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Houthis strike at Saudi Arabia’s throbbing heart

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 15, 2019

A terrible beauty is born on the Middle East’s strategic landscape with the massive drone attacks Saturday on two Saudi Aramco refineries. Saudi Arabia, which has a record of sponsoring terrorist groups to destabilise foreign lands — Afghanistan, Chechnya, United States, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, etc. —   has become a victim of terrorism, finally. There is natural justice here, one may say. Saturday’s attacks trigger geopolitical convulsions.

The Saudi defence ministry could not thwart the attacks despite the advanced weapon systems in its inventory costing hundreds of billions of dollars. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi Arabia was ranked third in military spending in 2018, below the US and China, with an expenditure of $67.6 billion (alongside India — $66.5 billion).

Evidently, the massive scale of defence expenditure did not ensure national defence, since the Kingdom’s main threat today is not one of external aggression but of blowback ensuing from flawed policies, internal or external. The Patriot missiles deployed in Saudi Arabia could not thwart Saturday’s attacks. Yemen’s Houthi movement who claimed responsibility disclosed that 10 drones were used to target the Aramco refineries at Abqaiq and Khurais.

The Houthi military spokesman said, “This was one of the largest operations which our forces have carried out deep inside Saudi Arabia. It came after careful intelligence and cooperation with honourable and free people inside Saudi Arabia.” The two oil facilities targeted are located in Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite majority eastern province, which is a restive region.

Without doubt, the Houthis have messaged that Riyadh, having lost the war in Yemen, should cease its continuing interference and leave it to the Yemeni factions to sort out their civil war.

The ball is now in the Saudi-Emirati court. The Houthis claim to have over 200 major Saudi targets in its crosshairs. They have also separately warned the UAE that there’s going to be retribution.

US President Donald Trump spoke to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) on the phone. The Saudi readout said Trump “reasserted” Washington’s “readiness to cooperate” with Riyadh “by all means conducive to maintain its (Saudi) security and stability, reaffirming the negative effects of the attacks (on two Aramco’s facilities) on the US economy as well as the world economy”, while MbS “underscored” on his part the Saudi “willingness and strength to thwart such a terrorist aggression and deal with its consequences.”

Neither Trump nor MbS accused any party for staging the attacks. Similarly, a statement by the Official Spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said that “investigations are ongoing to determine the parties responsible for planning and executing these terrorist attacks.”

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s tweeted —“Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” It must be taken as a personal opinion or a knee-jerk reaction. Clearly, utmost care is being taken in Riyadh and Washington not to create alarm in the oil market.

Saudi Arabia has promised to replace any shortfall from its existing stocks. Nonetheless, considering that the attacks have disrupted half of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity or 5.7 million barrels a day of crude oil and gas production (equivalent to 5% of daily global oil supply), the oil market will remain jittery and the stock markets across the Gulf have plunged.

Saturday’s attack deals a heavy blow to MbS’ plans to go public on the Aramco IPO. Aramco’s debut international bond sale in April has been a big success. In a move to give transparency, Saudis also recently commissioned an independent audit of the country’s oil reserves and have started publishing earnings. Over the past two weeks, MbS took direct control of Aramco by appointing a hand-picked as chairman who is close to him. The energy minister also has been replaced.

In political terms, the war in Yemen and the Saudi Aramco’s ambitious restructuring are directly attributable to MbS and, therefore, any setback in these two arenas becomes a reflection on his decision-making and leadership. This has implications for MbS’s political standing as well as the trajectory of Saudi policies.

The Trump administration gets an opportunity to prevail upon the Saudis to end the war in Yemen, which is also what the US Congress has recommended. Washington has opened direct contacts with the Houthis. Therefore, the likelihood that Saturday’s attacks may prompt a Saudi rethink on the war in Yemen cannot be brushed aside.

Indeed, the tide in regional politics and the regional balance has turned against the Saudis lately, given the unraveling of the US-led maximum pressure approach toward Iran and Trump’s keenness to engage with the leadership in Tehran. The politico-military defeat in Syria and Yemen, the break-up with Qatar and the marginalisation in the US-Taliban talks have exposed that Saudi Arabia’s imperial overstretch is unsustainable and in turn put serious limits to Riyadh’s regional influence.

Over and above, the Kingdom is in historic transition at multiple levels — political, economic and social — and reforms cannot be postponed much longer. On the other hand, the steady US retrenchment in the region creates a backdrop of huge uncertainties for Saudi Arabia’s future. It’s at a tumultuous juncture that the Houthis have struck at Aramco, the throbbing heart of Saudi Arabia with a net income of $111.1 billion in 2018.

September 15, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Attacks on Saudi oil make waivers on Iran necessary: Experts

Press TV – September 14, 2019

Experts say critical oil supplies lost due to Yemeni attacks on Saudi Arabia’s production plants can only be compensated if the United States eases its sanctions on sale of crude by Iran.

Sandy Fielden, an analyst at Morningstar, a global financial services firm based in the US, said on Saturday that the current oil stocks in Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil exporter in the world, would not suffice to compensate for a loss of around 5 million barrels per day (bpd) that could be caused by attacks earlier in the day targeting the kingdom’s vital oil facilities located east of the country.

Fielden said the disruptions could cause a real jump in the global oil prices, adding that the US, a main player in the oil market and an ally of the Saudis, would have no option but to allow Iran to resume its crude exports after months of a halt that has been caused by Washington’s unilateral bans.

“By all accounts the Iranians have tankers full of storage ready to go,” he said, adding, “The obvious short-term fix would be waivers on Iran sanctions.”

Yemen’s ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement said on Saturday that its drones had successfully attacked two oil plants in Abqaiq, the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, in the kingdom’s Eastern Province.

The Houthis said the attacks were a firm response to Saudi Arabia’s relentless bombardment of Yemen, where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since Riyadh launched its illegal military campaign four years ago.

James Krane, Middle East energy specialist at Rice University’s Baker Institute, suggested that supplies from a country like Iran would be the best option to replace the lost Saudi production as most of the Kingdom’s exports normally go to countries in Asia that are closer to Iran than any other major oil producer.

“For the United States, the main threat is in the price of oil,” said Krane, adding, “Asian countries are more at immediate risk because they are the big importers from Saudi Arabia, with 80% of Saudi exports going to East Asia.”

Analysts said Yemeni attacks on Saudi oil installations showed that Riyadh, which pumps just below 10 million bpd of oil into the global market, is effectively defenseless in the face of strikes from its impoverished neighbor.

Fielden said Washington would also find it impossible to try to solve the crisis on its own by sending tankers full of oil to Saudi customers in East Asia.

“It takes 19-20 days to ship Ras Tanura (Saudi) to Singapore, but 54 days from Houston to Singapore. So US ‘relief’ will take time,” he said.

However, US officials said right after the attack that they would try to ensure a smooth supply of oil to the global markets despite the attacks in Abqaiq.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that Washington was committed to well-supplied oil markets while adding that US President Donald Trump had held a phone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the Saturday attacks.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) also said that in the short term was there were no real concerns about supplies to the markets.

“For now, markets are well supplied with ample commercial stocks,” it said, adding, “The IEA is monitoring the situation in Saudi Arabia closely. We are in contact with Saudi authorities as well as major producer and consumer nations.”

The United Arab Emirates, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and a major oil producer, said it would support measures adopted by the kingdom to safeguard its security following Saturday attacks.

September 14, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Pompeo blames Iran for drone attack on Saudi oil facilities, Senator Graham urges US to strike it

RT | September 14, 2019

A drone attack on Saudi oil facilities claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels prompted Washington to blame Tehran, with US warhawk, Senator Lindsey Graham, calling for a strike against Iran.

The smoke from the huge fires at the world’s largest oil processing plant caused by the strike had barely dissipated when officials in Washington jumped at the opportunity to use the occasion to push an anti-Iranian agenda.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Tehran for what he called “an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply” but stopped short of suggesting any retaliatory measures.

Meanwhile Graham was quick to turn to Twitter to call for swift retaliation.

The senator linked the need to stop Iran’s alleged “provocations” to the seemingly ultimate goal of Washington’s policy toward Tehran – regime change – as he said that the Islamic Republic would not stop until the consequences of its “misbehavior” would be “more real, like attacking their refineries, which will break the regime’s back.”

Riyadh denounced the drone strike as a “terrorist attack” but did not immediately name a perpetrator. Houthis claimed responsibility for the Saturday morning assault, which resulted in massive blazes at the refinery in the city of Abqaiq in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province and another facility at the vast Khurais oil field, around 150km (93 miles) from Riyadh.

US President Donald Trump has already phoned Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and offered help to the Kingdom in ensuring its security. He also said that the attack on the Saudi oil facilities could be detrimental to the American and the global economy.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said, though, that the attack is unlikely to affect the global oil markets as they are “well supplied with ample commercial stocks.” Yet, it also said it is closely monitoring the situation and is in contact with the Saudis and “major producer and consumer nations.”

The IEA statement came amid media reports that the attack forced Riyadh to cut oil production by as much as 5 million barrels a day, which is equivalent to roughly half of its total oil output and about five percent of the global oil supply.

The Saturday attack has become the most successful strike the Houthis have launched against the Saudis, who have been leading a bombing campaign in Yemen since it intervened in the nation’s civil war in 2015. In May, armed drones caused minor damage to two Saudi Aramco state oil companies’ pumping stations in the Eastern Province.At that time, Riyadh blamed Iran for the attack, which was claimed by the Yemeni rebels as well. Tehran denied the allegations.

The Saudi-led coalition’s military campaign in Yemen has itself been repeatedly criticized by the UN and various international human rights groups, which repeatedly pointed to the mass civilian casualties resulting from the coalition’s airstrikes

September 14, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Yemen Revolutionaries: 10 Drones Hit Saudi Aramco Oil Facilities, Range of Targets to Be Expanded

Al-Manar | September 14, 2019

Yemeni revolutionaries claimed responsibility on Saturday for drone attacks on two major facilities run by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant.

Spokesman of Yemeni armed forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced that ten drones hit Abqaiq – home to the company’s largest oil processing plant – and Khurais facilities.

The attack is “one of the most large-scale operations in the Saudi depth,” and dubbed “Balance of Deterrence-2,” the spokesman said.

“These attacks are our right, and we warn the Saudis that our targets will keep expanding.”

“We have the right to strike back in retaliation to the air strikes and the targeting of our civilians for the last five years,” Saree said, referring to Saudi-led aggression taking place against Yemenis since March 2015.

The Saudi regime has no choice but to halt aggression and lift the blockade imposed on Yemeni people, Saree added in a statement carried by Yemen’s Al-Massirah TV channel.

Earlier on Saturday, Saudi interior ministry said fires broke out at two Saudi Aramco oil facilities after they were struck by drones.

September 14, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Human Trafficking is Booming in Yemen as the War Enters its Fifth Year

By Ahmed Abdulkareem | MintPress | September 13, 2019

AMRAN, YEMEN — The offensive war on Yemen, the most impoverished nation in the Middle East, was launched in 2015 by a U.S.-backed coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia, the richest nation in the Middle East. It has plunged a nation already struggling to provide basic services to its citizens into chaos, a nation now ruled by a ragtag consortium of different groups all thirsting for power. The result? A complete absence of law and order that has given rise to a black Suq (market) of human trafficking on a scale never before seen in Yemen.

Thirty-five-year-old Tawfiq hails from Amran, a small city in west-central Yemen famous for its ancient mud-brick high-rises dating back two millennia to the Sabean kingdom. Tawfiq was among 17 Yemeni victims of human trafficking who agreed to speak to MintPress about their harrowing ordeals. In 2016, Tawfiq — desperate to bring money home to his family, as the then-fledgling war decimated the already shaky Yemeni economy — was told by a friend that he could earn as much as $7,000 for one of his kidneys. Days later Tawfiq was on a bus to Saudi Arabia, traveling through al-Wadeeah port on the Yemen-Saudi border.

Today, Tawfiq suffers from complications arising from his kidney extraction and is now unable to carry heavy objects. He told MintPress, “I thought that removing a kidney would be a simple arrangement, but now I live in a hell of pain and suffering.” Tawfiq’s operation was crude and involved no follow-up care.  

Ismail, the owner of a small electronics store in Taiz, told MintPress, as he pointed to the place where one of his kidneys use to reside, “I needed money to feed my children.” Ismail hesitated while he recounted his story, worried that the shame of what he had done would reach his family. Yet thousands of Yemeni civilians who are living in abject poverty as a result of the ongoing war are willing to allow a part of themselves to be cut out and sold in order to be able to sustain their families.

Ali al-Jailai, head of the Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking, told MintPress that the wave of famine that hit the country in 2015, when the Saudi-led war began, has augmented Yemen’s human trafficking network and left women and children the most vulnerable.

“A while back there was a case of a man who was traveling to Egypt to sell his kidney,” al-Jailai told MintPress. “We talked to him and tried to persuade him not to go, but he refused; he needed the money.” With an economy now decimated by more than four years of war, many working-class Yemenis have abandoned hopes of working a normal job and instead turn to one of the few options that remain: to sign up for the fight against Saudi Arabia and the UAE, or to sell their organs to survive.

Over 20 million Yemenis are currently in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations. Salaries for teachers and other public-sector workers have not been paid regularly since the war began and Saudi Arabia seized control of Yemen’s Central Bank, leaving vulnerable populations at increased risk of falling victim to human trafficking.

The Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking, a Sana’a-based NGO, has documented over 10,000 cases of organ sales from the start of the war in March 2015 to 2017. According to the organization, actual figures could be much higher, as many cases go unreported owing to the illegality of the practice, religious concerns, and the associated stigma of the practice in Yemen’s conservative society.

Although he lost one of his kidneys, Tawfiq was lucky. Hundreds of Yemenis, including women and children, forced to “donate” their organs, lose their lives after their livers, kidneys, spleens, corneas, or even their hearts are removed. One Yemeni family recounted to MintPress, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case, how they found their son after he went missing: “After his abduction we found his body thrown in the street, you could see there had been an operation on his body; we asked for an autopsy and were in shock after we found his heart was gone.”

Blockading a way out

In addition to poverty and the absence of law enforcement, there are other reasons why human trafficking flourishes in Yemen, perhaps the most prominent being the blockade levied against the country by the Saudi Coalition since 2015. Before the war, Yemenis would regularly leave the country to seek better health care, employment opportunities and safety abroad — including, somewhat ironically, in neighboring Saudi Arabia. Now — with seaports, airports, highways and especially the once-bustling Sana`a International Airport effectively shuttered by the Saudi Coalition — Yemenis are no longer able to flee the violence in their country or travel to neighboring wealthy Gulf countries for stints of work to earn some cash, leaving many with few options but to resort to selling their organs out of desperation to make ends meet.

The blockade has also left a large number of Yemenis stranded abroad, including some students and others who have managed to find a way out in hopes of receiving medical treatment. It is estimated, according to data provided by the Sana`a International Airport Media Center, that nearly 4 million Yemenis are currently stranded abroad. Many of the stranded are left in a state of legal limbo, unable to secure citizenship in neighboring countries and therefore unable to work, leaving them with no way to earn money short of begging on the street or agreeing to sell their organs

The Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking told MintPress that many Yemenis who fled when the war broke out are now stuck abroad and that the organization has recorded as many as 300 cases of Yemenis stranded abroad selling their kidneys out of desperation.

Officials work with brokers and smugglers

Maha, who wished to be identified only by her first name, and her friend, who asked to remain anonymous, recounted how a Yemeni broker had managed to secure passports for them by contacting staff members at the Yemeni Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who then, together with a Saudi black-market organ dealer, created a formal medical report to make the sale of Maha and her friend’s kidneys look like a legitimate donor transplant. The Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking told MintPress that collusion by government officials is rampant in Egypt thanks to the large fees government employees charge for coordinating organ sales. “I used to travel to Egypt every month along with a group of girls where we would attend concerts at the Emirati Embassy; the trips were coordinated by high-level employees at the Yemeni Embassy,” Maha told MintPress.

Last year, Musa Al-Ezaki, the editor of Yemen’s widely-circulated Al-Hayat newspaper, made a very public offer to sell one of his kidneys to the highest bidder. Al-Ezaki coordinated with his brother, who was living in Egypt at the time, to place an ad in a Cario newspaper with the caption, “Under compelling circumstances I regret to announce the sale of my kidney to pay rent; if someone wants to buy a kidney, please call me.” It’s unknown if Al-Ezak ever found a buyer.

Yemen’s penal code calls for 10 years’ imprisonment for those engaged in human trafficking. However, not only are those laws not being implemented, government officials, especially those in the Aden-based government of Saudi-backed Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, are often directly involved in smuggling victims abroad and issuing permits to make the sale of organs appear as legitimate donations to recipients in countries that are supposed to require the approval of the Yemeni Embassy, especially Egypt.

“[In one case] we formally contacted embassy officials to coordinate with Egyptian authorities in order to return a human trafficking victim to Yemen, but they refused to respond,” al-Jailai told MintPress. “We have accurate information about the complicity of the Yemeni Embassy [staff] in Egypt and unfortunately, organized crime has been able to penetrate it.”

Owing to the collapse of an organized health care system in Yemen, organized criminal elements are smuggling victims to Egypt, the Saudi Arabia and China, according to the Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking. Yet, of the victims and brokers who spoke to MintPress, all indicated that Egypt is still one of the most favored destinations to which brokers and smugglers bring their victims.

MintPress interviewed three Yemeni brokers who said officials in Yemen were assisting them in obtaining travel documents for their victims and connecting them with brokers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt to arrange their travel, accommodation, and surgeries in direct coordination with staff in their countries’ embassies. “The government entities here [in Yemen] and in Saudi Arabia make bringing Yemenis abroad easy for us,” one of the brokers who asked to be identified as Abu Saiyad, which translates to The Hunter in English, told MintPress.

Organ brokers in Yemen do not work under the radar as their peers do in neighboring countries. They are known to most residents and wander through camps for the internally displaced and most major slums in large cities.

Harvesting prisoners of war

Owing to the increased demand for human organs, attributable in large part to the many troops who have sustained injuries while fighting in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also become a sizable market for Yemeni victims of human trafficking. Even some Yemeni prisoners of war captured on Yemeni battlefields have awoken to find their kidneys removed; others have had their organs harvested and been left for dead.

A number of families of prisoners of war said their loved ones had become victims of human trafficking after being captured on the front lines. They say Saudi Arabia has thus far refused to hand over their bodies. One such family told MintPress that they had evidence that the Saudi army extracted their son Ibrahim’s spleen and cornea from him before he was killed, but MintPress was unable to independently verify the claim.

In June 2019  the United States added Saudi Arabia to a list of countries it says are not doing enough to combat human trafficking. Instead, the U.S. said, the Kingdom has often jailed, fined or deported human trafficking victims, accusing them of immigration violations or prostitution rather than providing them assistance.

Despite the blacklisting of its Saudi ally, the United States is very much complicit in the human trafficking that has come to plague Yemen, according to many Yemenis, who feel that if the United States did not offer such generous support to the Coalition, their country would not be suffering a famine and hence no one would be forced to sell their organs, or their honor, to feed their children.

While Yemen’s penal code calls for 10 years’ imprisonment for those engaged in buying or selling human beings, the U.S. State Department has done nothing to publicly reprimand its coalition allies for failing to tackle trafficking in Yemen — this despite the fact the U.S.’ own report lays much of the blame at the feet of the Coalition-backed government in Aden.

Yemen’s women and girls at risk

The trafficking of human beings involves not only human organs but also sexual exploitation, and Yemen is no exception. Trafficked Yemeni women are subjected to rape, violence, extreme cruelty, and many other forms of pressure and coercion. Female trafficking victims who spoke to MintPress reported being forced into prostitution networks in Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis.

One victim, who wished to be identified only as Samerah, told MintPress:

I traveled to Egypt in February 2018. I was taken to a party featuring the Saudi Ambassador and the head of the military police in Saudi Arabia by a Yemeni and Egyptian woman. That night I was forced into having sex and the next day I was given money and returned to the embassy.”

Another trafficking victim who was forced into sex work and who refused to be identified spoke to MintPress from a rehabilitation center run by the Houthis in Sana`a. She told MintPress that she is afraid to return to her home for fear of being killed for violating her family’s honor.

Wealthy Saudi and Emirati patrons often rely on professional brokers’ networks that send trafficked women and girls to hotels in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Egypt and Dubai in exchange for a commission, according to a number of testimonies given to MintPress by both trafficked victims and brokers.

Before the war, Saudi Arabia was already using Yemen as a hub for so-called “marriage tourism.”  Saudi soldiers, businessmen, and ordinary citizens would travel to Yemen to marry young girls from poor families. Many of these girls would travel back to Saudi Arabia only to be used temporarily for sex and then simply or abandoned on the streets or sold to traffickers.

Even those who voluntarily seek to sell their organs out of desperation fall victim to smugglers and brokers. Aisha, who agreed to sell her kidney to a wealthy Bahraini woman told MintPress that the woman buying her kidney told her that she had paid $30,000 for it. Aisha received only $5,000.

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

September 13, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Yemen: Socotra suspends Emirates Airline flights to stop UAE mercenaries

MEMO | September 9, 2019

Amid allegations of UAE-backed foreign mercenaries arriving on the Yemeni island of Socotra, it was reported yesterday that the island’s main airport has temporarily suspended flights from UAE’s Emirates Airline for three days.

According to the Socotra Post, local intelligence suggests the UAE intends to deploy additional mercenaries from the Eritrean port city of Asseb in addition to militia stationed in the southern mainland.

It has been speculated that the UAE hopes to expand its trading routes by occupying the strategically located archipelago where a military base has already been established. The UAE has previously set up similar bases in the Horn of Africa, of which Eritrea is part.

Soqotri residents have held regular demonstrations against a perceived occupation by the Emiratis.

The Socotra Post reported other sources saying that the UAE previously smuggled arms onto the island by using sites used to store humanitarian aid and commercial goods belonging to the UAE branch of the Red Crescent and the Khalifah Foundation.

The Socotra islands are a UNESCO World Heritage Centre protected and recognised by the UN body for their unique flora and fauna.

September 9, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Yemen: Another Shameful US Defeat Looms

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 9, 2019

An official confirmation by the Trump administration of it holding discreet talks with Yemen’s Houthi rebels indicates a realization in Washington that its military intervention in the Arab country is an unsalvageable disaster requiring exit.

There are also reports of the Trump administration urging the Saudi rulers to engage with the Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, in order to patch up some kind of peace settlement to the more than four-year war. In short, the Americans want out of this quagmire.

Quite a turnaround. The US-backed Saudi coalition has up to now justified its aggression against the poorest country in the Arab region with claims that the rebels are Iranian proxies. Now, it seems, Washington deems the Houthi “terrorists” worthy of negotiations.

This follows a similar pattern in many other US foreign wars. First, the aggression is “justified” by moralistic claims of fighting “communists” or “terrorists” as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Only for Washington, after much needless slaughter and destruction, to reach out to former villains for “talks” in order to extricate the Americans from their own self-made disaster.

Talks with the Houthis were confirmed last week by US Assistant Secretary of Near East Affairs David Schenker during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

“We are narrowly focused on trying to end the war in Yemen,” said Schenker. “We are also having talks to the extent possible with the Houthis to try and find a mutually accepted negotiated solution to the conflict.”

In response, a senior Houthi official Hamid Assem was quoted as saying: “That the United States says they are talking to us is a great victory for us and proves that we are right.” However, he declined to confirm or deny if negotiations were being held.

You have to almost admire the effrontery of the American government. Notice how the US diplomat says “we are focused on ending the war” and “a mutually acceptable solution”.

As if Washington is some kind of honest broker trying to bring peace to a country stricken by mysterious violence.

The war was launched by the US-backed Saudi coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015, without any provocation from Yemen. The precipitating factor was that the Houthis, a mainly Shia rebel group aligned with Iran, had kicked out a corrupt Saudi-backed dictator at the end of 2014. When he tucked tail and fled to exile in Saudi capital Riyadh, that’s when the Saudis launched their aerial bombing campaign on Yemen.

The slaughter in Yemen over the past four years has been nothing short of a calamity for the population of nearly 28 million people. The UN estimates that nearly 80 per cent of the nation is teetering on hunger and disease.

A UN report published last week explicitly held the US, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure. The UN report also blamed the Houthis for committing atrocities. That may be so, but the preponderance of deaths and destruction in Yemen is due to American, British and French military support to the Saudi-led coalition. Up to 100,ooo civilians may have been killed from the Western-backed blitzkrieg, while the Western media keep quoting a figure of “10,000”, which magically never seems to increase over the past four years.

Several factors are pressing the Trump administration to wind down the Yemen war.

The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed by Washington’s mendacity about allegedly combating “Iran subversion” in Yemen. The southern Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official American pretensions of being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue.

When the American Congress is united in calling for a ban on US arms to Saudi Arabia because of the atrocities in Yemen, then we should know that the PR war has been lost. President Trump over-ruled Congress earlier this year to continue arming the Saudis in Yemen. But even Trump must at last be realizing his government’s culpability for aiding and abetting genocide is no longer excusable, even for the most credulous consumers of American propaganda.

After four years of relentless air strikes, which have become financially ruinous for the Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels.

Not only that but the Houthis have begun to take the war into the heart of Saudi Arabia. Over the past year, the rebels have mounted increasingly sophisticated long-range drone and ballistic missile attacks on Saudi military bases and the capital Riyadh. From where the Houthis are receiving their more lethal weaponry is not clear. Maybe from Lebanon’s Hezbollah or from Iran. In any case, such supply if confirmed could be argued as legitimate support for a country facing aggression.

No doubt the Houthis striking deep into Saudi territory has given the pampered monarchs in Riyadh serious pause for thought.

When the UAE – the other main coalition partner – announced a month ago that it was scaling back its involvement in Yemen that must have rattled Washington and Riyadh that the war was indeed futile.

The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden. There are reports of UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies.

Washington has doubtless taken note of the unstoppable disaster in Yemen and how its position is indefensible and infeasible.

Like so many other obscene American wars down through the decades, Washington is facing yet another ignominious defeat in Yemen. When the US starts to talk about “ending the war” with a spin about concern for “mutual peace”, then you know the sordid game is finally up.

September 9, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Rights groups call for France to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE

A destroyed prison, in which Houthi Ansarullah movement members held its prisoners, is seen after coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia organised an airstrike over it in Dhamar, Yemen on September 01, 2019 [Mohammed Hamoud / Anadolu Agency]

A destroyed prison, in which the Ansarullah movement held prisoners, is seen after Saudi led coalition forces organised an airstrike on September 1, 2019
[Mohammed Hamoud / Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | September 7, 2019

Some 17 rights groups have renewed their call for France to immediately stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, after a new UN report confirmed their involvement in the killing of civilians in Yemen, Alkhaleejonline.net reported on Friday.

The 17 NGOs renewed their call for France to stop arming Saudi Arabia and the UAE, based on two incidents that took place last week.

“On Sunday, more than 100 inmates were killed in an airstrike in the west of Yemen,” the rights groups affirmed in a statement.

They also claimed that a reported issued by a group of UN experts found that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are carrying out violent attacks against civilian residents in Yemen.

The experts emphasised the importance of the countries selling arms to these two Arab states to stop their sales, in order to inhibit the encouragement of this conflict.

The group of UN experts which was formed in 2017, confirmed that there have been “many war crimes” throughout the year.

September 7, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Bulgarian journalist reveals how US-purchased arms end up with ISIS in Yemen

‘It’s a tip of an iceberg’

RT | September 5, 2019

Mortar shells shown in an Islamic State propaganda video have put a Bulgarian journalist on the scent of an alleged US-run arms shipping network supplying militants in the Middle East, she told RT in an exclusive interview.

This story began back in June, when Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists in Yemen demonstrated several Serbian-made 82mm mortar shells in their propaganda video. Independent investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, believes that the deadly munitions ended up with the jihadists after going through US hands.

Tracing origins

Clearly visible on one of the shells is a mark that reads ’82 mm M74HE mortar shells KV lot 04/18.’ The letters KV stand for the Serbian state arms manufacturer Krusik, located in the town of Valjevo, while the digits 04/18 refer to lot 04 produced in 2018. One should not jump to any conclusions, however, as it is not the Serbs who were responsible for the shells suddenly appearing in the hands of terrorists, according to Gaytandzhieva.

A trove of “explosive” leaked documents she said she received from an “anonymous source” shows that the lot in question was part of a deal between the Serbian arms factory and a Pentagon contractor, Alliant Techsystems LLC. It was part of a purchase of more than 100,000 such shells “for the needs of the US government.”

“In the shipping documentation and on the labels on the mortar shells’ containers, there is a name of… the importer… that purchases the weapons on behalf of the US government,” the journalist told RT, citing the documents.

“There are indications and information about a US federal contract, under which these weapons were purchased, and this is absolutely verifiable in the case of Alliant Techsystems LLC, the company, which purchased the mortar shells and this particular lot of weapons pictured in the ISIS video in Yemen.”

Some leaked documents published by Gaytandzhieva do indeed mention a contract between Alliant Techsystems LLC and the Pentagon, which was allegedly aimed at supplying the Afghan National Army. “This lot was purchased under a $50 million contract between Alliant Techsystems and the US DoD for the delivery of non-standard US weapons to Afghanistan,” the journalist said.

Gaytandzhieva believes, however, that this case is just the tip of the iceberg. It could be a part of a far-reaching arms supply scheme involving up to “three million pieces of weapons – rockets and mortar shells – that have been diverted either to Syria or to Yemen.”

‘Corporate international weapons shipment network’

The leaked documents, which include emails, internal memos, photos and correspondence between the American arms dealers and the Serbian arms factory Krusik, have helped Gaytandzhieva to “expose the existence of a secret US special command unit code-named “Task Force Smoking Gun.” That unit has allegedly operated an arms depo since at least 2017, which is used in shady arms shipping operations by the US and its allies.

“I found that four private American companies were US government contractors and they were commissioned by the Pentagon to deliver non-US standard weapons to different destinations. According to the other leaked documents, I found that one of these destinations was Syria.

“This is a whole international weapons shipment network,” the journalist explained to RT, adding that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also using it for its operations alongside the US. “The scheme is using different routes and diplomatic flights diverting weapons via a third party to their final destination, which appears to be Syria or Yemen.”

Gaytandzhieva said that she investigated at least “350 diplomatic flights carrying weapons for the last three years” by the same Azeri state-run company that delivered the mortar shells to Afghanistan in 2018. “They made technical landings with stays varying from a few hours to up to a day in intermediary locations without any logical reasons such as needing to refuel the planes,” she wrote in a separate report investigating this particular issue.

“That means that this international weapons shipment network has never [ceased to exist] and continues [it operations] to this date.”

RT has managed to independently verify parts of Gaytandzhieva’s report by finding the contracts between Alliant Techsystems LLC and the Pentagon that she mentions in the US Federal Procurement Data System. It has also been established that the company has regularly worked for the US Department of Defense since at least 2016.

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September 5, 2019 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US in talks with Yemeni rebels to end war – official

RT | September 5, 2019

Washington is in talks with the Houthi rebels in a bid to end Yemen’s war a top US official said on Thursday. “We are narrowly focused on trying to end the war in Yemen,” Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker said during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

“We are also having talks to the extent possible with the Houthis to try and find a mutually accepted negotiated solution to the conflict,” AFP quoted the officials as saying.

The development marks the first contact between the administration of President Donald Trump and the Houthis in over four years.

Under the administration of former president Barack Obama, US officials held brief talks with Houthi leaders in June 2015, three months after the Saudi-led intervention began, to convince them to attend UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva to resolve the crisis.

September 5, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

New U.N. Report Highlights Human Rights Violations and Abuses in Yemen since 2014

By Sarah Abed | September 5, 2019

The second largest sovereign state in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, has been ravaged by war, deliberate starvation, and cholera for over four years. A 274 page U.N. report released on Tuesday, highlights the human rights situation including violations and abuses since September 2014.

According to the report, which took two years to complete, the United States, France, and Britain may be complicit in war crimes for their involvement in the war in Yemen by not only supplying the weapons being used by the Saudi and United Arab Emirate coalitions, but also providing them with intelligence and logistics support.

The report details the findings of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen. It was submitted as a supplement to A/HR/42/17. U.N. investigators are recommending that all states impose a ban on arms transfers to the warring parties in order to prevent them from being used to commit serious violations and war crimes.

“It is clear that the continued supply of weapons to parties to the conflict is perpetuating the conflict and prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people,” Melissa Parke, an expert on the independent U.N. panel, told a news conference. Parke continued, “That is why we are urging member states to no longer supply weapons to parties to the conflict.”

The report states, “The Group of Experts reiterates that steps required to address the human rights and international law violations in Yemen have been continually discussed, and there can no longer be any excuses made for failure to take meaningful steps to address them. The best way to protect the Yemeni population is to stop the fighting by reaching a political settlement which includes measures for accountability.”

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are two of the largest purchasers of U.S. British and French weapons. These weapons are being used to fight against the homegrown Houthi movement which controls Yemen’s capital. The report states, “The legality of arms transfers by France, the United Kingdom, the United States and other States remains questionable, and is the subject of various domestic court proceedings.”

According to the U.N. report, Saudi and UAE coalitions are killing civilians in air strikes, and deliberately denying them food. The report put blame on all sides of the conflict, saying that no one has clean hands.

Kamel Jendoubi, chairperson of the Group of Experts on Yemen a creation of the U.N. Human Rights Council stated, “Five years into the conflict, violations against Yemeni civilians continue unabated, with total disregard for the plight of the people and a lack of international action to hold parties to the conflict accountable.” He also stated “This endemic impunity—for violations and abuses by all parties to the conflict—cannot be tolerated anymore.” Jendoubi concluded, “Impartial and independent inquiries must be empowered to hold accountable those who disrespect the rights of the Yemeni people. The international community must stop turning a blind eye to these violations and the intolerable humanitarian situation.”

Allegations of torture, rape, and murder of suspected political opponents detained in secret facilities by Emirati and affiliated forces have been received by the U.N. panel.

A secret list was sent by an independent panel to U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, identifying “individuals who may be responsible for international crimes” the U.N. report states.

In the appendix, was a separate list identifying more than 160 “main actors” among Saudi, Emirati and Yemeni government and Houthi officials.

Concerns have been raised as to the impartiality and legitimacy of a Joint Incidents Assessment Team set up by Saudi Arabia to review alleged coalition violations, after it failed to hold anyone accountable for air strikes that killed civilians.

The U.N. report comes just a few days after a recent airstrike by the Saudi-led military coalition on a detention center in Yemen on Sunday, killed more than 100 people. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the attack may have amounted to a war crime. The coalition said it was targeting a drones and missiles facility but instead they leveled a building being used as a prison, in the city of Dhamar.

“The location that was hit has been visited by ICRC before,” Franz Rauchenstein, its head of delegation for Yemen, told AFP from Dhamar. “It’s a college building that has been empty and has been used as a detention facility for a while.” Rauchenstein continued, “What is most disturbing is that (the attack was) on a prison. To hit such a building is shocking and saddening – prisoners are protected by international law.” The remaining forty survivors are being treated in hospitals in the city south of the capital Sanaa for their injuries.

Last Thursday, airstrikes hit Yemeni government forces heading to Aden a southern port city, to fight UAE backed separatists. At least 30 troops were killed according to a government commander. The UAE has been known to arm and train separatist militias in southern Yemen. For weeks now, a rift between Saudi and UAE proxies has further complicated matters and civilians are paying the price.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers launched a new effort to end the U.S. government’s involvement in the Saudi-led assault on Yemen, shortly after the latest attacks. Lawmakers are also calling on the Senate to not remove an amendment to the annual defense policy legislation which would prohibit the U.S. from cooperating with Saudi airstrikes. Sanders stated, “We must use Congress’s power of the purse to block every nickel of taxpayer money from going to assist the Saudi dictatorship as it bombs and starves civilians in Yemen.”

Unfortunately, even with the release of this new U.N. report, the likelihood that nations perpetrating war crimes against innocent Yemeni civilians will be held accountable is highly unlikely.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and analyst.

September 5, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UN calls out US, UK & France for complicity in Yemen war crimes

RT | September 4, 2019

The UN Human Rights Council slammed the US, UK and France for their complicity in alleged war crimes in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, warning that abetting such crimes by selling arms or other aid is also illegal.

“States that knowingly aid or assist parties to the conflict in Yemen in the commission of violations would be responsible for complicity in the relevant international humanitarian law violations,” the UNHRC’s Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen declared in a lengthy report published on Tuesday.

“With the number of public reports alleging and often establishing serious violations of international humanitarian law no State can claim not to be aware of such violations being perpetrated in Yemen.”

The 274-page report enumerated possible war crimes committed by both sides in the conflict, including airstrikes and shelling, landmines, “siege-like tactics,” attacks on hospitals and other vital infrastructure, arbitrary arrests and executions, torture, and forced conscription of children into combat. The writers claimed to have forwarded the names of top military and political individuals from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and the Houthi movement to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for further investigation and possible prosecution.

The UK and France fall under special scrutiny as signatories to the Arms Trade Treaty, which bars the sale of weapons if a country believes they will be used to commit “mass atrocities.” However, even non-parties to the ATT may face “criminal responsibility for aiding and abetting war crimes” since after five years of fighting “there can no longer be any excuses made for failure to take meaningful steps to address” the humanitarian crisis and international law violations taking place in Yemen.

The UK Court of Appeal ruled in June that the government had “made no attempt” to determine whether Saudi Arabia was using its weapons to violate international law, and while Secretary of State Liam Fox said he would suspend licenses for export to the Saudi coalition, the Department for International Trade said it would appeal the ruling. A rare bipartisan-supported bill to end weapons sales to Saudi Arabia by the US was vetoed in July by President Donald Trump, who complained it would “weaken America’s global competitiveness” and damage relationships with allies. And the French government hid the arms sales from its people entirely, then threatened the journalists who exposed the sales with arrest for publishing confidential information.

The UNHRC report also provided an update on the shocking scale of the humanitarian crisis, revealing that nearly a quarter of the Yemeni population was malnourished at the start of 2019, according to the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with 230 of 333 districts at risk of famine and 24.1 million people in need of assistance merely to survive.

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‘Comical & tragic’ when US officials say arms sales to Saudis are about ‘exporting human rights’

September 4, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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