-siege/
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Re: Yemen

Post by blindpig » Sat Mar 12, 2022 3:38 pm

Yemen war deaths will reach 377,000 by end of the year: UN

New UNDP report projects that the number of those killed as a result of Yemen’s war could reach 1.3 million by 2030.

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UN development agency report projects that 60 percent of deaths would have been the result of indirect causes [File: Naif Rahma/Reuters]

Published On 23 Nov 2021

A new United Nations report has projected that the death toll from Yemen’s war will reach 377,000 by the end of 2021, including those killed as a result of indirect and direct causes.

In a report published on Tuesday, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that 70 percent of those killed would be children under the age of five.

It found that 60 percent of deaths would have been the result of indirect causes, such as hunger and preventable diseases, with the remainder a result of direct causes like front-line combat and air raids.

“In the case of Yemen, we believe that the number of people who have actually died as a consequence on conflict exceeds the numbers who died in battlefield,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said.

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The UNDP report projected the number of people experiencing malnutrition would surge to 9.2 million by 2030 [File: Hani Mohammed/AP Photo]

Yemen has been mired in conflict since 2014, when the Houthi rebel movement seized much of the northern part of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, as the government fled. In March 2015, a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia intervened in the war with the aim of restoring the government.

The conflict has been deadlocked for years, with Yemen teetering at the brink of a famine, and tens of thousands of people killed. The situation in the country has been described by the UN as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. At least 15.6 million people are living in extreme poverty.

The report projected grim outcomes in the near future should the conflict drag on.

It said some 1.3 million people would die by 2030, and that 70 percent of those deaths would be the result of indirect causes such as loss of livelihoods, rising food prices, and the deterioration of basic services such as health and education.


The report also found that the number of those experiencing malnutrition would surge to 9.2 million by 2030, and the number of people living in extreme poverty would reach 22 million, or 65 percent of the population.

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In this file photo from August 2018, boys inspect graves prepared for victims of an air raid in Saada province [File: Naif Rahma/Reuters]

Scenarios if war were to end now

The report also projected that extreme poverty could disappear in Yemen within a generation if the conflict were to end immediately.

Using statistical modelling to analyse future scenarios, the UNDP report said if peace were reached by January 2022, Yemenis could eradicate extreme poverty by 2047.

“The study presents a clear picture of what the future could look like with a lasting peace including new, sustainable opportunities for people,” said Steiner.


If the conflict ends, the report estimated economic growth of $450bn by 2050, in addition to halving malnutrition – currently affecting 4.9 million people – by 2025. Further projections showed that focused efforts on empowering women and girls across Yemen could lead to a 30 percent boost of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, coupled with a halving of maternal mortality by 2029.

However, the UNDP noted that the war “continues to propel in a downward spiral”.

Millions staring at famine as food insecurity soars: Report

“The people of Yemen are eager to move forward into a recovery of sustainable and inclusive development,” said Khalida Bouzar, Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States. “UNDP stands ready to further strengthen our support to them on this journey to leave no one behind, so that the potential of Yemen and the region can be fully realised – and so that once peace is secured, it can be sustained.”

The report emphasises that the upward trend for development and wellbeing must be supported not just by peace efforts, but also by regional and international stakeholders to implement an inclusive and holistic people-centred recovery process that goes beyond infrastructure.

Investments focused on agriculture, women’s empowerment, capacity development, and effective and inclusive governance were projected to have the highest return on development.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/ ... -stops-now

No blond hair, no blue eyes, no problem......

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UNICEF: 10 200 Children Killed or Injured by Saudi War in Yemen

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UN's children's funding body, UNICEF, says 47 children were "killed or maimed" in Yemen's civil war in two months. | Photo: Twitter @trtworld

Published 12 March 2022 (6 hours 27 minutes ago)

More than 10 200 Yemeni children have been killed or injured since the start of the war launched by the Saudi coalition against them in 2015, UNICEF warns.


Since the conflict erupted in Yemen nearly seven years ago, the United Nations has verified that more than 10 200 children have been killed or injured.

It is likely that the real figure is much higher," clarified this Saturday the representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Yemen, Philippe Duamelle.

He also asserted that, as a result of the intensification of the conflict in 2021 in this region, violence has increased this year and, as always, children are the ones who suffer the most.

In this regard, he reported the number of minors killed during the first two months of the current year, detailing that 47 Yemeni children were killed or injured.


He further called on all parties involved in Yemen's war and those who have influence over it to protect civilians. "The safety of children, their well-being, and protection must be ensured at all times," he said.

The dire humanitarian situation facing the Yemeni population began in March 2015, with the start of the bombing and blockade campaign by Saudi Arabia and its allies, with the intention of restoring Yemen's fugitive former president Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi to power.

Human rights organizations keep warning of the catastrophic consequences of the conflict in Yemen, yet Riyadh has ignored the voices calling for an end to the war and accountability for the crimes it has committed in the poorest country in the Arab world.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/UNI ... -0002.html

Where is the middle brow/middle class chorus screeching "Think of the children!" now?
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