Yemen Houthis

Yemeni officials say the airport in the strategic port city of Hudaydah is still under the control of the Houthi Ansarullah movement, rejecting reports that the facility had fallen to the hands of Saudi-backed forces.

Yemen's army spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman on Thursday dismissed claims that the invaders had gained ground in Hudaydah as he showed photos of enemy armored vehicles blown up in the city.

He also hailed the Yemeni fighters' achievements in the country's western coast as a "miracle."

The Yemeni fighters, Luqman said, have been fighting against Daesh and al-Qaeda militants in Hudaydah's al-Durayhimi district, and have surrounded all Saudi-backed forces and mercenaries in the al-Jah neighborhood.

The mercenaries have two choices, either to surrender or die, he pointed out.

His remarks came after Saudi commander Brigadier Abdul Salam al-Shehi claimed on Wednesday that the Hudaydah airport had been “completely cleared” and was “under control” of his forces.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam stressed that the aggressors had been defeated in Yemen's western coast despite possessing numerous weapons and enjoying financial and media support.

He further described the invaders' battle as "a mass suicide," saying the offensive is aimed at killing Yemenis and end their sovereignty.

The Yemeni people will not give in to any pressure, Abdulsalam said, emphasizing that Houthi fighters had foiled the enemies' "foolish" plots with a swift attack.

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Separately, Mohammad al-Bukhaiti, a top figure in the Houthi movement’s Supreme Political Council, released a video from the Hudaydah airport that purportedly showed claims of the Saudi-backed forces' presence there were false.

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The enemies have suffered heavy blows and been forced to retreat eight kilometers off the airport, he added.

In the al-Duraihimi district, Bukhaiti said, 20 armored vehicles belonging to the Saudi-backed forces had been destroyed and 10 more seized. Yemeni drones had also destroyed six armored vehicles.

The Hudaydah airport lies just eight kilometers from the city’s port, through which three-quarters of Yemen’s imports pass, providing a lifeline for millions of people.

Yemenis down spy drone, Emirati reconnaissance plane

On Thursday, Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported that Yemen's air defense system had shot down an enemy spy drone in the northwestern Sa'ada province.

Also on Thursday, Yemeni sources said an Emirati reconnaissance plane was shot down near Saudi Arabia's southwestern Jizan region, killing the crew.

They added that the plane was returning to its base after carrying out an aerial operation in Yemen's western coast.

The media bureau of Yemen’s Operations Command quoted Yemeni military sources as saying that the Emirati jet, which had two pilots, was brought down by Yemeni air defense system.

Backed by Saudi-led airstrikes, Emirate forces and militants loyal to the former Yemeni government launched the Hudaydah assault on June 13 despite warnings that it would compound the impoverished nation’s humanitarian crisis.

The Houthis and allied armed forces, however, have managed to inflict heavy losses on the invaders.

The UN says fierce clashes in the port city have driven 5,200 families from their homes.

The Saudi-led coalition, which has been waging a war against Yemen since early 2015, claims that the Houthis are using Hudaydah for weapons delivery, an allegation rejected by the fighters.

Saudi Arabia has also imposed a blockade on Yemen, which has smothered humanitarian deliveries of food and medicine to the import-dependent state.

Several Western countries are supplying the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment.

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This article was first published by GR in February 2010, five years prior to outbreak of the US-Saudi war on Yemen.

The article sheds light on America’s unspoken military agenda: the control over strategic waterways

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“Whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene.” (US Navy Geostrategist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayus Mahan (1840-1914))

The Yemeni archipelago of Socotra in the Indian Ocean is located some 80 kilometres off the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres South of the Yemeni coastline. The islands of Socotra are a wildlife reserve recognized by (UNESCO), as a World Natural Heritage Site.

Socotra is at the crossroads of the strategic naval waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (See map below). It is of crucial importance to the US military.

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Among Washington’s strategic objectives is the militarization of major sea ways. This strategic waterway links the Mediterranean to South Asia and the Far East, through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

It is a major transit route for oil tankers. A large share of China’s industrial exports to Western Europe transits through this strategic waterway. Maritime trade from East and Southern Africa to Western Europe also transits within proximity of Socotra (Suqutra), through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. (see map below). A military base in Socotra could be used to oversee the movement of vessels including war ships in an out of the Gulf of Aden.

“The [Indian] Ocean is a major sea lane connecting the Middle East, East Asia and Africa with Europe and the Americas. It has four crucial access waterways facilitating international maritime trade, that is the Suez Canal in Egypt, Bab-el-Mandeb (bordering Djibouti and Yemen), Straits of Hormuz (bordering Iran and Oman), and Straits of Malacca (bordering Indonesia and Malaysia). These ‘chokepoints’ are critical to world oil trade as huge amounts of oil pass through them.” (Amjed Jaaved, A new hot-spot of rivalry, Pakistan Observer, July 1, 2009)

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Sea Power

From a military standpoint, the Socotra archipelago is at a strategic maritime crossroads. Morever, the archipelago extends over a relatively large maritime area at the Eastern exit of the Gulf of Aden, from the island of Abd al Kuri, to the main island of Socotra. (See map 1 above and 2b below) This maritime area of international transit lies in Yemeni territorial waters. The objective of the US is to police the entire Gulf of Aden seaway from the Yemeni to Somalian coastline. (See map 1).

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Socotra is some 3000 km from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, which is among America’s largest overseas military facilities.

The Socotra Military Base

On January 2nd, 2010, President Saleh and General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command met for high level discussions behind closed doors.

The Saleh-Petraeus meeting was casually presented by the media as a timely response to the foiled Detroit Christmas bomb attack on Northwest flight 253. It had apparently been scheduled on an ad hoc basis as a means to coordinating counter-terrorism initiatives directed against “Al Qaeda in Yemen”, including “the use [of] American drones and missiles on Yemen lands.”

Several reports, however, confirmed that the Saleh-Petraeus meetings were intent upon redefining US military involvement in Yemen including the establishment of a full-fledged military base on the island of Socotra. Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh was reported to have “surrendered Socotra for Americans who would set up a military base, pointing out that U.S. officials and the Yemeni government agreed to set up a military base in Socotra to counter pirates and al-Qaeda.” (Fars News. January 19, 2010)

On January 1st, one day before the Saleh-Petraeus meetings in Sanaa, General Petraeus confirmed in a Baghdad press conference that “security assistance” to Yemen would more than double from 70 million to more than 150 million dollars, which represents a 14 fold increase since 2006. (Scramble for the Island of Bliss: Socotra!, War in Iraq, January 12, 2010. See also CNN January 9, 2010, The Guardian, December 28, 2009).

This doubling of military aid to Yemen was presented to World public opinion as a response to the Detroit bomb incident, which allegedly had been ordered by Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

The establishment of an air force base on the island of Socotra was described by the US media as part of the “Global war on Terrorism”:

“Among the new programs, Saleh and Petraeus agreed to allow the use of American aircraft, perhaps drones, as well as “seaborne missiles”–as long as the operations have prior approval from the Yemenis, according to a senior Yemeni official who requested anonymity when speaking about sensitive subjects. U.S. officials say the island of Socotra, 200 miles off the Yemeni coast, will be beefed up from a small airstrip [under the jurisdiction of the Yemeni military] to a full base in order to support the larger aid program as well as battle Somali pirates. Petraeus is also trying to provide the Yemeni forces with basic equipment such as up-armored Humvees and possibly more helicopters.” (Newsweek, Newsweek, January 18, 2010, emphasis added)

US Naval Facility?

The proposed US Socotra military facility, however, is not limited to an air force base. A US naval base has also been contemplated.

The development of Socotra’s naval infrastructure was already in the pipeline. Barely a few days prior (December 29, 2009) to the Petraeus-Saleh discussions (January 2, 2010), the Yemeni cabinet approved a US$14 million loan by Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) in support of the development of Socotra’s seaport project.

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The Great Game

The Socotra archipelago is part of the Great Game opposing Russia and America.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had a military presence in Socotra, which at the time was part of South Yemen.

Barely a year ago, the Russians entered into renewed discussions with the Yemeni government regarding the establishment of a Naval base on Socotra island. A year later, in January 2010, in the week following the Petraeus-Saleh meeting, a Russian Navy communiqué “confirmed that Russia did not give up its plans to have bases for its ships… on Socotra island.” (DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia), January 25, 2010)

The Petraeus-Saleh January 2, 2010 discussions were crucial in weakening Russian diplomatic overtures to the Yemeni government.

The US military has had its eye on the island of Socotra since the end of the Cold War.

In 1999, Socotra was chosen “as a site upon which the United States planned to build a signal intelligence system….” Yemeni opposition news media reported that “Yemen’s administration had agreed to allow the U.S. military access to both a port and an airport on Socotra.” According to the opposition daily Al-Haq, “a new civilian airport built on Socotra to promote tourism had conveniently been constructed in accordance with U.S. military specifications.” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania), October 18, 2000)

The Militarization of the Indian Ocean

The establishment of a US military base in Socotra is part of the broader process of militarization of the Indian Ocean. The latter consists in integrating and linking Socotra into an existing structure as well as reinforcing the key role played by the Diego Garcia military base in the Chagos archipelago.

The US Navy’s geostrategist Rear Admiral Alfred T. Mahan had intimated, prior to First World War, that “whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean [will] be a prominent player on the international scene.”.(Indian Ocean and our Security).

What was at stake in Rear Admiral Mahan’s writings was the strategic control by the US of major Ocean sea ways and of the Indian Ocean in particular: “This ocean is the key to the seven seas in the twenty-first century; the destiny of the world will be decided in these waters.”

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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, which hosts the award winning website: www.globalresearch.ca . He is the author of the international best-seller “The Globalisation of Poverty and The New World Order”. He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission and recipient of the Human Rights Prize of the Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, Germany. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

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gaiusmarius said:

1.- no matter how good and expensive your weapons are if you are not trained and more importantly, are not motivated to use them well, nor led well, then they won't help you.

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gaiusmarius said:

this is well worth reading and probably is exactly right about the reason for the Yemen war, at least why the US is helping the saudi forces fuck up Yemen.


Yemen and The Militarization of Strategic Waterways

Securing US Control over Socotra Island and the Gulf of Aden

https://www.globalresearch.ca/yemen-and-the-militarization-of-strategic-waterways-2/17460

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

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gaiusmarius said:

chewing Khat is why they do so well, they will sit in ambush for hours happily chewing Khat waiting for the moment when 1 rpg can take out a Saudi vehicle, keeps them alert and happy through the boredom. probably a perfect drug to take on a guerrilla operation

btw, the latest i'm hearing the Saudis have been having their supply routes cut off all the time while the actual air port is still not in their control.. so in anger they are striking more and more infra structure with air strikes in the city of Hudaydah it's self.

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United Nations envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths has expressed hope that a new round of peace talks between major warring sides of the country could begin next month amid an escalation of fighting in the Red Sea port of Hudaydah.

“I’d like to get the parties together within the next few weeks at the very latest,” Griffiths said late on Thursday, adding, “I’m hoping that the (UN) Security Council will meet next week and we’ll put a plan before them as to how we’re going to bring the talks back.”

The UN envoy said the warring sides - the ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement and a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia - had announced readiness to engage in the renewed peace initiative.

“Both parties have confirmed to me their willingness to come to the table to restart negotiations. I think it’s long overdue that that should take place. It’s been about two years since the last talks on Yemen,” said Griffiths in an interview.

The announcement comes amid an escalating situation in Yemen’s Hudaydah, a port in northwest of the country which is controlled by the Houthis and serves as a vital lifeline for Yemen’s population.

Saudis and allies have been launching attacks on Hudaydah to pressure the Houthis to leave their positions in the capital Sana’a and many other parts of Yemen. However, reports suggest the coalition has achieved little on the ground despite days of air strikes and assaults from the Red Sea.

The Saudi-run al-Arabiya TV channel said Thursday that Saudi-led forces had suffered huge casualties after a senior commander, identified as Abduh Zayd who was close to the family of slain Yemeni former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, defected to the Houthis in Hudaydah. Abduh Zayd had been among key loyalists to Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s former president who has been shuttling between Yemen’s southern city of Aden and Saudi capital Riyadh since he was ousted by Houthis in late 2014.

Griffiths said in his interview that he had met Hadi in the last few days in Aden to advance the peace talks initiative. He said Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the chief negotiator of the Houthis, had also confirmed his group’s willingness to attend peace talks.

The diplomat said he had managed to prevent a major attack on Hudaydah through his discussions with Hadi and Abdul-Salam.

However, local Yemeni media said Saudi attacks on various regions in the Hudaydah governorate continued unabated on Thursday. The Houthi-run al-Masirah TV said Saudis had launched more than 20 air strikes on al-Tahita region earlier in the day.

A main aim of the potential UN-hosted talks on Yemen could be to discuss a proposal for UN forces to take control of Hudaydah amid rising hostilities.

Griffiths said Houthis had suggested that if there was an overall ceasefire in the Hudaydah governorate, the group can offer the UN a lead role in managing the port.

“At the moment, we are still in negotiations as to whether a UN role would help to avoid an attack ... and this is where I think we’re going, whether in fact the restart of negotiations will mean the attack on Hudaydah or the move towards war will be avoided,” said the UN envoy, adding that the Saudi-led camp of Hadi had also accepted Houthis’ proposal for a UN control on Hudaydah.

The timing and details of upcoming peace talks could be set with more talks with Houthi representatives in the next few days, Griffiths said.

More than 15,000 people have been killed in over three years of devastating Saudi campaign on Yemen. The war has badly affected Yemen’s infrastructure as hundreds of thousands remain displaced and in dire need of humanitarian aid.

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The Saudi-UAE military alliance fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen has been slammed by Human Rights Watch, which has accused the pair of reaching "dubious conclusions" in its post-air attack analysis and failing to properly investigate alleged war crimes.

In a damning 90-page report released on Friday, the rights group accused the alliance's investigative body, the Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT), of "absolving coalition members of legal responsibility in the vast majority of attacks".

"Many of the apparent laws-of-war violations committed by coalition forces show evidence of war crimes," said HRW in the report.

"JIAT investigations show no apparent effort to investigate personal criminal responsibility for unlawful air attacks. This apparent attempt to shield parties to the conflict and individual military personnel from criminal liability is itself a violation of the laws of war."

The Saudi-led coalition, which has been at war with Houthi rebels since March 2015, has repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes, saying its air attacks are not directed at civilians.

However, data collected by Al Jazeera and the Yemen Data Project, revealed that almost one third of the 16,000 air raids carried out on Yemen since March 2015 have struck non-military sites.

These attacks have targeted weddings, hospitals as well as water and electricity plants, killing and wounding thousands.

At least 10,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict, according to the UN. Analysts say that toll is likely to be higher.

"For more than two years, the coalition has claimed that JIAT was credibly investigating allegedly unlawful air strikes, but the investigators were doing little more than covering up war crimes."


SARAH LEAH WHITSON, MIDDLE EAST DIRECTOR AT HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH


Downplaying air attacks

Previous investigations by the Saudi-led alliance also absolved itself of any real responsibility and instead put the blame on the Houthis, the report added.

The HRW said that JIAT often appeared to find that an air attack was lawful "solely because the coalition had identified a legitimate military target, but did not appear to consider whether the attack was lawfully proportionate or if precautions taken were adequate".

The rights group also said that JIAT downplayed air attacks on a residential complex in the port city of Mokha, which killed at least 65 people, saying the complex was "partly affected by unintentional bombing".

An attack on a water well in September 2016 was termed an "unintended mistake" by the JIAT.

An HRW investigation later found at least 11 bomb craters at the site where dozens of civilians were killed and wounded.

"For more than two years, the coalition has claimed that JIAT was credibly investigating allegedly unlawful air attacks, but the investigators were doing little more than covering up war crimes," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW Middle East director.

"Governments selling arms to Saudi Arabia should recognize that the coalition’s sham investigations do not protect them from being complicit in serious violations in Yemen."


Royal pardon of military personnel

The US, UK, Canada, France and Spain have all sold weapons to Saudi Arabia in recent years despite repeated petitions from human-rights groups.

Some of those weapons have been used in the conflict.

The US has been the biggest supplier of military equipment to Riyadh, with more than $90bn of sales recorded between 2010 and 2015.

Following a recent air attack on a school bus that killed 40 children, individual members of congress called on the US military to clarify its role in the war and investigate whether support for the air raids could render American military personnel "liable under the war crimes act".

In July this year, Saudi Arabia's King Salman issued a royal decree "pardoning all military personnel who have taken part in the Operation Restoring Hope [begun in April 2015] of their respective military and disciplinary penalties".

The sweeping and vaguely worded statement did not clarify what limitations, if any, applied to the pardon.

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Teddybrae said:

And I seem to recall British commando forces had to give up the fight with Houthis during the sixties.

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Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have admitted that the bombing of a school bus in Yemen last month - which killed 51 people, including 40 children - was "unjustified".

A probe by the coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels concluded on Saturday that "mistakes" had been made in the August 9 air raid in Saada province.

At the day of the attack, coalition spokesperson Colonel Turki al-Malki had defended the air raid, saying his forces hit a "legitimate military target", which included "operators and planners".

But in a rare concession, the military alliance's investigative body, the Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT), said that those behind it should be held accountable.

"The Joint Team … is of the opinion that the coalition forces should initiate legal action to try and penalise those responsible for the mistakes, which caused collateral damage in the area," Mansour Ahmed al-Mansour, a legal adviser to JIAT, told reporters in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from neighbouring Djibouti, said the statement marked a "remarkable about-turn" after the coalition's initial assertions that this was a legitimate military operation.

"But if you look at the actual wording ... they are not saying that there was a problem with killing children.

"What they are saying is that this attack shouldn't have taken place when it did because they were targeting Houthi leaders, and they say … their intelligence pointed in that direction but those Houthi leaders at that stage did not present a threat to Saudi-led coalition forces and therefore that operation shouldn't have happened," added Fisher.

"They say that intelligence was passed to the pilot who fired the fatal missile but it never got there in time."


Universal condemnation

The probe came after the air attack sparked widespread international condemnation and calls for an independent investigation from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, tweeted at the time: "NO EXCUSES ANYMORE!!"

"Does the world really need more innocent children's lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?" he said.

Following the attack, individual members of the Congress in the United States also called on their country's army to clarify its role in the war and investigate whether support for the air raids could render US military personnel "liable under the war crimes act".

The US has been the biggest supplier of military equipment to Riyadh, with more than $90bn of sales recorded between 2010 and 2015.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Yemen's capital, Sanaa on Saturday, Hussain al-Bukhaiti, a pro-Houthi activist, said the coalition's statement was "not an apology".

"It is actually adding insult to injury," he said. "Since the beginning of this war, they have committed many crimes and they only regret or release such a statement only if that crime has been covered widely on the media."

Sama'a al-Hamdani, a visiting fellow at Georgetown University, said "the Saudis had to agree to hold themselves accountable to international standards of law" due to major outside pressure.

"You could make two things from their statement," she told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC. "One, they could potentially change their ways, which is the first step to issuing reparations to the families of those killed. It is also a way to hold them accountable for their actions."


Critical reports

The Saudi-UAE admission on Saturday came a week after Human Rights Watch accused the pair of reaching "dubious conclusions" in its post-air attack analysis and failing to properly investigate alleged war crimes.

In a damning 90-page report, the rights group slammed JIAT for "absolving coalition members of legal responsibility in the vast majority of attacks".

Separately, the UN said this week that all sides in Yemen's bloody conflict may have committed war crimes involving deadly air raids, rampant sexual violence, and the recruitment of child soldiers

Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates, has been bombing Yemen since March 2015 after the Houthis swept across the country, including Sanaa. The coalition's stated aim is to restore the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.

Out of the 16,000-plus raids they have launched since the start of the conflict, only a handful have been investigated, despite nearly a third of all bombs hitting civilian targets.

Last year, the UN blacklisted the Saudi-UAE alliance for causing the majority of reported child deaths and injuries in Yemen.

The global body has described the situation in Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

It has also said that least 10,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict. However, analysts say the death toll is likely to be higher.

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