Yemen: Coup d’État (?) - Rebels storm presidential palace

[oxmox 73]

Dozens of reports about a new attack with a barrel bomb by the Assad Regime, almost none about the Saudi Airstrikes in Yemen...both attacks include lots of civilian victims.

Air strikes kill at least 80 in deadliest bombings of Yemen war (Reuters & Euronews)

Saudi-led air strikes killed at least 80 people near Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia and in the capital Sanaa on Wednesday, residents said, the deadliest day of bombing in over two months of war in Yemen.

"Houthi gunmen were attacking Saudi border positions from this area but the coalition's planes failed to hit the fighters and bombed civilians (instead)," one resident told Reuters by telephone.

Seeing the Houthi advance as a bridgehead for Iranian influence in the region, a Saudi-led coalition began air strikes on March 26 in a campaign to restore Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.

Wednesday's air raids on the Bakeel al-Meer area in Hajjah province across Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen killed at least 40 people, most of them civilians, local inhabitants said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/27/us-yemen-security-port-idUSKBN0OC0MT20150527

Edited May 30, 2015 by oxmox

[.kju 3245]

How Yemen's Saleh danced on the heads of the CIA

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/how-yemens-saleh-danced-heads-cia-2105263740

Al Jazeera Investigates - Al Qaeda Informant, Investigative Report by Clayton Swisher

Seems somewhat fishy though..

Especially the way Al Jazeera made the video is fairly poor and one has to keep their owners agenda in mind.

[spooky lynx 73]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=203&v=U_01V25RLvI

Long video showing clash of Housis with Saudi army. As a result - one knocked out LAV and seized Saudi checkpoint.

[.kju 3245]

Pretty good discussion (although almost 3 months old)

Schlachfeld Jemen - Der Kalte Krieg zwischen Iran und Saudi-Arabien (45min audio discussion in German)

http://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/swr2-forum/schlachfeld-jemen-der-kalte-krieg-zwischen-iran-und-saudi-arabien/-/id=660214/did=14885154/nid=660214/19z00vg/index.html

Es diskutieren:

Reinhard Baumgarten, ARD-Korrespondent, Istanbul

Bernd Erbel, Ex-Botschafter in diversen arabischen Ländern und im Iran, Berlin

Michael Lüders, Publizist, Experte für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten

Bab al Mandeb - "Tor der Tränen" , heißt die Meerenge an der Südspitze der Arabischen Halbinsel. Der Name passt zum gegenwärtigen Desaster in der Region: Schiitische Milizen versuchen mit Gewalt, die Macht im Jemen an sich zu reißen. Sie werden dabei vom Iran unterstützt. Das taumelnde Regime unter Präsident Hadi wiederum wäre längst zusammen gebrochen, hätte sich nicht Saudi-Arabien in den Krieg eingemischt. Bekämpfen die sunnitischen Saudis jetzt nur eine lokale Schiitenmiliz? Oder geht es im Jemen um weitaus mehr? Um die Frage, wer seinen Machtanspruch am Ende durchsetzen kann? Iraner oder Saudis, Schiiten oder Sunniten? Der Konflikt im Jemen ist mehr als nur ein Krieg im arabischen Hinterhof. Er hat eine weltpolitische Dimension. Neben Irak und Syrien gibt es nun auch noch eine dritte, hochgefährliche Kampfzone in der arabische Welt.

[srbknight 925]

Saudi M60 patton blowed by RPG-29 missile !

[oxmox 73]

Not much outcry by our nations, no UN resolution for Saudi Arabia and its actions and jihadi-salafism is spreading now also in Yemen.....

The Rise of the Islamic State in Yemen (VICE NEWS; July 20th)

The IS branch in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on the al-Mahdi mosque, which is known as a place of worship for followers of Zaydism, a form of Shiite Islam largely unique to north Yemen.

Zaydism is key to the ideology of the Houthis, a north Yemeni militia that last autumn seized Sanaa and now controls much of the western half of the country. IS justified the bombing as revenge for Houthi incursions into Sunni Muslim areas of Yemen.

The Houthis started out as a revivalist movement for Zaydism but morphed into a powerful militia during six wars with the central government between 2004 and 2010, sparked by the death of their founder-leader Hussein al-Houthi at the hands of Yemeni security forces. At the time, then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh saw them as a threat; now he is working alongside them to quash the Sunni Islamists who helped oust him in 2011 and win back control of Yemen through force. The Houthis have proven surprisingly willing to put the past behind them as they push to become the country's dominant power alongside Saleh and his allies.

The attack on the al-Mahdi mosque was the sixth such bombing ofa mosque known for attracting Zaydi worshipers that IS has claimed responsibility for, including two suicide attacks in March that killed 130 people.

IS says Yemen's Zaydis,who are largely concentrated in the northern highlands, including Sana'a, are apostates and heretics, and calls on Yemen's Sunnis to wage holy war against them.

--> The IS attacks appear designed to create discord between Yemen's Sunnis and Shias, according to Katherine Zimmerman, an al Qaeda analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a Yemen specialist. She says the IS strategy is in line with the sectarian divide-and-conquer technique the group has employed to spectacular effect in Iraq and Syria.

"The Islamic State is growing in the areas where the Houthis are," she said. "If it can push Yemen towards greater sectarianism, then IS will thrive."

That said, IS does appear to be achieving its goal of fermenting distrust, if not sectarian hatred.

"To start with, we just feared death from above," said one resident of Sana'a, referring to the ongoing campaign of Saudi airstrikes against the Houthis. "But now we fear it from all around." Neighbors who have lived alongside one another for years now eye each other with mutual suspicion, he says, wondering if they are quietly involved with IS or al Qaeda.

But not all Sana's residents share this view.

These groups [iS and al Qaeda] can only attract small numbers of people, people who are weak of faith and do not know their history. But they cannot recruit Yemenis, who know that we've all lived together peacefully for thousands of years."

Fuad al-Attar, who also attends the mosque in spite of the risk, told VICE News that while Yemen was divided down political and geographical lines, religion played no part in the country's ongoing civil war, and blamed extremists from Saudi Arabia for the mosque bombings.

"No Yemeni would ever blow himself up," he said. "The people who are doing this are sent from Saudi Arabia."

Western security officials worry that the rise of both AQAP and IS in Yemen could fuse violent radical Islamists into Yemen's tribal system in a way that has hitherto not been possible.

A Western diplomat told VICE News that Washington and London are concerned that Saudi Arabia, which has driven the international response to the Houthis' rise, seems worryingly blasé about the growth of AQAP and IS.The Saudis see the Houthis as a proxy for Iran, their main regional rival, and as such have made their defeat a priority in Yemen.

"I'm not quite sure what the Saudis are doing," says the AEI's Zimmerman. "I think the Saudis' risk tolerance is much higher in terms of empowering AQ to defeat the Houthis. They will train or provide weapons to tribes without checking they are putting weapons into AQAQ's hands."

https://news.vice.com/article/the-rise-of-the-islamic-state-in-yemen?utm_source=vicenewstwitter

Edited July 21, 2015 by oxmox

[oxmox 73]

Saudi Airstrikes In Yemen Kill Over 120 Civilians

More than 120 civilians were killed and over 150 wounded in Saudi Arabia-led airstrikes in the southern Yemeni province of Taiz on Friday evening, the Associated Press (AP) reported, citing unnamed security officials. A large number of women, children and elderly people are among those killed, the officials told the AP.

Since the Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia started conducting airstrikes in March -- pitting it against Iran in a proxy war -- more than 3,600 people have been killed in Yemen. Additionally, another 17,300 people, including 4,000 civilians, have been wounded.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also voiced concern on Friday over the “unprecedented†suffering of the civilians trapped in conflict zones in Yemen.

http://www.ibtimes.com/saudi-airstrikes-yemen-kill-over-120-civilians-southern-taiz-province-2024501

Yemenis are terrorized by a weapon made in America, sold to the Saudis (Public American Radio - PRI)

Cluster bombs have been banned by 116 countries. Yet one cluster weapon, made in America,

is being used on the battlefield in Yemen, dangerously close to civilians.

It’s in the inventory of two countries whose planes have been bombing Yemen. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on SFWs from Textron with US government approval. When these two nations started to stockpile SFWs several years ago, each weapon cost about $360,000. This year the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels began to use the weapon in the Houthis' home province of Saada, near the Saudi border. This has been raising concerns among human rights workers and causing panic — and perhaps some injuries — among Yemeni civilians.

In May, Human Rights Watch documented the use of three varieties of cluster munitions in Yemen, two known to be made in the US. Researchers for Amnesty International found more evidence, also in northern Yemen, in June and July.

Saudi Arabia has acknowledged using the CBU-105 in Yemen, but in an interview with CNN, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri, a Saudi military spokesman, said it was used "only against armored vehicles."

By May, 116 countries had joined the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. Not among them: The United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-17/yemenis-are-terrorized-weapon-made-america-sold-saudis

Edited July 25, 2015 by oxmox

[mistyronin 1181]

That reminds me of the main exporter of cluster bombs...

(The Guardian) Syria using Russian cluster bombs, says human rights group

Syrian government forces have used Russian-made cluster bombs on populated areas in their effort to push back rebel advances along the country's main north-south highway, according to Human Rights Watch.

Unfortunately it's really difficult to prevent the producers from making them.

[oxmox 73]

Well, loads of countries produce and/or have stock of cluster ammunition but the countries left should rather sign aswell to ban such dangerous ammunitions for civilians.

The cluster bombs used in Syria are from the Soviet-era described in the news article, the US sold for almost around $ 650 millions cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia in 2013.

But unfortunately also Russia did not sign the convention and Syria aswell, its a horrible weapon and really bad for civilians.

map overview

http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/en-gb/the-treaty/treaty-status.aspx

Edited July 25, 2015 by oxmox

[mistyronin 1181]

Well, loads of countries produce and/or have stock of cluster ammunition but the handful of countries left should rather sign aswell to ban such dangerous ammunitions for civilians.

I agree, the worst of that kind of weapon is that can injury/kill anyone, from allied troops, civilians, etc.

According to HRW the cluster bombs used in Syria were:

initially manufactured by the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and then manufactured and exported by the Russian Federal State Unitary Enterprise “SPLAV State Research And Production Association†from 1991 onwar

Edited July 25, 2015 by MistyRonin

[oxmox 73]

Saudi-led coalition accused of war crimes in Yemen (AlJazeera, Oct. 6h)

Amnesty International also seeks end to arms transfers to coalition members, citing evidence of ‘unlawful air strikes’

 

Amnesty International on Wednesday accused the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen of carrying out unlawful air strikes, some of which amount to war crimes, and called for the suspension of transfers of arms transfers to coalition members.

 

Amnesty said in a report (PDF) that it had examined 13 deadly air strikes by the coalition that had killed about 100 civilians, including 59 children in Yemen. The report also documents the use of cluster bombs.

 

"This report uncovers yet more evidence of unlawful air strikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, some of which amount to war crimes. It demonstrates in harrowing detail how crucial it is to stop arms being used to commit serious violations of this kind," said Amnesty's Donatella Rovera, who headed the group's fact-finding mission to Yemen.

 

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

 

Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates are participating in the coalition.

 

Another rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch, in August accused Saudi forces of using cluster bombs in Yemen. A spokesman for the coalition denied the allegation.

Amnesty also said cases had been documented of civilians who were not directly participating in hostilities but were killed or injured while asleep or carrying out their daily activities.

 

Another Amnesty report, published in August, condemned all sides in the Yemen conflict over the killing of civilians.

 

 

--> More than 2,300 civilians have been killed in the conflict since March, the UN Human Rights office said late September.

 

 

The Houthis are fighting alongside army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against forces loyal to exiled President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi as well as southern separatists and local militias. A Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition has been launching airstrikes against the fighters since March.

 

Pro-Houthi forces have been accused of indiscriminately shelling populated areas in violation of the laws of war, killing civilians.

 

 

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/6/saudi-led-coalition-accused-of-war-crimes-in-yemen.html

[oxmox 73]

European Parliament calls for Saudi arms embargo (Reuters, Feb. 25)

The European Parliament called on the European Union to impose an arms embargo

against Saudi Arabia on Thursday, saying Britain, France and other EU governments should

no longer sell weapons to a country accused of targeting civilians in Yemen.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-saudi-arms-idUSKCN0VY1K1

[oxmox 73]

Large numbers of Yemenis have taken part in a demonstration in the capital Sanaa

in support of Houthi rebels and their allies, who control the city  (BBC, Aug.)

 

Demonstrators backed a new governing council announced by the rebels.

--> Shortly afterwards, bombs were reported to have been dropped nearby by planes of the Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognised government.

 

"Suddenly the Saudi jets started circling on top of us, and as always, we thought they would just fly by, just trying to scare the crowd," he said, speaking to the World Service's Newshour programme."

 

The Saudis have been repeatedly criticised over civilian deaths in air strikes in Yemen.

On Thursday the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it was withdrawing staff from six hospitals in north Yemen after a coalition air strike hit one of its buildings, killing 19 people.

 

 

The Saudi-led force has been carrying out air strikes in Yemen since March 2015 to try to oust the rebels and defend the internationally recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

The UN says more than 6,500 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since then. It estimates that more than 80% of the population needs humanitarian aid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37143876

[oxmox 73]

AFP did report about "thousands" of protester and on german TV first channel it was said that "ten thousands" did protest in the main city of Jemen.

 

The video with a camera pan from the press agency  AP shows the true dimension and size of the protests:

 

Anyone from you can estimate the amount of people, lol ?

 

[archbishop lazarus 24]

Definitely lots of people. Shows very well how popular the Houthis there. I hope they get lots of new recruits, and drive out the saudi invaders from their home.

[archbishop lazarus 24]

More saudi losses. M-60A3 hit, huge detonation throws the turret several meters in the air. (4:00)

 

[nodunit 397]

More saudi losses. M-60A3 hit, huge detonation throws the turret several meters in the air. (4:00)

 

 

Assuming the tank at minute 4 and 5 are the same, I think that might actually be an abrams...the cupla looked awfully tall from a distance which definately lends itself to the patton but the close up shape looks more angular, and the "bike handles" also looks very reminiscent of the M1A2 commanders MG (and a very old model at that) though can't say for sure given the shape towards the rear of the turret, too far back to be the thermal sight, could be the loaders MG at just the right angle...

If it is an abrams then yikes, wonder if the loader had the blast doors open, if so then at least it was quick.