In his essay entitled, “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell says, “political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Orwell, whose writings are more prescient with each passing year, would wince at the words of Saudi Arabia’s Brigadier General Asiri, who, in a recent press conference, defended Saudi Arabia’s unprovoked war in Yemen by saying, “all we are trying to do is to make sure that there is security in Yemen.” Bombing an already desperately poor country’s infrastructure, destroying its armed forces (the same armed forces that were equipped and trained to fight al-Qaeda by the US), air dropping weapons (now being sold in Yemen’s arms markets), blockading Yemen’s ports (Yemen imports 90% of its food), and hobbling an already struggling economy are hardly ways of ensuring security.
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel A. al-Jubeir, has sought to justify the Kingdom’s war in Yemen by arguing that Saudi Arabia—a country that is ruled by an autocratic king and a collection of princes—is fighting to protect the “elected and legitimate government of Yemen,” the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi.
Hadi, who fled Yemen for Saudi Arabia on 25 March, was “elected” in an election in February 2012 in which his name was the only one on the ballot. There is also the fact that Hadi’s term as president expired in February 2014. According to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) brokered initiative, national elections, including the election of a new president, were to be held in 2014.
To sum it up: an autocracy with a deplorable human rights record (Saudi Arabia’s Sharia courts routinely behead criminals and flog victims of gang rape as well as recalcitrant bloggers) and its partners—which includes the US—are endeavoring to reinstall an ineffectual exiled government of questionable legitimacy and ensure security in Yemen by bombing and starving it into submission.
Hadi and his exiled government are supporting the bombardment of their own country and calling on the Saudis and their allies to intensify air strikes and launch what will likely be a disastrous ground invasion. Of course, these calls for more bombs, more weapons, and more war are being made by men who fled Yemen aboard private jets and are comfortably ensconced in villas in Riyadh. They do not have to worry about being incinerated in their homes, finding food or water, or burying their dead. It is worth citing another quote from Orwell who wrote in Homage to Catalonia, “all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
So what fruits is the Saudi led and US supported “Operation Decisive Storm” bearing? Security is not among them. An estimated 600 people, including at least 80 children, have been killed. According to UNICEF, a hundred thousand additional Yemenis have been displaced since the beginning of “Operation Decisive Storm.” Food, medical supplies, and petrol are in short supply across the country and as yet, flights and convoys bringing aid are being blocked. Conditions in parts of southern Yemen are so bad that some Yemenis are fleeing by boat to relatively secure and stable Somaliland and Puntland.
Across southern Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is on the offensive. AQAP has freed its members from various jails and has raised its flag over Mukalla, a city of nearly four hundred thousand and a major port with critical oil and gas handling facilities. However AQAP and other militant Islamist groups whose ideology differs little from the state sanctioned Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia, are seemingly not targets for those directing “Operation Decisive Storm.” The primary targets of the aerial campaign, beyond critical infrastructure, food factories, and refugee camps, are the Houthis, a Zaidi Shi’a group that has had more success at fighting AQAP in the last six months than the US and its drones have had in the last decade.
AQAP was and, in some military circles, still is considered to be the most virulent of the al-Qaeda franchises. Mainstream US media has long trumpeted the idea that AQAP poses a clear and present danger to the US. Hundreds of millions of dollars of US tax payer money has been spent on the “war on terror” in Yemen. Yet rather than calling for a ceasefire and dialogue as the governments of China, Russia, and Iran have done, the US is supporting a war that will, beyond anything else, make sure that Yemen remains a failed state and fertile ground for AQAP and potentially the Islamic State.
It all makes sense in an Orwellian way.
Michael Horton is a writer and Middle East analyst.
The Pakistani parliament has passed a resolution that urges Islamabad to remain neutral vis-à-vis the conflict in Yemen, dismissing Saudi Arabia’s request to join its deadly air raids against the Arabian Peninsula state.
“The parliament desires that Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict so as to be able to play a proactive diplomatic role to end the crisis,” read the resolution which was ratified unanimously on Friday after days of dispute among the lawmakers.
The parliament “underscores the need for continued efforts by the government of Pakistan to find a peaceful resolution of the crisis,” the resolution added.
The resolution urged all warring factions in Yemen to put an end to deadly clashes and resolve the conflict through dialogue, warning that the flare-up in the Arab country would “have a critical fallout in the region, including in Pakistan.”
The Pakistani parliament also called on the international community and Muslim countries to push ahead with their efforts to bring about a ceasefire deal in the violence-wracked country.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also attended the parliament session on Friday to express his approval of the resolution.
This is while Riyadh has made repeated calls to Islamabad to take part in the Saudi aggression in Yemen.
The resolution came a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrapped up a two-day visit to neighboring Pakistan.
“Military attacks, aerial bombings and the destruction of the infrastructure in this country (Yemen) cannot help resolve the crisis,” said Zarif during a meeting with Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, the speaker of the Pakistani parliament,
“We should all invite all sides to the negotiation table to resolve the regional problems,” Zarif said.
In a meeting with Pakistani army chief General General Raheel Sharif on Thursday, Zarif said, “The past experiences show that the consequences of the military intervention in Yemen will become part of the problems.”
Saudi Arabia’s air campaign against Ansarullah fighters started on March 26, without a UN mandate, in a bid to restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
According to figures released Thursday by Yemeni media outlets, nearly 450 people have so far been killed since the beginning of the Saudi aggression. Most deaths are reported to be women and children.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
However, the Ansarullah movement later said Hadi had lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he escaped Sana’a to Aden in February.
On March 25, the embattled president fled the southern city of Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base, to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on Aden.
The Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital in September 2014. The revolutionaries said Hadi’s government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.
As the US-backed Saudi bombing of Yemen enters into its second week, more than 500 people — including many civilians — have been killed, what infrastructure existed in the impoverished country has been destroyed, and the ousted president cheers on the destruction of his country within the protective embrace of the country that is bombing his own.
What is less reported in a US mainstream media is that one group in Yemen seems to be making out quite well in the US-backed and Saudi-created chaos: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Yes, al-Qaeda. The group that the US has been droning in Yemen since 2010. The drone strikes that set the population and especially various tribes like the Houthis against the US-accommodating Hadi. The Houthis who had been fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen before they started being bombed by Saudi Arabia. That al-Qaeda.
A Thursday prison raid by al-Qaeda operatives in the port city of Mukalla freed one of their commanders, “emir” Khaled Batarfi. Barfi celebrated his freedom by taking up residence in the abandoned regional governor’s palace as Saudi planes continued to bomb al-Qaeda’s enemy in Yemen, the Houthis. Barfi even used the palace telephone apparently to issue orders to his minions. It must have been hard for him to believe his incredible good luck!
The Saudis are said to have air-dropped weapons to supporters of ousted president, Mansur Hadi, in the battleground port city of Aden. How long before al-Qaeda shows up with these gifts from the Saudis by way of the US military-industrial complex?
So why is the US backing the Saudi attack on its neighbor? It is complicated. According to US government logic, when Yanukovych was chased by a mob from his office in Ukraine, by leaving the country he lost legitimacy. In Yemen, on the other hand, when president Hadi was chased by a mob from his office he retained his legitimacy and Saudi airstrikes were approved and coordinated by the US to put him back in office.
It had something to do with democracy, it was said. However, Hadi was “elected” after overthrowing his predecessor in a coup and standing for office as the only candidate on the ballot. Not surprisingly in the circumstance, he “won” more than 99 percent of the vote. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was effusive in her praise, claiming the Soviet-style election and inauguration “were promising steps on the path toward a new, democratic chapter in Yemen’s history.”
Yanukovych, in contrast, was elected in a contested election judged to be “free and fair” by international monitoring bodies.
Watching State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki defend these double standards is one of those golden comedy moments that makes you laugh and then cry.
So the US backs Saudi attacks on Yemen in the name of democracy even though neither country is remotely democratic, and even though none except al-Qaeda and the US military-industrial complex seems to be benefiting. Is this incompetence, arrogance, ignorance, or something darker?
Saudi Arabia plans to raze to the ground around one hundred villages in areas near the border with Yemen, amid airstrikes on the impoverished country.
According to the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper on Sunday, out of 96 border villages targeted for demolition, as many as 10 have been destroyed since Riyadh started its airstrikes on Yemen.
The border guard chief in the area, Hassan Aqili, said the decision is to prevent the empty houses in the villages from turning into “a safe haven for traffickers and infiltrators,” the Saudi newspaper reported.
Saudi Arabia’s air campaign in Yemen started on March 26 in a bid to restore power to fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
An exchange of fire between Saudi security forces and Yemen’s Ansarullah fighters on Friday claimed the lives of two Saudi soldiers on the kingdom’s border with Yemen as resistance against the Saudi aggression on the Arabian Peninsula country continues.
On Thursday, a Saudi soldier was killed and 10 others were wounded in a similar exchange of fire across the Yemeni border.
Hundreds of people have lost their lives since the Saudi airstrikes started more than a week ago, with the UN humanitarian chief, Valerie Amos, saying she is “extremely concerned” about the fate of the civilians.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Houthi revolutionaries.
The Ansarullah movement later said Hadi had lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he escaped the capital to the southern port of Aden in February.
In late March, Hadi fled Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base, to Riyadh after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on the port city.
Ami Ayalon, the former chief of Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet, told Charlie Rose in a 2012 interview that Israel hoped to foster a ‘Sunni coalition’ led by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to assail Shia Muslims of the region led by Iran.
Ayalon told Rose that, “Iran is a huge threat. We cannot live with Iran having nuclear military power. We should not accept it.”
“How much time do we have and what do we do?” the Israeli spook asked.
“[We need to create] a kind of a Sunni coalition … with Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia… who understand that the major conflict is with Shia [Muslims] led by Iran.”
Interestingly, such a coalition has indeed formed in recent weeks with the Saudi-led bombing offensive in Yemen against the Iran-aligned Shia Houthi rebels who have seized power in the war-torn country.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and other Sunni-oriented dictatorships and Western-backed quisling regimes have formed a ‘coalition’ to stamp out the Shia rebellion in Yemen.
ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other extremist groups currently fighting to topple the Shia/Alawite Assad regime in Syria may also be considered part of this ‘Sunni coalition’ that Ayalon speaks of. The Wahhabi militants who have besieged Syria and who previously attacked Libya were and continue to be subsidized and supported by Washington’s regional puppets (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Turkey).
In a 2014 interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the US should strive to weaken both Sunnis and Shias by letting them fight each other.
In a 2013 interview with the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s former ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, revealed that Israel’s main goal was to break down the Shia alliance of Damascus, Tehran and the Lebanese Hezbollah by siding with the Wahhabist radicals of ISIS and al-Qaeda.
“The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran,” Oren said.
Reports of Israel aiding and abetting anti-Assad militants, including those of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, are abundant and well-founded.
Oren went on to remark with glee that the Gulf sheikhdoms have in recent years come to embrace Israel’s designs vis-a-vis Syria, Iran and even the Palestinian issue, saying:
In the last 64 years there has probably never been a greater confluence of interest between us and several Gulf States. With these Gulf States we have agreements on Syria, on Egypt, on the Palestinian issue. We certainly have agreements on Iran. This is one of those opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.
Ayalon’s admission confirms what many suspect is an Israeli-led divide and conquer strategy where Israel and the West are using Sunni and Wahhabi zealots, useful idiots, and sell-outs to do the bidding of the Zionist regime.
Western governments, their Middle Eastern allies, and many major media outlets have much in common with Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
Similarly, in the lexicon of western powers and their regional partners, the meaning of words such as moderation, legitimacy, human rights, democracy, extremism, terrorism, and fundamentalism are about as consistent as a chameleon’s color.
In Ukraine, the United States and its allies supported and facilitated the overthrow of a democratically elected president, immediately recognizing the successor regime as “legitimate.”
Many dead in ‘air strike on north Yemen refugee camp’
But, in Yemen – despite Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi having been the sole candidate in the February 2012 presidential election, despite his term as transitional president having expired after two years, despite his lack of popular support, despite his having resigned in January, despite his having fled his capital and later his country – the US and its allies consider Hadi the “legitimate” president.
Question of legitimacy
When Hadi invited foreign powers to bomb his country’s flimsy infrastructure and military, they rushed to do so.
US logistical and intelligence support may help explain why the Saudi Kingdom chose America’s favorite “shock and awe” tactics for its war against Yemen. Netanyahu also supports air strikes against Yemen’s armed forces and fragile infrastructure; perhaps Saudi leaders should have asked him why the Israeli regime’s multiple barbaric onslaughts against much smaller areas like Gaza and South Lebanon all ended in failure and humiliation.
Sadly, history is repeating itself like a rogue merry-go-round. The same countries that, as US Vice President Joe Biden admits, helped destroy much of Libya, Syria, and Iraq are now fighting on the same side as al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Is it really a good idea to strengthen al-Qaeda’s most dangerous branch alongside Bab El Mandab, the narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden – especially as Somalia has no effective central government and al-Qaeda affiliates like al-Shabab are on the other side of the strait?
Cronyism, poverty, injustice, corruption, and decades of foreign domination drove Hadi’s overthrow. Ceaseless attempts to deny this and depict the Yemeni situation as a sectarian conflict reflect a worn-out strategy. This strategy has shaped the creation of the Taliban, ISIL, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Sharia, and Jundullah, among others.
It has caused pain and devastation across North Africa, where there are no Shia Muslims – or “majus” and “Safavids,” to use the derogatory terminology of the tens of well-funded sectarian and ethnocentric extremist television channels.
Iranian proxies?
Describing the Houthis or Ansarullah as Iranian proxies insults their millions of followers and allies across Yemen, including southerners who well remember past devastation inflicted upon them by the same forces. It is an obvious attempt to push a non-sectarian country towards sectarianism, even though this policy has already failed in Syria.
It is difficult to imagine how these air strikes across Yemen – killing significant numbers of innocent civilians, including women and children huddled in refugee camps – will make the “coalition” look like liberators.
That none of these pilots flew anywhere near Palestine during the Israeli regime’s 2014 onslaught against Gaza has not escaped notice, either.
Iranians have also noticed that the Saudi-led Operation Decisive Storm coincides with the most sensitive phase of negotiations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the P5+1 in Lausanne, Switzerland. It has been clear for some time that the Israeli and Saudi regimes want to prevent a successful outcome in these talks.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, Yemen’s tormentors should remember what happened along the Saudi-Yemeni border in 2009 when Ansarullah was a much smaller, more isolated, and less experienced military force. Purchasing Pakistani or Egyptian troops will not solve the problem; both of those regimes are floundering, barely able to contain their own extremists.
Appreciation for Iran among Iraqis, Syrians, Bahrainis, Omanis, and Yemenis is rooted in Iran’s independence, participatory Islamist governance (Western claims to the contrary notwithstanding), civilization, tolerance, and rejection of sectarian ideology.
While stale accusations will undoubtedly continue to be leveled at Iran, this aggression is not about the Islamic Republic’s alleged regional domination, it is about silencing the aspirations of the Yemeni people.
Those who spread civil war, extremism, and war should ponder the final words of Lady Macbeth: “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
Saudi Arabia has rejected Russia’s amendments to a Security Council draft resolution which would see an all-inclusive arms embargo on all parties in the Yemeni conflict, as it continues to spiral out of control with the civilian death toll climbing higher.
“There is little point in putting an embargo on the whole country. It doesn’t make sense to punish everybody else for the behavior of one party that has been the aggressor in this situation,”Saudi Arabia’s representative to the UN Abdallah Al-Mouallimi said after a closed emergency UN Security Council meeting on Saturday.
Al-Mouallimi added that he “hopes” Russia won’t resort to its veto power in case the all-inclusive embargo clause is not added into the draft submitted by the Gulf Cooperation Council that urges an arms embargo only on the Houthis.
At the same time, Riyadh agreed with Moscow’s calls for need of “humanitarian pauses” in the Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign in Yemen – though saying that Saudi Arabia already cooperates fully in this regard.
“We always provided the necessary facilities for humanitarian assistance to be delivered,” Al-Mouallimi told reporter heading out of the meeting. “We have cooperated fully with all requests for evacuation.”
Moscow convened an emergency meeting on a draft resolution demanding “regular and obligatory” breaks in air assaults against Houthi rebels, in which many civilians keep dying in increasing numbers. The Russian-proposed draft circulated on Saturday demanded “rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches people in need.”
The current council president and Jordan’s Ambassador Dina Kawar said that the council members “need time” to consider the Russian draft resolution, adding that the talks would continue. “We hope that by Monday we can come up with something,” Kawar said.
The 15-member council is considering the possibly of merging the Russian and Gulf Cooperation Council proposed drafts into one.
The Security Council meeting coincided with the call from the International Committee of the Red Cross for a “humanitarian pause.” The NGO urged to break hostilities for at least 24 hours.
“We urgently need an immediate halt to the fighting, to allow families in the worst affected areas, such as Aden, to venture out to get food and water, or to seek medical care,” said Robert Mardini, head of the ICRC’s operations in the Near and Middle East.
Meanwhile intensive airstrikes early Saturday morning targeted Houthi positions near Aden and in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in the north of the country. At least 185 people were left dead and more than 1,200 wounded as a result of fighting in Aden, a medical official told AFP Saturday, three-quarters of them civilians.
A coalition of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, has been engaging Houthi militias from the air for over a week now, after the Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was forced to flee the country and asked for an international intervention to reinstate his rule.
Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani says the Islamic Republic supports negotiations among representatives from all parties involved in the Yemeni crisis, describing national dialog as the only way to end the conflict.
During a telephone conversation with Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Sunday, Larijani lamented the ongoing Saudi airstrikes that have led to the deaths of hundreds of Yemenis and destroyed the country’s infrastructure.
“Such military aggression, irrespective of its objectives, is a blow to the Muslim Ummah and benefits the Zionist regime (of Israel) and major powers. The aggressive countries must explain why they are using their facilities to deal a blow to a Muslim state,” the top Iranian legislator pointed out.
Larijani also described Yemenis as a courageous nation, which has bogged foreign intruders down and made them regret their measures throughout history.
He called on aggressive governments to take salutary lessons from the failed Soviet and US-led military campaigns against Afghanistan.
Sadiq, for his part, stated that Islamabad has no intention to become engaged in the Yemen crisis, and seeks the establishment of calm and peace in Yemen in line with the Muslim world’s interests.
Saudi Arabia’s air campaign against Yemen started on March 26 without a UN mandate in a bid to restore power to Yemen’s fugitive president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
On March 25, the embattled president fled Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base, to Riyadh after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on the port.
The Ansarullah fighters took control of Sana’a in September 2014 and are currently moving southward. The revolutionaries said the Hadi government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.
A family of nine has been killed in an airstrike on a Yemeni village near Sanaa, residents report. Five others have been wounded, while several others remained trapped under rubble, according to Yemeni media.
The strike, which on Friday evening hit the Okash village – just a few miles away from a military base outside the capital – killed two men, a woman, and six children, Reuters reported, citing residents.
The state news agency Saba posted a picture on its website showing three children lying next to each other with pieces of paper with the date April 3, 2015 written on them. However, the authenticity of photo has not yet been verified.
A Saudi-led military coalition began launching airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels last week. The operation intends to bring ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back into power and prevent the Houthi militants and backers of Hadi’s predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh from gaining full control of the country.
In Aden, a southern port city which has seen the fiercest clashes in the country, medics say that fighting has left at least 185 people dead and more than 1200 wounded since the violence sharply escalated last week. Aden had been one of the loyalists’ few remaining footholds in the country, where Hadi had been holing up after being forced out of the capital by the Houthis in February. Hadi fled the country for Riyadh last week.
The head of Aden’s health department Al-Khader Lassouar told AFP that three-quarters of the casualties were civilians, adding that the actual death toll is likely much higher as the Houthis and their allies do not take their causalities to public hospitals.
Lassouar also called for international aid organizations and Arab States to provide emergency medical supplies to Aden’s hospitals.
“Medicine stocks are exhausted and hospitals can no longer cope with the increasing number of victims,” he said.
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representative Sitara Jabeen told RT that the organization is making breakthroughs in negotiations for a 24 hour in order to get aid into the country.
“We are now waiting for a formal greenlights. We hope that by tomorrow we will be able to send our supplies and our personnel to Yemen,” she said Saturday. She emphasized that the organization was talking to all parties in the conflict.
Earlier, the ICRC released a statement calling for an immediate 24-hour humanitarian pause in hostilities.
“All air, land and sea routes must be opened without delay for at least 24 hours to enable help to reach people cut off after more than a week of intense air strikes and fierce ground fighting nationwide,” the ICRC said in a statement on Saturday.
Three shipments of aid and medical staff from the ICRC had been blocked for several days because of both the Saudi-led aerial bombardment as well as intense clashes on the ground between Yemen’s rivaling factions.
Several boats and planes containing over 48 tons of medical supplies are awaiting security clearance to leave for Yemen. A four-person surgical team is also on stand-by in Djibouti waiting to be dispatched to Aden by boat.
Russia says the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should adopt a stance in favor of stopping acts of violence in Yemen as the Al Saud regime continues its deadly aerial raids on the Arab state.
The 15-nation UN council “should speak in a principled manner for ending any violence … in the Yemen crisis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, on Thursday.
The top Russia diplomat made a trip to Dushanbe on Thursday to attend a meeting of the Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Lavrov added that a draft resolution on the crisis in Yemen had been submitted to the Security Council. The UN body is now working to prepare the text of a joint resolution on the situation in Yemen.
“Unfortunately, the resolution was submitted after the dramatic events in Yemen took place” and the Al Saud regime unleashed its aerial attacks against the Arabian Peninsula state, Lavrov said, emphasizing that an appeal to the UN Security Council should precede any military operation.
Yemen has been targeted by Saudi Arabia’s air campaign since March 26. Saudi officials say the aggression is aimed at restoring power to fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
Nearly 200 people have lost their lives in Yemen since the beginning of Saudi-led airstrikes. Many of the casualties are civilians, among them women and children.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
However, the Ansarullah movement later said Hadi had lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he escaped Sana’a to Aden in February.
On March 25, the embattled president fled the southern city of Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base, to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on Aden.
The Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital in September 2014 and are currently moving southward. The revolutionaries say the Hadi government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.
Yemen’s Houthi movement has rejected earlier media reports that dozens of foreign troops have disembarked in the country’s southeastern port city of Aden, Press TV reports.
Sources with the Ansarullah fighters in Yemen confirmed to Press TV on Thursday that the media reports circulating about the deployment of foreign troops of unknown nationality to Aden were baseless.
According to the sources, the Yemeni army has managed to take control of the strategic city despite some intermittent clashes there.
The report comes as Ansarullah revolutionaries and their allies managed to capture the presidential palace in Aden.
The palace was the last bastion of power for the country’s fugitive president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, before he fled to neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The advance by revolutionaries comes against the backdrop of an ongoing military aggression by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, which has claimed about 200 lives so far.
Houthi fighters, who took control of the capital Sana’a last September, continue making gains southward. The capture of Hadi’s palace in Aden comes after a week of clashes on the outskirts of the city.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
However, the Ansarullah movement later said Hadi had lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he escaped Sana’a to Aden in February.
The revolutionaries said after taking control of Sana’a that the Hadi government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.
Not long before the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, died in 1953, he is purported to have said, “the good or evil for us will come from Yemen.” With the commencement of air strikes on targets in Yemen, it is increasingly likely that the latter part of his prediction will come true. Nothing good—and certainly nothing decisive—will come from the Saudi led “Operation Decisive Storm.”
The Saudi intervention in Yemen—along with the Kingdom’s 2011 intervention in Bahrain—mark a significant departure from a foreign policy that has been historically characterized by caution, reluctance, and a reliance on proxies. In Bahrain, the Saudi effort to quell the Shi’a led rebellion was successful. However, Yemen could not be more different than Bahrain, which is a tiny nation with flat terrain and an unarmed population. In contrast, Yemen has one of the most heavily armed populations on the planet, terrain that is a guerrilla fighter’s dream, and a two thousand year history of resisting and repelling invaders.
In late 2009, Saudi Arabia launched a quiet but well-resourced campaign against the Houthis, who belong to the Zaidi sect of Shi’a Islam. At the time, the Houthis were locked in their sixth—and what proved to be final—war with former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government. In response to an attack launched by Houthi fighters on Saudi border guards, the Saudi government began operations against the Houthis. The Saudis deployed elements of their army, special forces, and air force. The campaign proved to be a disaster for the Saudis and resulted in a top level review of their army’s battle readiness. The Houthis, who were at that time poorly equipped and facing off against both Yemeni forces and Saudi forces, managed to capture at least one soldier from the elite Saudi Special Forces as well as specialized equipment. Over the course of 2009 and 2010, the Houthis fought both Yemeni and Saudi forces to a standstill.
Following 2010 and in the wake of the 2011 revolution that led to the resignation of President Saleh and the installation of his former vice president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi, as president, the Houthis consolidated their hold on a large swath of northwestern Yemen. The Houthis expanded the territory under their control by building alliances with influential tribes and clans and by merit of being a relatively well-disciplined and capable fighting force. However, the installation of the ineffectual President Hadi helped enable the Houthis’ rapid expansion.
Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi was chosen by Yemen’s Machiavellian former president as his vice president for a reason: Hadi has no real power base in Yemen and thus could never pose a threat to Saleh or his family. Hadi is from south Yemen, which was an independent nation and wants to be one again. Many southerners still regard Hadi, who sided with Saleh and the north against the south in the 1994 civil war, as a traitor. At the same time, as a southerner, Hadi has little or no influence among Yemen’s powerful northern based tribes. Hadi was a brilliant choice for vice president by a man who intended to pass the presidency onto his son.
Now, the Saudi government, along with its GCC partners, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, and Jordan, has ostensibly launched ‘Operation Decisive Storm’ to reinstall Hadi who has fled Yemen for Saudi Arabia. The less than clearly articulated goal of the military campaign in Yemen is to reinstall the Hadi led government and to force the Houthis’ to lay down their arms and negotiate. It is unlikely that these goals will be achieved. Rather than eroding support for the Houthis, the Saudis and their partners’ actions in Yemen, may bolster short term support for the Houthis and former president Saleh who is now nominally allied with the Houthis. Most Yemenis are none too fond of the House of Saud and there are many Yemenis still alive who remember the Egyptians’ bloody and disastrous 1962-67 invasion of north Yemen which claimed the lives of twenty thousand Egyptian soldiers and thousands of Yemeni fighters and civilians.
“Operation Decisive Storm” will ensure that Yemen is pushed further along the path to all out civil war, that radical Islamist organizations like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and now the Islamic State (sworn enemies of the Houthis and all Shi’a Muslims) flourish, and that a humanitarian crisis ensues. More than half of Yemen’s children suffer from malnourishment, and, according to the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, 61% of Yemen’s population of 24 million are in need of humanitarian assistance. With the commencement of “Operation Decisive Storm” food prices, which were already rising due to a plummeting Yemeni riyal, are soaring as Yemenis—those few who can afford to do so—prepare for what could be months of war. The only thing increasing in price faster than food is ammunition and weaponry. Most Yemeni families in the north possess at a minimum an Ak-47 with many families and clans maintaining stores of weapons that include RPGs and grenades.
If the Saudis and their partners, especially the Egyptians, take the next step and begin a ground invasion, their forces will likely face withering resistance from both the Houthis and the new allies that they are sure to attract as a result of the invasion. In the mountain redoubts of northwest Yemen, songs and poems about how the Yemenis made the Turks, who twice invaded Yemen and failed to subdue it, bathe in their own blood are still sung and recited by the descendants of the men who fought off the Turks and then the Egyptians. The Saudi Army is ill prepared for anything beyond the most limited action in Yemen. Its Egyptian partners are similarly ill prepared and are currently struggling to contain a growing insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.
A ground invasion will tie up thousands of Saudi soldiers for what could be months or even years when the Kingdom must also worry about the threat of the Islamic State on its northern borders. It is also worth remembering that the Saudi Army employs a large contingent of soldiers who are ethnically Yemeni. It is an open question as to how these men may or may not respond when ordered to kill fellow Yemenis. At the same time that they are dealing with what will undoubtedly be a protracted and bloody war, the Saudi government will be forced to manage what could be tens of thousands of refugees pouring across its southern border from Yemen.
Military action in Yemen could well lead the House of Saud into the abyss that King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud may have had in mind before he made his prophetic warning.
Yes, I am a survivor, for I have managed to survive all the scary accounts of the Holocaust: the one about the soap (1), the one about the lamp shades, the one about the camps, the mass shooting, the one about the gas (2) and the one about the death march (3). I just managed to survive them all.
In spite of all these fear inflicting stories, that were purposely installed in my soul since I opened my eyes for the first time, I have become a functional and even a successful human being. I somehow survived the horror against all odds. I even manage to love my neighbour. In spite of all the fearful, traumatic indoctrination I miraculously managed to master my cheering alto saxophone rather than the sobbing violin. … continue
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