Amnesty accuses U.S. allies of committing war crimes and urges arms restrictions on Saudi-led coalition members

Amnesty accuses U.S. allies of committing war crimes and urges arms restrictions on Saudi-led coalition members

    Wednesday, October 07, 2015   No comments

Amnesty International called Wednesday for a "suspension" in transfers of certain arms to members of a Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni rebels following "damning evidence of war crimes".
The London-based watchdog urged holding an "independent, effective investigation of violations" by the coalition, in which US allies the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are playing a key role.

Amnesty's latest report "uncovers yet more evidence of unlawful airstrikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, some of which amount to war crimes," said Donatella Rovera, who headed the group's fact-finding mission to Yemen.

"It demonstrates in harrowing detail how crucial it is to stop arms being used to commit serious violations of this kind," she said.



Yemen: Call for suspension of arms transfers to coalition and accountability for war crimes


Damning evidence of war crimes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, which is armed by states including the USA, highlights the urgent need for independent, effective investigation of violations in Yemen and for the suspension of transfers of certain arms, said Amnesty International in a new report published today.

‘Bombs fall from the sky day and night’: Civilians under fire in northern Yemen examines 13 deadly airstrikes by the coalition in Sa’da, north-eastern Yemen, which killed some 100 civilians, including 59 children. It also documents the use of internationally banned cluster bombs.

“This report uncovers yet more evidence of unlawful airstrikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, some of which amount to war crimes. It demonstrates in harrowing detail how crucial it is to stop arms being used to commit serious violations of this kind,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser who headed the organization’s fact-finding mission to Yemen.

“The USA and other states exporting weapons to any of the parties to the Yemen conflict have a responsibility to ensure that the arms transfers they authorize are not facilitating serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

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UNICEF: Six months of violence in Yemen leave more than 500 children dead, some 1.7 million at risk of malnutrition

UNICEF: Six months of violence in Yemen leave more than 500 children dead, some 1.7 million at risk of malnutrition

    Monday, October 05, 2015   No comments

ISR comment: The blockade imposed by the Saudi rulers on Yemen is a war crime, and unless it is ended, it will cause more children to die.
_________

GENEVA/SANA’A, Yemen, 2 October 2015 – Six months of unremitting violence in Yemen have left at least 505 children dead, 702  injured and more than 1.7 million at risk of malnutrition, UNICEF said today.

Across the country, nearly 10 million children – 80 per cent of the country’s under-18 population – need urgent humanitarian assistance. More than 1.4 million people have been forced to flee their homes.

“With every day that passes, children see their hopes and dreams for the future shattered,” said UNICEF Representative in Yemen Julien Harneis. “Their homes, schools and communities are being destroyed, and their own lives are increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition.”

Even before the conflict, the nutrition situation was dire as Yemen produces less than 10 per cent of its food needs and relies heavily on imported foodstuffs. But the escalation of the fighting has caused food insecurity to spiral and malnutrition to spike. The consequences for children are dramatic:

    The number of children under 5 at risk of severe acute malnutrition has tripled in 2015, with 537,000 children now at risk, compared to 160,000 children before the conflict.
    Almost twice as many children under 5, a total of 1.2 million children, are projected to suffer from moderate acute malnutrition this year, compared to 690,000 before the crisis.
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Death toll from Saudi strike at Yemen wedding rises to 38

Death toll from Saudi strike at Yemen wedding rises to 38

    Monday, September 28, 2015   No comments

SANAA, Yemen — The Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels mistakenly struck a wedding party on Monday, killing at least 38 people, Yemeni security officials said.

The strikes hit the celebration in al-Wahga, a village near the strategic Strait of Bab al-Mandab, said the officials, who remain neutral in the conflict that has splintered Yemen.

At least 40 people were wounded in the two airstrikes, they said. The strikes, a senior government official said, were “a mistake.” Many of the victims were women and children, according to several villagers.

Yemen has been embroiled in fighting that pits the rebels, known as Houthis, and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against the Saudi-backed and internationally recognized government as well as southern separatists, local militias and Sunni extremists. The U.S.-backed coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against the rebels and their allies since March.
Source

Saudi-led coalition airstrikes kill up to 76 in Yemen

Saudi-led coalition airstrikes kill up to 76 in Yemen

    Monday, September 21, 2015   No comments

UPI reported on Sep. 19 that up to 76 are dead and 130 injured after a series of Saudi-led alliance airstrikes in the Yemeni capital city of Sanaa and other rebel-held lands in the past 24 hours.

Saudi warplanes pummeled the capital city Friday into Saturday, killing 35 and injuring 120, many civilians. The airstrike hit an apartment building in the center of the city, a United Nations world heritage site of cultural significance. A family of nine inside the building was killed. Local residents said the airstrikes were the strongest since war erupted in March.

The airstrikes also hit the Yemeni Interior Ministry building and the Omani ambassador's home in Sanaa. The Omani foreign ministry condemned the bombings. Oman closed its embassy in Sanaa after rebels seized the city in September.

"Oman received with deep regret yesterday's news targeting the ambassador's home in Sanaa, which is a clear violation of international charters and norms that emphasise the inviolability of diplomatic premises," the statement said.

Dozens of others were killed and wounded by coalition jets in the northern province of Sadda, a stronghold of Houthi rebels.

Source

GCC nations will continue to drop bombs "until [they] purge Yemen of the scum"... Qatar sends 1,000 ground troops to Yemen

GCC nations will continue to drop bombs "until [they] purge Yemen of the scum"... Qatar sends 1,000 ground troops to Yemen

    Monday, September 07, 2015   No comments

“Our revenge shall not take long,” Emirati media quoted Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed as warning. “We will press ahead until we purge Yemen of the scum."

 Delivering on a promise to quickly avenge their heaviest ever military loss, UAE jets have pounded Houthi positions in Yemen, hitting many civilians, in the “most violent” air raid since the Saudi-led bombardment campaign began six months ago.

The airstrikes in Yemen on Sunday were the heaviest since the Arab coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict to reinstate power of their allied President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi who had been deposed by Houthi rebels.

The heavy air raids by the United Arab Emirates jets on Houthi positions in Yemen coincided with the funeral of the 45 UAE soldiers who were killed in Houthi rocket attack on Friday. The incident, in which 10 Saudis and five Bahrainis servicemen also lost their lives, became the deadliest day for the coalition forces, and UAE’s own military history.

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Obama to assure Saudi king of U.S. help to counter Iranian threat

Obama to assure Saudi king of U.S. help to counter Iranian threat

    Thursday, September 03, 2015   No comments

Saudi Arabia: ISIL in color

ISR comment: Obama to assure Saudi king of U.S. help to counter Iranian threat; and who will assure Yemen, Lebanon,  and other neighboring countries against Saudi actual threats?

President Barack Obama will assure Saudi King Salman of the U.S. commitment to help counter any Iranian security threat, White House officials said on Wednesday, despite concern among Gulf allies that a new nuclear deal could empower Tehran in the region.

Obama, hosting Salman on Friday on the king's first U.S. visit since ascending to the throne in January, will seek to allay the fears of Washington’s most important Arab partner that the lifting of sanctions on Iran would allow it to act in destabilizing ways.


The White House talks will come less than two weeks before a possible U.S. congressional vote on the nuclear deal between six world powers and Iran, Riyadh’s regional rival. The Obama administration wants to use the visit to shore up relations with Saudi Arabia after a period of tensions.

“We understand that Saudi Arabia has concerns about what Iran could do as their economy improves from sanctions relief,” Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters in previewing the visit.

He said the United States believed Iran would use much of its assets, which will be unfrozen under the deal reached in July that also puts curbs on Tehran's nuclear program, to improve its battered economy.

Rhodes acknowledged there was a risk that Tehran could spend those funds on “nefarious activities”. But he said Obama would make clear the United States would do “everything that we can” to counter any Iranian threats to its neighbors.

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War on Yemen: How the Saudi-Led Coalition Is Killing Civilians

War on Yemen: How the Saudi-Led Coalition Is Killing Civilians

    Wednesday, September 02, 2015   No comments

Yemen’s Hidden War: How the Saudi-Led Coalition Is Killing Civilians

In March, the Saudis — aided by U.S. and British weapons and intelligence — began a bombing campaign in an attempt to push back the Houthis, who they see as a proxy for Iran. Since then, from the northern province of Saada to the capital Sanaa, from the central cities of Taiz and Ibb to the narrow streets at the heart of Aden, scores of airstrikes have hit densely populated areas, factories, schools, civilian infrastructure and even a camp for displaced people.

From visiting some 20 sites of airstrikes and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses, survivors and relatives of those killed in eight of these strikes in southern Yemen, this reporter discovered evidence of a pattern of Saudi-coalition airstrikes that show indiscriminate bombing o

(The number of civilian casualties has not been officially collated or recorded by NGOs or aid agencies. Only a handful of humanitarian and independent human rights organizations have had a presence on the ground in Aden, while nationwide just a small fraction of the strikes have even been independently documented. The death tolls for the eight strikes, which include five on public buses, were given by witnesses, or those who collected the dead after the strikes, and are necessarily imperfect; the total ranges from 142 up to 175.)

“The Obama administration needs urgently to explain what the U.S.’s exact role in Saudi Arabia’s indiscriminate bombing campaign is,” said Cori Crider, strategic director at the international legal group Reprieve. “It very much looks like there is a case to answer here — not just for the Saudis, but for any Western agencies who are standing behind them. International law shuns the intentional targeting of civilians in war — and in the United States it is a serious federal crime.”

These civilian deaths occurred in strikes that account for just a handful of the thousands of bombing raids carried out by the Saudi-led coalition since its aerial campaign began. Of particular concern are the U.S.-style “double tap” strikes — where follow-up strikes hit those coming to rescue victims of an initial missile attack — which became a notorious trademark of covert CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. On July 6, for instance, at least 35 rescuers and bystanders were killed trying to help scores of traders hit in a strike five minutes earlier on a farmers market in Fayoush, in Yemen’s Lahj province.

Abdul Hamid Mohammed Saleh, 30, was standing on the opposite side of the road when the first missile hit the gathering of more than 100 men who had been arriving since before 6 a.m. to trade goats and sheep at the daily market. The initial blast, he told me, killed around a dozen men and injured scores more. Body parts flew through the air, and an arm landed next to Saleh. He said he began to flee, but hearing the screams of the injured he turned back and crossed the road to try and help. The second strike landed less than 30 yards from him, sending shrapnel flying into his back.

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f civilians and rescuers, adding further weight to claims made by human rights organizations that some Saudi-led strikes may amount to war crimes and raising vital questions over the U.S. and Britain’s role in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.

The U.S. government knows that Saudi Arabia has Used Cluster Bombs in Yemen

The U.S. government knows that Saudi Arabia has Used Cluster Bombs in Yemen

    Thursday, August 27, 2015   No comments

The U.S. knows the Saudi government has employed cluster bombs in its ongoing war against Shiite Muslim rebels in neighboring Yemen, but has done little if anything to stop the use of the indiscriminate and deadly weapons during what has become a human rights catastrophe in one of the Arab world's poorest countries.

With watchdog groups warning of war crimes and attacks striking civilians in Yemen, the Pentagon declined to comment publicly on whether it has discussed cluster bombs with Saudi Arabia or encouraged its military to cease using them, deferring all such questions to the State Department. But a Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, tells U.S. News "the U.S. is aware that Saudi Arabia has used cluster munitions in Yemen."

Deferrals by the Pentagon on the topic are nothing new, though the use of the weapons by the Saudis – some of which were reportedly supplied by the U.S. – appears to be only a recent tactic. Former spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters in May the Defense Department was looking into claims the Saudis were using cluster munitions and called on all sides to "comply with international humanitarian law, including the obligation to take all feasible measures to minimize harm to civilians." Warren's successor, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, was asked about similar reports in July and did not at that time have any new information. 

 ...

Human Rights Watch reported that "Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces appear to have used cluster munition rockets in at least seven attacks in Yemen’s northwestern Hajja governorate, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks were carried out between late April and mid-July 2015."

...

Read more >>  Report 1, Report 2, Report 3: U.S.-made bombs are killing hundreds of innocent civilians, Report 4: Saudi Arabia used illegal weapons many times in Yemen; Report 5: Saudi-led Coalition Likely Launched 7 Attacks Harming Civilians 

 

Saudi rulers are not interested in fighting Al Qaeda and ISIL in Yemen

Saudi rulers are not interested in fighting Al Qaeda and ISIL in Yemen

    Tuesday, August 25, 2015   No comments

Dubai (AFP) - Al-Qaeda has gained more ground amidst the chaos in Yemen -- this time in second city Aden -- but for now Saudi Arabia is turning a blind eye to its longtime enemy, experts say.

Supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, forces loyal to Yemen's exiled government retook Aden last month from Iran-backed Huthi rebels who have seized large parts of the country including the capital Sanaa.

As authorities work to reassert control over Aden, the capital of formerly independent South Yemen, Al-Qaeda has moved into the gap.

The jihadist group's militants, already in control of other parts of southern Yemen, are reported to have taken up positions in several strategic parts of the city.

But experts say that while Saudi Arabia may turn eventually to tackling Al-Qaeda in its southern neighbour, Riyadh's focus now is purely on stopping the Huthis.

"I don't think Saudi Arabia's main priority in Yemen is Al-Qaeda... The Huthis are more of a high priority," said Ibrahim Fraihat, a senior fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.

"That's probably another reason why we saw Al-Qaeda flourishing" in the south, he said.

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Did Sergey Lavrov call Saudi diplomats, including Adel al-Jubeir, F**** morons?

Did Sergey Lavrov call Saudi diplomats, including Adel al-Jubeir, F**** morons?

    Thursday, August 13, 2015   No comments

The rulers of Saudi Arabia are blinded by wealth to see their real place in global political scale. The images and sounds emerging out the recent visit by the Kingdom's foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, drew a stunning picture of a regime unable to see the contradictions of its logic and actions.

al-Jubair, with a very short resume when it comes to the complex business of diplomacy, insisted that Syria's war will continue unless Bashar Assad is out of power. He argued

that Assad lost legitimacy because of the violence he allegedly unleashed on his people and that Assad, not Saudi brand of Islam, produced ISIL. In other words, Saudi Arabia will not support the war on ISIL unless Russia supports its war on Assad. The rulers of Saudi Arabia, who are not elected, who are waging a savage war against another sovereign country--Yemen--killing thousands of civilians, and who produced the ideology espoused by ISIL is lecturing the world about legitimacy and war.

The Saudi rulers know that before the Syrian crisis, ISIL, and its precursor, al-Qaeda, was already bombing markets, mosques, and public squares and beheading people. To link the existence of these genocidal fighters to Assad is indeed an insult to his Russian host and his host's country, which had a its share of terror attacks carried out by followers of the brand of Islam incubated and nurtured in the kingdom.

Perhaps Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declarative statement, f****** morons, is not directed at al-Jubair, but perhaps it should be. Given their meddling in other countries, their irrational fears, and their role in producing ISIL and ISIL's brand of Islam, such a comment seems highly appropriate.

Saudi rulers' strategy is to be against Iran at every turn and to presume that Iran's hand is behind every negative act... this could really come back to haunt them

Saudi rulers' strategy is to be against Iran at every turn and to presume that Iran's hand is behind every negative act... this could really come back to haunt them

    Wednesday, August 05, 2015   No comments

TEXT HIGHLIGHTS

Jordan on the motivation behind Saudi Arabia’s recent military actions: “They have not articulated a strategy.  It does appear that they have - their strategy is to be against Iran at every turn and to presume that Iran's hand is behind every negative act, certainly in their eastern province in Bahrain and now in Yemen.  We haven't seen what the political objective is of the adventure in Yemen, and I think this could really come back to haunt them.”

Jordan’s description of Saudi Arabia’s new king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud: “He was governor for almost 50 years.  Um, and so he had them started in his 20s.  He was and has been considered one of the least corrupt leaders.  He has been considered probably the hardest working member of the cabinet.  He would be in his office at 8 o'clock every morning.  The story goes that when he was appointed defense minister, he went over to the Ministry of Defense at 8 o'clock and the only person there was the gate guard. The next day, everyone was there at 8 o'clock.”

Jordan on how he ended up as the U.S. Amb to Saudi Arabia: “I asked myself that a number of times.  But as it turns out, the Saudis refused to give diplomatic credentials to a career foreign service officer as Amb to the kingdom.  They want someone who is a friend of the president, who can go over the heads of the bureaucracy, who doesn't have a career to protect and who can actually speak for the president with the king and his leadership.”

FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

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Human Rights Watch on the War on Yemen: Coalition Strikes on Residence Unlawful, War Crime

Human Rights Watch on the War on Yemen: Coalition Strikes on Residence Unlawful, War Crime

    Monday, July 27, 2015   No comments

Saudi-led coalition airstrikes that killed at least 65 civilians, including 10 children, and wounded dozens in the Yemeni port city of Mokha on July 24, 2015, are an apparent war crime. Starting between 9:30 and 10 p.m., coalition airplanes repeatedly struck two residential compounds of the Mokha Steam Power Plant, which housed plant workers and their family members.
The failure of Saudi Arabia and other coalition members to investigate apparently unlawful airstrikes in Yemen demonstrates the need for the United Nations Human Rights Council to create a commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of laws-of-war violations by the coalition, the Houthis, and other parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch said.

 “The Saudi-led coalition repeatedly bombed company housing with fatal results for several dozen civilians,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher. “With no evident military target, this attack appears to be a war crime.”

Human Rights Watch visited the area of the attack a day-and-a-half later. Craters and building damage showed that six bombs had struck the plant’s main residential compound, which housed at least 200 families, according to the plant’s managers. One bomb had struck a separate compound for short-term workers about a kilometer north of the main compound, destroying the water tank for the compounds, and two bombs had struck the beach and an intersection nearby.


Bombs hit two apartment buildings directly, collapsing part of their roofs. Other bombs exploded between the buildings, including in the main courtyard, stripping the exterior walls off dozens of apartments, leaving only the load-bearing pillars standing.

Workers and residents at the compounds told Human Rights Watch that one or more aircraft dropped nine bombs in separate sorties in intervals of a few minutes. All of the bombs appeared intended for the compounds and not another objective.

Human Rights Watch saw no signs that either of the two residential compounds for the power plants were being used for military purposes. Over a dozen workers and residents said that there had been no Houthi or other military forces at the compounds. The power plant and the compound were built in 1986.

    Early in the morning of July 25, a news ticker on Al-Arabiya TV, a Saudi-owned media outlet, reported that coalition forces had attacked a military air defense base in Mokha. Human Rights Watch identified a military facility about 800 meters southeast of the Mokha Steam Power Plant’s main compound, which plant workers said had been a military air defense base. The plant workers said that it had been empty for months, and Human Rights Watch saw no activity or personnel at the base from the outside, except for two guards.

Bagil Jafar Qasim, director general of the plant, provided Human Rights Watch with a list of 65 people killed in the attack, including 10 children. The list included two people still missing, whom Qasim believed were buried under the rubble and probably dead. Human Rights Watch visited three hospitals in Hodaida that had received 42 wounded from the attack. Several, including an 11-year-old girl, were in critical condition.

Wajida Ahmed Najid, 37, a resident in one of the compounds whose husband is a plant employee, said that when the first strike hit, she grabbed her children close and they huddled together hoping the danger would pass:

    After the third strike the entire building began to collapse on top of us. Then I knew we needed to leave because it was not safe to stay. I grabbed my girls and we started running in the direction of the beach, but as we were running pieces of metal were flying everywhere and one hit Malak, my 9-year-old daughter. Thank God she is going to be okay. While we were running I saw bodies, seven of them, just lying on the ground, in pieces.

A doctor at the hospital told Human Rights Watch that they had removed a metal fragment from Malak’s abdomen.

 

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Saudi Arabia rejects UN declared cease-fire and continues bombing cities in Yemen, more civilians are killed

Saudi Arabia rejects UN declared cease-fire and continues bombing cities in Yemen, more civilians are killed

    Saturday, July 11, 2015   No comments

Saudi Arabia rejects UN declared cease-fire and continues bombing cities in Yemen, more civilians are killed

Saudi-led air strikes hit Yemen’s capital and another main city causing explosions, residents reported, two hours after a United Nations humanitarian truce took effect.

Bombing pounded Yemeni military positions east of the capital Sanaa and also Yemen’s third largest city Taiz.

The U.N.-brokered pause in the fighting was meant to last a week to allow aid deliveries to the country’s 21 million people who have endured over three months of bombing and civil war.

A coalition of Arab states has been bombing the Iranian-allied Houthi rebel movement since late March in a bid to restore to power Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Riyadh.

The group controls much of Yemen, including Sanaa and Taiz. Air raids and fighting have killed more than 3,000 people since then. Residents in areas of heavy combat between Houthi forces and local militiamen reported that ground fighting and Saudi-led air strikes on the Houthis had increased across the country in the hours before the truce was to take effect.

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Yemen tribes attack Saudi military post and using weapons to launch attacks on Saudi cities

Yemen tribes attack Saudi military post and using weapons to launch attacks on Saudi cities

    Wednesday, May 06, 2015   No comments

Yemen's rebels fired rockets and mortars into Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, killing at least three people and purportedly capturing five soldiers in an attack showing the insurgents' ability to launch assaults despite weeks of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting them.

Saudi Arabia's national airline cancelled flights into the border area of Najran as schools closed early amid the attack, the first by the rebels, known as Houthis, to target a civilian area in the kingdom since the start of the airstrikes late March. Meanwhile, hundreds of families fled the southern Yemeni city of Aden after the Houthis advanced into their neighborhoods, firing indiscriminately as they took over surrounding, towering mountains.

In the Saudi area of Najran, the Houthi shelling killed two Saudi civilians and damaged buildings, Yemeni tribal leaders said. The official Saudi Press Agency carried an Interior Ministry statement saying three people had been killed, though it did not specify if they were all civilians.

The national airline, Saudia, said flights to and from the area would be suspended until further notice, without elaborating. It is the only carrier flying to Najran. Saudi state television reported local schools closed early and aired footage showing cars burnt, smoldering houses and debris covering nearby roads.

The tribal leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, also said the Houthis captured five Saudi soldiers in unclear circumstances.

Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri said that Saudi-led coalition forces continue to respond to the Houthi attack.

Video showing Saudi prisoners of war in the hands of Yemen fighters.
 

One of the more important reasons for the Saudi War on Yemen: divert attention elsewhere and stifle internal dissent

One of the more important reasons for the Saudi War on Yemen: divert attention elsewhere and stifle internal dissent

    Monday, April 20, 2015   No comments

Wartime climate in Saudi puts calls for reform on hold
An electronic billboard at an upscale Saudi mall flashes an advertisement for a designer fragrance before switching to images of soaring F-16s and King Salman saluting the troops. "The response has come to you who threaten the nation," the caption says. "To those who test me, take this war as a reply."

The message is directed at the Iranian-allied Shiite rebels in Yemen who have been the target of a three-week Saudi-led air campaign. The nationalist fervor whipped up by the war has put calls for reform in the kingdom on hold as people rally behind their king, the troops and the status quo.

State-run newspapers, radio talk shows and TV programs are almost entirely focused on the war against the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, with local media portraying it as part of a regional struggle against Tehran and its allies in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

Saudi human rights activists who consistently speak out about the need for political and societal reforms declined to speak to The Associated Press or did so only on condition of anonymity, saying they fear arrest in the current climate. In neighboring Bahrain, at least three people have been detained for criticizing their country's participation in the Saudi-led campaign.

One Saudi rights activist said she and a group of academics were planning to launch a campaign and release videos this month challenging Saudi Arabia's male guardianship laws, which give men powerful sway over women's lives and require females to seek a male relative's permission to travel abroad or undergo certain medical procedures. The project was indefinitely suspended, with those in charge of its research saying that it was inappropriate to talk about such issues while the country is in a state of war.

Another political activist, who is facing trial, said people fear being seen as traitors if they question aspects of the war or press for reforms.

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The Mysterious Saudi Prince Leading The War on Yemen

The Mysterious Saudi Prince Leading The War on Yemen

    Friday, April 17, 2015   No comments

He is the architect and very public face behind Saudi Arabia’s boldest military campaign in nearly 100 years. But Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s young, newly-minted defense minister, remains a virtually unknown figure at home and abroad.

With a swift and sudden rise to power two months ago, the machinations of Mohammed, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz’s favored son, remain elusive and his skill untested, even as he leads an aggressive—and escalating—Arab coalition intervention against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. In just a week of fighting, he’s become a poster boy for the Saudi-led military campaign, known as “Operation Decisive Storm,” as well as an embodiment of his country’s recent shift toward a more hawkish foreign policy in the region.

Yet he is a man whose youth and inexperience has left him almost invisible until now. Even the prince’s age is a matter of speculation and debate. Some peg him as young as 27. Others say he could be as old as 35.

“He is a mystery,” says Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. More than a half-dozen other analysts and Middle East experts interviewed by Vocativ paint the prince in equally ambiguous terms.

As questions about Prince Mohammed grow, at least one thing is clear, observers say. He’s emerged as one of the most influential players in the House of Saud, and likely the youngest to yield any real influence. After ascending to the Saudi throne in January, his father, King Salman, moved swiftly to consolidate power, appointing the prince to three key cabinet posts. He made Mohammed defense minister and head of a newly-formed economic council. He also placed the prince in the role of chief of the royal court, the equivalent of White House chief of staff.

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Gulf states unhappy about U.N. chief's ceasefire appeal

Gulf states unhappy about U.N. chief's ceasefire appeal

    Friday, April 17, 2015   No comments

Several Gulf Arab states are unhappy about U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's call for an immediate ceasefire by all sides in Yemen and are expected to raise the issue in a meeting with him early next week, U.N. diplomatic sources said on Friday.

Ban on Thursday called for an immediate halt to the fighting, the first time he has made such an appeal since Saudi-led air strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels began three weeks ago.

The main topic of the meeting will be the replacement for the outgoing U.N. envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar, who announced his resignation on Wednesday. But, the sources said, they are also expected to raise their concerns about the appeal Ban made in a speech at the National Press Club.

The U.N. chief said the Saudis "have assured me that they understand that there must be a political process. I call on all Yemenis to participate in good faith." He gave no indication that they supported his appeal to end military attacks.


"Gulf states are not happy about the speech and expect to make that point with the SG (Ban) in the meeting," one of the diplomatic sources said on condition of anonymity.

Benomar, a veteran Moroccan diplomat, had irked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations with his handling of so-far unsuccessful peace talks between the Houthis and the Western- and Gulf Arab-backed Yemeni government, Western U.N. diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

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Hadi: A hollow president whose masters in Riyadh are killing us

Hadi: A hollow president whose masters in Riyadh are killing us

    Sunday, April 12, 2015   No comments

by Hossain al-Bokheiti

My country, Yemen, is under attack by an autocratic monarchy whose campaign of airstrikes is fuelled by a desire for regional domination. The nine Arab states currently bombing Yemen with the aim of restoring Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi as president are headed by Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich kingdom that lashes activists for tweeting and imprisons women for driving.

The airstrikes they launched last month are crippling Yemen. Airports, bridges, wheat silos, power plants, gas stations, food trucks, schools, a football field, and a camp for the displaced have all been hit. Hundreds of people have been killed, including women and children. And an air and naval blockade has brought the economy to its knees.

Reading the op-ed published in the New York Times on Monday by Hadi, it is hard to tell if he is talking about the same country. Perhaps this is because he abandoned Yemen last month and fled to Saudi Arabia. His masters in Riyadh command Yemen’s skies but have no grasp of what is happening on the ground. The column speaks to his desperate lack of leadership: with Yemen facing its most grave crisis in decades Hadi did not address his own people, he wrote to America.

Accusing the Houthis of being “backed by Iran” and of “committing acts of aggression”, Hadi made several references to the people of Yemen. But who are the Yemeni people Hadi is talking about? If they are behind him, as he says, would he be fleeing from one place to another like a criminal?

And where is this Iran Hadi speaks of? Here in Yemen we only see American drones and now foreign war planes destroying our country. Has Iran ever attacked Yemen? Sent troops? Bombed Yemeni factories? Ask a Yemeni what Hadi achieved during his two years in office and the answer will invariably be the same: nothing. Instead of building institutions, Hadi allowed the government to rot, the old regime to resurface, and his allies to loot what remained of the country’s resources.

A hollow president, Hadi has called on foreign powers to do his fighting for him, destroying Yemen’s infrastructure and army in the process. In 1994, when civil war broke out between north and south Yemen, Hadi betrayed his fellow southerners and fought alongside former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in the north. On 25 March 2015 when he fled to Riyadh, Hadi betrayed the entire country.

In contrast to Hadi, the Houthis, a politically ambitious movement from north Yemen, have decided to fulfil the goals of the 2011 revolution and deliver on their promises: removing and bringing corrupt criminals to justice, stopping US drone strikes and forming a new government. At the same time they have continued fighting Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a violent group that flourished under the rule of Saleh.

As a movement led by Abdulmalik al-Houthi, a man in his early thirties, the Houthis have gained popular support among young people. In al-Houthi’s calls for a new Yemen, people see a way to turn the failed 2011 revolution into a successful example for change.

Looking at the failed "Arab spring" in Syria and Libya, the Houthis succeeded in providing public services and security in areas they controlled. Most Yemeni cities, including the capital Sanaa, have barely any electricity. People have to buy water privately and use generators to provide their business and home with electricity. In Houthi-controlled areas, electricity is provided by generators which are funded and built by the people. According to the Ministry of Interior, the Houthis’ stronghold of Sadaa has the lowest crime rates and some of the highest tax revenues in Yemen.

With wars raging in Libya, Iraq and Syria and terrorist groups declaring their own states, Yemen has been a different story with AQAP losing control of the towns of al-Jowf, Arhab, Ibb, Radaa as well as Bayda city.

Many people in Yemen believe the US is at least partly to blame for the failure of the Arab spring. Especially in Syria and Libya, America’s allies - Qatar and Saudi Arabia - have funded terrorist groups with the aim of destroying armies and infrastructure and crushing hope for change. The Houthis are here to turn this counter-revolution around so that the demands of 2011 can finally be realised.

Pakistani minister rejects Gulf States' criticism of his country's neutral Yemen stance

Pakistani minister rejects Gulf States' criticism of his country's neutral Yemen stance

    Sunday, April 12, 2015   No comments

Pakistan's interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, on Sunday rejected as "against diplomatic norms" remarks by a UAE minister that Pakistan "will have a heavy price to pay" for its neutral stand in the conflict in Yemen.

Pakistani parliament has unanimously urged the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to remain neutral in the Yemen conflict.

Saudi Arabia, which is a long-standing ally of Pakistan and has led a coalition to launch airstrikes on Shiite Houthis in Yemen, has not yet commented on the parliament resolution; however, UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr. Anwar Mohammed Gargash condemned the Pakistani decision.

Gargash said Pakistan is required to show a clear stand in favor of its strategic relations with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, as contradictory and ambiguous views on this serious matter will have a heavy price to pay.

The Foreign Ministry spokesperson avoided comments on the statement when the media sought response to the UAE minister.

The interior minister; however, dismissed what he called a " threatening approach."

"Pakistan nation has brotherly sentiments for Saudi Arabia and UAE. But the threats by the UAE minister are unfortunate and a matter of concern," the Pakistani minister said in a statement.

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Pakistan and Turkey stay out of the war on Yemen but U.S.. expands its cooperation with Saudi Arabia

Pakistan and Turkey stay out of the war on Yemen but U.S.. expands its cooperation with Saudi Arabia

    Saturday, April 11, 2015   No comments

U.S. expands intelligence sharing with Saudis in Yemen operation

 The United States is expanding its intelligence-sharing with Saudi Arabia to provide more information about potential targets in the kingdom's air campaign against Houthi militias in Yemen, U.S. officials told Reuters.

The stepped-up assistance comes as two weeks of relentless air strikes by the Saudis and other Gulf Arab allies have largely failed to halt advances by the Iran-linked Houthi forces.

The U.S. officials said the expanded assistance includes sensitive intelligence data that will allow the Saudis to better review the kingdom's targets in fighting that has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands since March.

"We have opened up the aperture a bit wider with what we are sharing with our Saudi partners," said one U.S. official.

"We are helping them get a better sense of the battlefield and the state of play with the Houthi forces. We are also helping identify 'no strike' areas they should avoid" to minimize any civilian casualties, the official said.

U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is concerned that the violence could spill over the border it shares with Yemen, and is also worried about the influence of Shi'ite Iran, which has denied Saudi allegations it has provided direct military support to the Houthis.

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