Takeover of Aden by separatists weakens the front against the Houthis

Separatists celebrate the takeover of Aden 

A Southern Yemeni organisation that seeks the secession (or autonomy) of South Yemen, the Southern Transitional Council (STC) on after four days of fighting on Saturday took effective control of various parts of Aden. With vehicles donated by the United Arab Emirates and without meeting too much resistance as it seems, they took over military camps, the home of the interior minister and the almost-empty presidential palace where guards agreed to leave without a fight. Forty people were killed in the fighting and 260 were wounded.
STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi on Sunday said in a televised appearance the council was committed to a ceasefire called by Saudi Arabia, and said the separatists were willing to attend a meeting called by Riyadh a day earlier. He added they were also willing to work with the Saudi-UAE-led military coalition battling Yemen's Houthi rebels. On the surface the front against the Houthis seems to remains intact in this way, but the real significance of the take over lies in the fact that a serious split between the two main components of the anti-Houthi-front came into the open in this way: the Saudis who back the officially recognized Yemeni governement of Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi at the one hand and the United Arab Emirates who support the STC at the other.
The two countries have been fighting the Houthis the last five years with the backing by the US and Great Britain among others in a war that has cost ttrens of thousands of lives and had brought hunger and destruction. It hasn t brought them nearer a victory however. The Sauedis mainly bombed fro the air, the UAE had his troups in the South, but recentl;u announced that it is going to withdraw them. That gae the STC the opportunity to take over Aden.

Last year in Yemen: About 100 civilian victims every week

Almost 100 civilians were either killed or wounded every week in Yemen in 2018, with children accounting for a fifth of all casualties, the United Nations has said. According to figures released by the world body's refugee agency on Thursday, more than 4,800 civilian deaths and injuries were reported over the course of 2018,

Children accounted for 410 deaths and 542 injuries, the UNHCR said.

Relying on open source data for its findings, the agency noted that nearly half of all the casualties - 48 percent - were reported in the western city of Hodeidah, whose strategic port has been the scene of fierce fighting between Houthi rebels and Saudi-UAE-backed fighters supporting Yemen's government.
The UN figures also showed that a staggering 30 percent of the civilians were either killed and wounded inside their homes, with non-combatants also targeted when travelling on roads, working on farms and at other civilian sites.

Yemen: agreement on gradual withdrawal from Hodeida

The two sides at war in Yemen have agreed on the first phase of a pullback of forces from the city of Hodeidah. The United Nations described the agreement as "important progress".

Hodeidah, on Yemen's western coast,  provides access to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait - the fourth busiest waterway in the world. It has been in possession of the Houthi's since these in 2014 started to take over large parts of Yemen.

The move prompted the military intervention of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and allies the following year on behalf of the so called 'official' government. It was the begin of  one of the world' worst humanitarian crises.

The deal about the pullback was concluded after two days of talks. The government and Houthis concluded a deal on the first phase of the pullback and agreed in principle on the second phase, a UN statement said on Sunday.
"After lengthy but constructive discussions facilitated by the RCC Chair, the parties reached an agreement on Phase 1 of the mutual redeployment of forces," the UN statement said.

US Senate votes to stop American support for war in Yemen and declares MbS guilty of Khashoggi murder

The US Senate voted on Thursday to approve a resolution calling for an end to United States involvement in the Saudi-UAE-led military campaign in Yemen, setting the stage for a potential showdown next year between Congress and President Donald Trump over US military support for Saudi Arabia.

The Senate also approved a resolution saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is responsible for the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi. 

US politicians have grown increasingly outraged as the number of civilians killed in Yemen by Saudi and UAE air attacks using US-made weapons has risen dramatically in the past two years. The Saudi-UAE coalition launched an intervention in 2015 through a massive air campaign targeting Houthi rebels. 

The final vote of the Yemen resolution was 56-41, with seven Republicans breaking with their party to vote in support of the measure. The Yemen resolution had been tabled by the Senate in a 55-44 vote on March 20, but after the October 2 killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, widespread anger in Washington prompted politicians to bring the Yemen measure forward.
Trump administration officials had urged Congress not to undermine the Pentagon's ability to support Saudi Arabia.

Former Yemeni president Saleh killed in battle in Sanaa

Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been killed in fighting with the Iran-aligned Houthi militia raging in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television said on Monday, quoting sources in Saleh’s party. 
Al Arabiya quoted a source in Saleh’s General Peoples Congress as saying he was killed by sniper bullets. A Houthi video distributed on social media showed what appeared to be Saleh’s body, clad in grey clothes and being carried out on a red blanket. The side of his head bore a deep wound. 

The radio station of the Houthi-run Yemeni Interior Ministry first reported Saleh’s death but his party quickly denied this to Reuters, saying he was still leading his forces in Sanaa. 

 Earlier on Monday, Houthi forces blew up Saleh’s house in Sanaa and came under aerial attack by Saudi-led coalition warplanes for a second day, residents said.

Lebanon's prime minister and Yemen's president reported to be under house arrest in Saudi Arabia

Hariri

Saad al-Hariri, who quit as Lebanese Prime Minister in a weekend broadcast from Saudi Arabia, has been held under house arrest in the kingdom, a pro-Hezbollah daily said on Tuesday citing unnamed sources.  If true he is not the only one, also the Yemeni president Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi is against his wish kept in Riaydh.
Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, which is aligned with the Shi‘ite militant group and political movement Hezbollah, said Hariri “was placed under house arrest hours after arriving in Riyadh last Friday” and had remained in detention since. Aides to Hariri, Lebanon’s most influential Sunni politician and a close Saudi ally, have denied claims that he was detained. Speculation in Lebanon over Hariri’s status continued, though, even after Saudi media showed him meeting with King Salman and reported him leaving for the UAE.

Saudis heavily bombed Sana'a after missile was fired at Riyadh

 Damage in  the Yemeni capital Sana'a (AFP).

The Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen carried out at least 29 air strikes on Sanaa province, hours after Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile towards the Saudi capital Riyadh. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia accused Iran of a possible act of war by providing the Houthis with Burkan 2-H missiles - a Scud-type missile with a range of more than 800 km.
Residents told Al Jazeera that bombs "rained down" on several neighbourhoods of the capital on Sunday, targeting a stage in al-Sabeen squaren used by Houthi rebels for military parades, the nearby presidential palace, the national security headquarters and the interior ministry.
The Houthi-run Saba news agency reported more than 15 air strikes in Sanaa and a further 14 in the districts of Sinhan and Bani Bahloul. Fatik al-Rodaini‏, an activist based in the capital, told Al Jazeera some of the raids targeted Sanaa's old city, a UNESCO world heritage site.

WHO: In Yemen as many as 200.000 affected by cholera

Yemen is facing the "world's worst cholera outbreak", with about 1,310 people dying due to the disease since late April, according to the World Health Organization. More than 200,000 suspected cases of cholera have been recorded in the Arabian Peninsula country and as many as 300,000 people could become infected by the end of August, Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general, said in a statement on Saturday. 
"In just two months, cholera has spread to almost every governorate of this war-torn country," Chan and Anthony Lake, UNICEF executive director, said. "Already more than 1,300 people have died - one quarter of them children - and the death toll is expected to rise."
Cholera is a highly contagious bacterial infection spread through contaminated food or water. It can be fatal within hours if left untreated. Although the disease is easily treatable, doing so in Yemen, a country riven by conflict, has proved particularly difficult.

Saudi coalition poised to take Yemen's most important port, famine is looming

The Internationale Crisis Group (ICG) reports: 
 Yemenis are starving because of war. No natural disaster is responsible. No amount of humanitarian aid can solve the underlying problem. Without an immediate, significant course change, portions of the country, in the 21st century and under the watch of the Security Council, will likely tip into famine.  (NB this is a slightly abridged version of the ICG report)

 By numbers, Yemen is suffering from the largest food crisis in the world. According to the UN, an estimated seventeen million persons, 60 per cent of the population and three million more than were so afflicted at the start of the year, are food insecure and require urgent humanitarian assistance to save lives. Seven of the country’s 22 governorates are at a phase four emergency food insecurity level, one step away from phase five: famine. Areas affected include both government and Huthi/Saleh controlled governorates. UNICEF reports that 460,000 children suffer from severe acute malnutrition.

Houthis stage ''reopening'' of Yemen's parliament

Members of Yemen's parliament convened in the capital Sanaa on Saturday for the first time since a civil war began almost two years ago, in a move aimed at bolstering the rebel Houthi movement and challenging the Saudi-backed exiled government.

The armed Houthis and their allies in the General People's Congress (GPC) party headed by powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh control Sanaa and have withstood thousands of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition.
After UN-backed peace talks to end the war collapsed last week, the Houthis and the GPC set up a governing council to rule the country despite UN and government opposition. All of the present  members of parliament voted for the new council.
The Saudi backed presidnet Abed Rabbo al Mansour Hadi  denounced the parliamentary session as a "violation" of the constitution and a "crime punishable by law", in remarks carried by the official Yemeni Saba news website. "Whatever takes place at this meeting has no legal effects and cannot be implemented," he said.

According to the constitution, more than half of the 301-member national assembly have to attend the session for voting to take place.  

Yemeni troops enter Mukalla after al-Qaeda left

Mukalla

Yemeni government troops and allies from a Saudi-led coalition have entered a city held by al-Qaeda for a year. Local Yemeni officials and residents told the Reuters new s agency on Sunday that some 2,000 Yemeni and Emirati troops advanced into Mukalla, taking control of its port and airport and setting up checkpoints throughout the southern city.
The coalition said in a statement,carried by the official Saudi news agency SPA, that "more than 800 al-Qaeda elements" had been killed and that the rest of the fighters had fled the city, the provincial capital of Hadramout.
The death toll could not be independently verified.And Iona Craig, a journalist who was in Mukalla last month and who said she regularly communicates with residents there, described the coalition's claim as "ridiculous". "There weren't even 800 fighters left there," she told Al Jazeera by phone from the UK. "There was no fighting inside the city because al-Qaeda had already left."

More Gulf troops move into Yemen as coalition increase its air attacks on Sana'a

Destroyed buildings in the Yemeni capital Sana'a. This was the result of earlier bombardments on 6 September 2015 (Photo via Twitter). 

Saudi-led warplanes pounded rebel positions in the Yemeni capital on Tuesday, an AFP correspondent said, reporting powerful explosions across Sanaa. Witnesses said targets included the police academy and the headquarters of the security services, both in the heart of the capital which has been controlled by the Houthi rebels since September last year. Overnight strikes also hit the Sanaa residences of Houthi leaders, witnesses said.
The strikes followed reports that Gulf Arab members of the Saudi-led coalition had sent thousands of heavily armed reinforcements to Yemen after a Houthi missile attack killed 60 coalition soldiers on Friday. Forty-five soldiers from the United Arab Emirates' and five troops from Bahrain have been killed on Friday when a Houthi missile hit a weapons storage depot near their position in the province of Maarib, about 120km east of the capital Sanaa, the UAE state news agency WAM reported late on Friday. Lateron it was reported that also 10 Saudi troops were killed. Officials from the Houthi media office in Sanaa confirmed a Soviet-era Tochka missile was fired at the site.

Houthis hand over last South Yemeni province to loyalists

Southern People's Resistance militants loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi (Photo Reuters)
Gulf-backed forces loyal to Yemen's exiled government retook a fifth southern province on Saturday, extending recent territorial gains the Houthis rebels. The advance by the forces backing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has been aided by weapons and troops from Yemen's wealthy Gulf neighbours, as Saudi-led coalition warplanes continue to pound rebel positions. The rebels "withdrew and anded over" Shabwa to the pro-government forces after they were promised a safe route out of the province, a military official told AFP.

"The province was handed over" to the Southern Movement, a secessionist group whose militants have been fighting in loyalist ranks, said Salem al-Awlaqi, a political activist in Shabwa. Military officials said this week that the pro-rebel governor of Shabwa -- which has substantial oil reserves -- had fled as loyalist forces prepared to enter the province. They also accused the rebels of planting landmines in government buildings across Shabwa, as they had done in other provinces before fleeing.

Saudi coalition announce a new phase of the military activities against Yemen

 
A portrait of the Saudi king Salman amidst debris of the Saudi Cultural Centre in Sanaa, caused by an Saudi airstrike on a nearby weapons depot (Photo Reuters, 21 April 2015)

The Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen for almost a month announced on Tuesday the end to its military operation, but a Saudi spokesman said forces would continue to target the Iran-allied Houthi movement as necessary.
"Operation Decisive Storm has achieved its goals...(including) removing the threat to Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries especially in terms of heavy weapons," said a statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA.
"With its end, the new Operation Restoring Hope begins with the following goals: continuing to protect civilians, continuing to fight terrorism and continuing to facilitate the evacuation of foreign nationals and to intensify relief and medical assistance to the Yemeni people."

Dozens killed in Sanaa after bombardment of missile base

Residents said the explosions sent shockwaves across the city with civilians fleeing from their homes in the aftermath.
At least 46 people have been killed in the Yemeni capital after Saudi-led air strikes targeted a suspected weapons base held by Houthi fighters.
Health officials told Al Jazeera on Monday that more than 300 people were wounded when warplanes reportedly struck a Scud missile base in Faj Attan, a district in western Sanaa, that sparked a series of explosions.
Thick black smoke billowed into the sky as scores of nearby houses and vehicles were destroyed leaving the streets littered with debris.
"It was like the doors of hell opened,'' resident Mohammed Sarhan told the Associated Press news agency.
"I felt the house lift up and fall," he said.

Security Council imposes arms embargo on Yemeni Houthis

Saudi artillerie firing towards Houthi positions in north Yemen.(Photo Reuters)

The UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo Tuesday on the leaders of Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his son.The resolution, approved in a 14-0 vote, is aimed at ending the Houthi military action against supporters of current President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia.The resolution also demands that the rebels end their military campaign.
Russia, which had insisted on an arms embargo on all parties to the conflict, abstained.
The resolution imposes the weapons embargo on five men: Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, second-in-command Abdullah Yahya al Hakim, military commander Abd al-Khaliq al-Houthi, Saleh and the former president's eldest son, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The council called on all countries, especially Yemen's neighbors, to inspect cargo headed to Yemen if there are "reasonable grounds" to believe it contains weapons.In addition, the council imposed an asset freeze and travel ban on the Houthi leader and Saleh's son. The same sanctions had already been imposed on the other three men last November.The resolution demands that all Yemeni parties,especially the Houthis, end violence and quickly resume UN-brokered negotiations aimed at a political transition.

Casualties mount and humanitarian crisis worsens in Yemen

Smoke from an Saudi airstrike on Sanaa last Wednesday (Photo AP)

The United Nations called, Friday, for an immediate “humanitarian pause” of at least a few hours each day in Yemen to allow urgently needed humanitarian aid to reach conflict-affected areas in the country.
Two aircrafts carrying medical aid provided by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Committee of the Red Cross landed Friday, in Sana’a. This aid is the first batch to reach the Yemeni capital Sana’a since the start of Saudi-led airstrikes against Yemen in late March. However, relief agencies warned that there is an urgent need for more aid.
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced that it sent a load of aid to Aden along with a team of five Doctors, earlier this week.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Johannes Van der Klaauw, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, said that basic services suffer from collapse, pointing out the lack of food and fuel added to a sharp rise in the basic commodities’ prices.

Air strikes in Yemen continue in spite of urgent calls for humanitarian ceasefire

Gravediggers at work in the village of Bani Matar, west of  Sanaa. In this village 9 civilians including six children were killed by air strikes of the Saudi led coalition. (Photo AFP)

Saudi-led air strikes against Houthi rebel targets have continued unabated in Yemen, hours after the Red Cross called for a 24-hour ceasefire to give aid workers a chance to address the growing crisis in the country. Fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi for control of the southern city of Aden also continued on Saturday. The UN says more than 500 people have been killed in the past two weeks and nearly 1,700 wounded. Residents in Aden say parts of the southern port city have been without water or electricity for two days.
The aerial bombardments reportedly focused on the capital Sanaa. Hisham al-Omeisy, a youth activist based in Sanaa, told Al Jazeera that the air strikes on Saturday were the heaviest he had witnessed since they began 10 days ago."To make matters worse, the targets are not just the military bases in the capital, they are also political bureaus of the Houthis around the city" in residential areas, Omeisy said.

Houthis have taken central Aden

Yemeni Houthi fighters and their allies seized a central Aden district on Thursday, striking a heavy blow against the Saudi-led coalition that has waged a week of air strikes to try to stem advances by the Shi'ite group.
Hours after the Houthis took over Aden's central Crater neighborhood, they marked another symbolic victory by fighting their way into a presidential residence overlooking the neighborhood, residents said.
The southern city has been the last major holdout of fighters loyal to Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled Aden a week ago and has watched from Riyadh as the vestiges of his authority have crumbled.
"Terrified residents have been fleeing from neighbourhood to neighbourhood since 3am local time," Bashraheel Hesham, a local journalist, told Al Jazeera on Thursday after fighting spread across the city. "A lot of dead bodies are still spread around the streets as it is not safe to go out to clear them."

Airstrikes in Yemen kill 23 factory workers, UN warns:Yemen is on the verge of collapse

 
The burning dairy factory in Hodaida (Photo Al-Watanye.net)

An air strike on Yemen's Red Sea port of Hodaida has killed 23 workers at a dairy factory, medical sources said, in what appears to be one of the biggest cases of civilian deaths in a Saudi-led campaign against Houthi rebels.
Residents near the Hodaida dairy factory said it was located near an army camp loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, while medical sources in the city said the casualties had all been workers at the plant. The strike on Tuesday night had also destroyed a fuel store, the residents told Reuters news agency.
The incident is part of an aerial campaign by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim states to stop Houthi fighters and former president winning control of the country and reinstating Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. However, after seven nights of bombings targeting both the Houthis and forces loyal to Saleh, the coalition has not managed to secure Hadi's control over his last remaining enclave of rule in the southern port of Aden, a key aim of the campaign.