Tag Archives: Yemen

Iran stops doing business with Saudi Arabia as Nimr execution rankles

By Katie Paul

DUBAI (Reuters) – Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia deteriorated even further on Thursday as Tehran severed all commercial ties with Riyadh and accused Saudi jets of attacking its embassy in Yemen’s capital.

A row has been raging for days between Shi’ite Muslim power Iran and the conservative Sunni kingdom since Saudi Arabia executed cleric Nimr al-Nimr, an opponent of the ruling dynasty who demanded greater rights for the Shi’ite minority.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia have all broken off diplomatic ties with Iran this week, the United Arab Emirates downgraded its relations and Kuwait, Qatar and Comoros recalled their envoys after the Saudi embassy in Tehran was stormed by protesters following the execution of Nimr and 46 other men.

In a cabinet meeting chaired by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday, Tehran banned all imports from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia had announced on Monday that Riyadh was halting trade links and air traffic with the Islamic Republic.

Iran also said on Thursday that Saudi warplanes had attacked its embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, an accusation that Riyadh said it would investigate.

“Saudi Arabia is responsible for the damage to the embassy building and the injury to some of its staff,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari was quoted as saying by the state news agency, IRNA.

Residents and witnesses in Sanaa said there was no damage to the embassy building in Hadda district.

They said an air strike had hit a public square about 700 meters away from the embassy and that some stones and shrapnel had landed in the embassy’s yard.

Iran will deliver its official report on the attack to the United Nations on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying.

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been fighting the Shi’ite, Iran-allied Houthi movement in Yemen since March 2015.

Saudi coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said their jets carried out heavy strikes in Sanaa on Wednesday night, targeting missile launchers used by the Houthi militia against Saudi Arabia.

He said the coalition would investigate Iran’s accusation and that the Houthis have been using civilian facilities including abandoned embassies.

While Riyadh sees regional rival Iran as using the Houthis as a proxy to expand its influence, the Houthis deny this and say they are fighting a revolution against a corrupt government and Gulf Arab powers beholden to the West.

The deputy head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards told Saudi Arabia on Thursday it would “collapse” in coming years if it kept pursuing what he called its sectarian policies in the region.

“The policies of the Saudi regime will have a domino effect and they will be buried under the avalanche they have created,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency on the sidelines of a ceremony held in Tehran to commemorate Nimr.

Salami compared Saudi policies with those of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president overthrown by U.S. forces in 2003.

“The path the Saudi regime is taking is like the one Saddam took in the 1980s and 90s. He started a war with Iran, executed prominent clerics and top officials, suppressed dissidents and ended up having that miserable fate.”

Saddam, a Sunni, was hanged in 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shi’ite villagers after a failed assassination bid in 1982.

Besides import ban, the Iranian cabinet also reaffirmed a ban on pilgrims traveling to Mecca for Umrah haj.

Iran suspended all Umrah trips, which are both lucrative for Saudi Arabia and important to practicing Muslims, in April in response to an alleged sexual assault on two Iranian men by Saudi airport guards.

(Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yara Bayoumy in Dubai, Angus McDowall in Riyadh, Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo, Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu and Ahmed Ali Amir in Comoros)

Cyclone Chapala Dumps One Year of Rain Plus on War Torn Yemen

Yemen, a country that gets an average of 4 inches of rain per year has received that and more in just this one day as Cyclone Chapala crashed it’s way onto its coast. Some news reports in Yemen are reporting up to 48 inches of flooding rains. Thousands are fleeing something that they have never seen before!  This tropical storm is the first on record to make landfall in the impoverished Arab country.

The country has been plunged into chaos this year by a conflict between Houthi rebels and forces loyal to deposed President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition in March began bombing the Houthis, who are aligned with Iran.

Yemen is already dealing with one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, according to the United Nations. The widespread fighting has killed thousands of people, many of them civilians, and left millions more desperately short of food, water and medical supplies.

Now the Yemeni people are faced with 85 mph winds, incredible flash flooding, rock and mud slides and very little help.  According to news reports at least 6000 have fled to upper ground to escape the escalating flooding.  

According to news reports, Abdul-Jamil Mohammed, deputy director of the Environmental Protection Authority on the island of Socotra, a Yemeni island where Chapala has already passed reported strong winds, heavy rain and big waves overnight into Monday.

At least three people were killed and over 200 injured.  

Mohammed said the storm damaged some homes and uprooted trees in Hadibo, the capital of Socotra. Contact has been lost with the northeastern part of the island since Sunday night, and floods have covered the roads leading there, he said.

“Our problem is we have no one to help us here,” he said, explaining the island has one hospital and four ambulances. A shortage of fuel has already caused great trouble for the island.

While numerous tropical systems have formed in the Arabian Sea, it is uncommon for a storm the strength of Chapala to occur so far south and west. Chapala was the equivalent of a low-end Category 4 hurricane as it passed by Socotra.

TruNews: Islamic Extremists Threaten Civilians and Students in Yemen

TRUNEWS – Islamist extremists have hit the streets in Aden threatening civilians and students.

The militants burst into a university telling students they have until Thursday to segregate men and women into different classrooms. The men also charged into stores demanding female employees to cover up and threatened families on a beach.

The city is at risk of falling to the terror groups, which also includes a dangerous sect of al-Qaeda, the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, Daesh and ISIS. Houthi rebels were forced out in July, leaving a vacuum in leadership.

Explosions Rock Yemen, Killing 15

Three explosions hit Yemen’s port city of Aden on Tuesday, killing 15 people. One rocket hit a hotel housing exiled Yemeni officials, and the other two attacks struck locations used by troops from the United Arab Emirates. Authorities state no government officials have been hurt.

At this time it is not clear who the victims were.

Officials originally blamed Yemen’s Shiite rebels for the attack, but a new Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the attacks. The terrorist group used Twitter to claim the attack, posting photos of the suicide bombers and the aftermath of the bombing. More chaos is expected to ensue now that the Islamic State is involved with Yemen’s months-long civil war.

Military official, Major General Ahmed Sayf stated that the attacks were deployed with car bombs.

Yemen is currently in the middle of a civil war where Shiite rebels and forces loyal to the former president are fighting the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government as well as local militias, Sunni extremists, and southern separatists. The war in Yemen began in March of this year and so far, more than 4,000 people have been killed. The country is also on the brink of famine.

131 Yemeni Civilians Killed in Saudi-led Airstrike

Medical officers reported 131 civilians were killed in a Saudi-led airstrike that hit a wedding party, in what is reported to be the single deadliest incident since the start of Yemen’s civil war.

Yemeni medical officials stated at least 80 women were killed in the attack. The Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition supposedly struck the wedding party by accident. The attack struck a village near the town of Mokha. The region is largely populated by livestock traders and fishermen. It is reported that there is no heavy military presence in the area.

“They struck a wedding, there were only civilians there and most of them died because the Mokha hospital is closed because of supply — no drugs, no fuel, no electricity, no nothing, so the staff left,” said Hassan Boucenine, of the Geneva-based Doctors without Borders. The provincial capital of Taiz could not be used due to ongoing fighting.

Officials of the Saudi-led coalition could not be reached immediately for a comment.

The U.N. reports at least 2,355 civilians have been killed since the violence started in March. The main fight is between forces loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and those allied to Zaidi Shia rebels known as Houthis, who forced Hadi out of the capital of Sanaa in February.

Dozens Killed in Yemen Mosque Suicide Bomb Attack; ISIS Claims Responsibility

Dozens have been killed and more have been injured in a bombing at a crowded mosque on Thursday, and officials expect the death and injury tolls to rise.

The Balili mosque, located in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, was hosting several worshippers who were saying prayers to mark the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha at the time of the two explosions. Officials reported that the suicide bomber housed a bomb in his shoe, which he detonated, and then ran into the middle of the crowd to detonate the second bomb. Security also found two other devices in the bathroom that had not detonated.

“We found a shoe bomb and explosives hidden in underwear and abandoned in the toilet,” said Adnane Khaled, the head of security at the mosque.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The mosque is located in an area controlled by Shiite rebels, which ISIS, a Sunni militant group, views as heretics. This attack is the sixth time in three months that the mosque has been a target.

The attack comes two days after Yemen’s President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi returned from exile. He had fled the country in March when Houthi rebels made gains.

The United Nations estimates that thousands of civilians have been killed in Yemen since March. The number varies between 2,200 and 5,000.

Yemeni Mosque Bombing Kills 20

A suicide bomber who was claimed by ISIS and a car bomb have killed 20 people in Yemen’s capital city.

The suicide bomber detonated at the mosque in Sanaa during the evening call to prayer.  The car bomb exploded outside the entrance of the mosque as the victims of the first bombing were being carried outside to emergency personnel.

A message on social media from ISIS claimed the attacks.

Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since a rebel group loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh captured the capital city.  The rebels have been the subject of Saudi Arabian led and U.S. backed air strikes.

The violence is also starting to be aimed at relief workers and those trying to help the victimized civilian population.

Two Red Cross members were gunned down in the Yemeni province of Amran by an attacker on Wednesday.

“Two of our colleagues were shot and killed in their car …as they were traveling back from Saada to Sanaa,” spokesman Adnan Hizam said from the Yemeni capital.

The Red Cross had stopped work in the southern city of Aden after gunmen stormed their offices.

Al-Qaeda Second In Command Killed

The number two man in the al-Qaeda power structure has reportedly been killed in a drone strike in Yemen.

Nasir al-Wuhayshi was called the “leading light” of the terrorist organization and one terrorism analyst told CNN the death is “the biggest blow against al-Qaeda since the death of bin Laden.”

“[Al-Wuhayshi] was responsible for the deaths of innocent Yemenis and Westerners, including Americans,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said.

“While AQAP, al Qaeda and their affiliates will remain persistent in their efforts to threaten the United States, our partners and our interests, (al-Wuhayshi’s) death removes from the battlefield an experienced terrorist leader and brings us closer to degrading and ultimately defeating those groups.”

Al-Wuhayshi was notorious for saying that Al-Qaeda needed to “eliminate the cross and the bearer of the cross is America!”

“Nasser al-Wuhayshi was a major global figure among jihadists, even supporters of al-Qaeda’s rival Islamic State viewed Wuhayshi with respect,” Islamic groups analyst Murad Batal al-Shishani said to the Christian Post.

“As well as creating AQAP itself, Wuhayshi also played a major role in forming the AQAP off-shoot, Ansar al-Sharia, in 2011, to appeal to disaffected youth in Yemen at the time of the Arab Spring. AQAP’s leader cultivated good relations with local tribes, which helped his group advance in various places in the south of the country.”

Unfortunately, the man who is replacing al-Wuhayshi is considering a formidable opponent.

“Qasm al-Rimi was considered the brains of the operation,” CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said. “For more than a decade, he’s really been at the helm of the military side of things for AQAP but also planning their large international operations.”

Top Cleric of Yemen’s Al-Qaeda Branch Killed

A terrorist leader with a $5 million bounty on his head has been killed in Yemen.

Yemen’s Al-Qaeda branch posted a statement saying that Ibrahim al-Rubaish was killed along with other terrorists in a Sunday night drone strike.  The statement did not say where the strike that killed the terrorist leader took place.

Al-Rubaish once was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay but had been released in 2006.  He joined Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch and was considered the main theological advisor to the group.  His writings and sermons were among the most viewed in terrorist publications.

If the drone attack is verified, it will be the first drone strike since the country devolved into war when Islamic terrorists backed by Iran advanced into the nation.  Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of airstrikes against the terrorist’s advances.

Al-Qaeda is a rival of the advancing terrorist group and has launched their own assaults to stop the advanced of the Iranian-backed group.  U.S. intelligence sources say that as Al-Qaeda is forced to focus on stopping the terrorist advance, they have less resources and time to plot against Western interests in the region.

ISIS Terrorists Kill At Least 100 In Mosque Attacks

ISIS terrorists are starting a campaign to destabilize Yemen and overtake the government by launching twin mosque attacks that killed 46 during Friday prayers.

Witnesses say that at least four terrorists blew themselves up in the mosques used by the Shia Muslim Houthis.  The attacks also left hundreds injured.

The terrorists also attacked the residents where the country’s former president has been living since the Houthis ousted him.

Local officials confirmed 46 dead but said that they also have many unaccounted for in the attacks.  Rebel TV stations say that hospitals have reported 137 dead and 345 people have been injured.

Police reportedly stopped a fifth bomber attack on another mosque.

The attack is the first major terrorist action by ISIS in Yemen.