Tag Archives: Yemen

USS Mason responds to distress call from oil tanker being seized by armed rebels; Houthi rebels fire missiles at the US Destroyer

Central-Park-Tanker

Important Takeaways:

  • Iran-backed Houthi rebels have fired missiles at a US Navy destroyer off the coast of Yemen in a ‘significant escalation’ with American forces in the Middle East.
  • The USS Mason had responded to a distress call on Sunday from an Israeli-linked chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden that had been seized by armed rebels.
  • The Central Park tanker was carrying a cargo of phosphoric acid when its crew called for help, saying ‘they were under attack from an unknown entity’.
  • Allied ships from a counter-piracy task force that operates in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia, including the USS Mason, responded to the call for help and ‘demanded the release of the vessel’ upon reaching the tanker.
  • ‘Subsequently, five armed individuals debarked the ship and attempted to flee via their small boat,’ the US Central Command said in a statement, adding: ‘The Mason pursued the attackers resulting in their eventual surrender.’
  • Hours later, at 1.41am local time, two ballistic missiles were fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen then landed near the US warship – a guided-missile destroyer, raising the stakes amid a series of ship attacks linked to the Israel-Hamas war.
  • Both missiles fell short by 10 nautical miles and landed in the water.

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Yemen’s Houthis say allowed temporary resumption of U.N. flights to Sanaa airport

CAIRO (Reuters) -The aviation authority run by the Houthi administration in Yemen has allowed temporary resumption of flights by the United Nations and other organizations to Sanaa international airport on Monday, the Houthi-run Saba news agency said.

The Iran-aligned Houthi movement said earlier this month that the capital’s airport had been put out of operation after air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

The coalition said it only attacked military targets at the airport, from where drone strikes have been launched against Saudi targets.

The airport has been closed to civilian flights since 2015, after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government from Sanaa, although U.N. planes have been permitted to land there.

The Houthi-run aviation authority said in a statement on Monday it allowed the resumption of the UN flights “after the malfunctions in communications and navigational devices were temporarily fixed,” the agency report said.

The authority complained that it could not guarantee the long-term continuity of these old devices, and urged the UN to help the entry of new devices that it had purchased, it added.

The coalition said that the strikes it had carried would have no effect on operational capacity, airspace management, air traffic, or ground handling operations.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell)

Saudi-led coalition hits Yemen’s Sanaa airport – state media

(Reuters) -The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen on Monday carried out air strikes on the international airport of the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital Sanaa after asking civilians to immediately evacuate, state media reported.

The coalition called on the workers of international and humanitarian organizations in the airport to immediately evacuate as it had taken “legal measures to deal with the threat operationally,” state media said.

The coalition said it lifted the protection off specific sites in the airport and carried out strikes on “legitimate military targets” in it.

“The operation comes in response to threats and the use of the airport’s facilities to launch cross-border attacks,” it said.

During the seven-year-old conflict, forces of the Iran-aligned Houthi movement have sent drones and fired missiles into Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi-led coalition has retaliated with air strikes inside Yemen.

On Sunday, the coalition said it had destroyed a drone launched from the airport and aimed at civilians at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah airport in Jizan, near the border with Yemen.

The coalition also said on Sunday it conducted a military operation in Sanaa to destroy workshops and warehouses for drones and other weapons, urging civilians to avoid the area.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government from Sanaa.

(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Omar Fahmy, and Moataz Mohamed; Editing by Chris Reese, Jonathan Oatis, William Maclean)

Cementing ties with France, UAE places $19 billion order for warplanes, helicopters

By John Irish

DUBAI (Reuters) -The United Arab Emirates ordered 80 Rafale fighter jets and 12 military helicopters on Friday, deepening economic and political ties with France through an arms contract worth 17 billion euros ($19.20 billion).

The largest ever overseas sale of the French warplane was sealed as French President Emmanuel Macron began a two-day trip to the Gulf, during which he will also visit Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“These contracts are important for the economy and create jobs in France. What is good for French men and women, I defend ardently,” Macron told reporters, dismissing concerns by activists that French arms sales in the Gulf were fuelling conflicts in the region.

The French presidency said the deal, signed at a ceremony between Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MBZ) and Macron on the sidelines of the Dubai Expo 2020, is worth $19 billion.

The first French warplanes will be delivered from 2027, officials, and would create some 7,000 jobs.

Macron’s visit comes at a time when Gulf Arab states have voiced uncertainty about the United States’ focus on the region even as they seek more weapons from their key security ally.

The French leader has forged a good relationship with MBZ with investments flowing between the two countries. Paris has a permanent military base in the Emirati capital.

Shares in Dassault Aviation SA , the Rafale’s maker, rose more than 9%.

It is the biggest bulk purchase of the Dassault-made Rafale, other than by the French army, and comes after deals in Greece, Egypt and Croatia this year.

Abu Dhabi also ordered 12 Caracal helicopters. It is the French code name for the H225M, the multirole military version of the Super Puma.

The on-off negotiations for the Rafale fighter jets took more than a decade with Abu Dhabi publicly rebuffing France’s offer to supply 60 Rafale jets in 2011 as “uncompetitive and unworkable”. Abu Dhabi already has French-built Mirage 2000 warplanes.

“This French commitment in the region, this active cooperation in the fight against terrorism, the clear positions we have taken mean that we have increased our proximity to the UAE,” Macron said.

“And at a time when they undoubtedly asked themselves more questions about other historical partners … I think that this strengthens France’s position,” he said referring to the United States.

Defense sources said the Rafale would replace the Mirage 2000 fleet but is unlikely to displace the American-built F-35 as the UAE continues to hedge its security with two major suppliers, France and the United States.

The deal could nonetheless be seen as a signal of impatience as the U.S. Congress hesitates on approving an F-35 deal amid concerns about the UAE’s relationship with China, including the prevalence of Huawei 5G technology in the country.

“That says a lot about the extraordinary aura that Abu Dhabi has acquired over Paris’ ideological and strategic thinking — It is the first time that a close U.S. partner in the Arab world will rely more on French technology than American technology,” said Jalel Harchaoui, a senior fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Paris is one of the UAE’s main arms’ suppliers, but it has faced increasing pressure to review its sales because of the conflict between a Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“France is going ahead with these sales despite the UAE playing a leading role in the atrocity-marred military operations led by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “The French president should denounce the human rights violations in these three counties.

($1 = 0.8856 euros)

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Tim Hepher, Karishma Singh, Simon Cameron-Moore and David Evans)

 

With fuel scarce, Yemen’s forests are next casualty of war

By Khaled Abdullah

KHAMIS BANISAAD, Yemen (Reuters) – Yemeni lumberjack Ali al-Emadi spends hours chopping down an acacia tree with an axe as his 12-year-old nephew helps out splitting logs.

In a country blighted by war, Emadi had to turn to logging in his northern al-Mahweet region to eke out a living. An economic collapse has wiped out the farming and building work he used to travel around the country for.

But with demand for firewood soaring due to fuel shortages, there are now concerns that the country’s humanitarian crisis, with millions facing starvation, has compounded the risk of deforestation – threatening both the environment of Yemen and any hope of a long-term livelihood for men like Emadi.

“The owners of bakeries … use wood and stone to heat their ovens. In the past, they used to use gas, but now there is only wood,” Emadi said.

“Should there be good quantity of wood available, we make a living, thank God. But nowadays trees are scarce,” the father of seven said. “If I get something, we eat. At least we live or die together.”

More than six years of war between the recognized government backed by a Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi movement aligned with Iran has killed tens of thousands of people and left 80% of Yemen’s population reliant on aid.

The fuel shortages due to a coalition blockade on Houthi-held areas, including limiting access to the main port of Hodeidah, have led businesses and families to swap diesel and gas for firewood. The alliance says the blockade is needed to foil arms smuggling.

TREES UPROOTED

Around 886,000 trees are felled annually to feed bakeries and restaurants in the capital Sanaa alone, said Abdullah Abul-Futuh, head of biodiversity and natural reserves at Yemen’s Environment Protection Authority in the city, which is run by Houthi authorities along with most of northern Yemen.

Some 5 million trees have been cut down over the past three years across the north, he said.

“That is the equivalent of 213 square km (82 sq miles) of forests, knowing that only 3.3% of Yemen’s total area is classified as forests,” Abul-Futuh said.

The authority could not provide comparative figures, saying this was a recent phenomenon.

After gas was discovered in the Marib region in the 1980s, wood cutting became limited to remote areas but the war has choked Yemen’s energy output, forcing a reliance first on imports and now on wood from trees more usually used to build homes.

Yemen has few woodlands but a relatively rich variety of flora in the oil-producing Arabian Peninsula desert region. In al-Mahweet, known for its thick canopies, several types of acacia, cedar and spruce are vanishing.

Lumberjacks who have the means buy an acacia tree from land owners for the equivalent of around $100 and then sell logs to traders who send them to the cities.

A 5-tonne truck loaded with logs nets the equivalent of $300-$700 in Sanaa, depending on the wood and haulage distance.

“Demand depends on the number of fuel ships that make it to Hodeidah port. These days it (demand) is very high,” said logger Sulaiman Jubran, who scratches a living selling firewood to visiting traders.

“We are scared the country will become a desert, it is already happening … you no longer see the trees that once covered the mountains,” he said.

Forests are largely privately owned and poor families were traditionally allowed to chop wood for free as long as they only cut branches and spared the trunks for regeneration.

“Now, we uproot them with mattocks (pickaxe) .. nothing is left,” Emadi said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous and Alison Williams)

U.N. agency says 41 million on verge of famine

By Maytaal Angel

LONDON (Reuters) – Some 41 million people worldwide are at at imminent risk of famine, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned on Tuesday, saying soaring prices for basic foods were compounding existing pressures on food security.

Another half a million are already experiencing famine-like conditions, said the WFP’s Executive Director David Beasley.

“We now have four countries where famine-like conditions are present. Meanwhile 41 million people are literally knocking on famine’s door,” he said.

The WFP, which is funded entirely by voluntary donations, said it needs to raise $6 billion immediately to reach those at risk, in 43 countries.

“We need funding and we need it now,” said Beasley.

After declining for several decades, world hunger has been on the rise since 2016, driven by conflict and climate change.

In 2019, 27 million people were on the brink of famine, according to the WFP, but since 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic has been added to the mix.

World food prices rose in May to their highest levels in a decade, U.N. figures show, with basics like cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar up a combined 40% versus year ago levels.

Currency depreciation in countries like Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe is adding to these pressures and driving prices even higher, stoking food insecurity.

Famine-like conditions are present this year in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen, as well as in pockets of Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

But Beasley warned against “debating numbers to death” as happened in Somalia in 2011 when 130,000 people – half the eventual toll from starvation – had already died by the time famine was declared.

The WFP, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, says around 9 percent of the world’s population, equivalent to nearly 690 million people, go to bed hungry each night.

(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; editing by John Stonestreet)

President-elect Raisi backs nuclear talks, rules out meeting Biden

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -President-elect Ebrahim Raisi on Monday backed talks between Iran and six world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal but flatly rejected meeting U.S. President Joe Biden, even if Washington removed all sanctions.

In his first news conference since he was elected on Friday, the hardline cleric said his foreign policy priority would be improving ties with Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors, while calling on Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia to immediately halt its intervention in Yemen.

Raisi, 60, a strident critic of the West, will take over from pragmatist Hassan Rouhani on Aug. 3 as Iran seeks to salvage the tattered nuclear deal and be rid of punishing U.S. sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

“We support the negotiations that guarantee our national interests … America should immediately return to the deal and fulfill its obligations under the deal,” he said.

Negotiations have been under way in Vienna since April to work out how Iran and the United States can both return to compliance with the nuclear pact, which Washington abandoned in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump before re-imposing sanctions on Iran.

Iran has subsequently breached the deal’s limits on enrichment of uranium, designed to minimize the risk of it developing nuclear weapons potential. Tehran has long denied having any such ambition.

Raisi said Iran’s foreign policy would not be limited to the nuclear deal, adding that “all U.S. sanctions must be lifted and verified by Tehran”.

Iranian and Western officials alike say Raisi’s rise is unlikely to alter Iran’s negotiating stance in talks to revive the nuclear deal – Iran’s hardline Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say on all major policy.

Asked if he would meet U.S. President Joe Biden if those sanctions were lifted, Raisi answered: “No.”

RIGHTS AND REGIONAL POLICY

Raisi is under U.S. sanctions over a past which includes what the United States and human rights groups say was his involvement in the extrajudicial killing of thousands of political prisoners in the Islamic Republic in 1988.

When asked about human rights groups’ allegations that he was involved in the killings, he said: “If a judge, a prosecutor has defended the security of the people, he should be praised.”

“I am proud to have defended human rights in every position I have held so far,” he said.

Gulf Arab states have said it would be dangerous to separate the nuclear pact from Tehran’s missile program and “destabilizing” behavior in the Middle East, where Tehran and Riyadh have fought decades of proxy wars, in countries from Yemen to Iraq.

Echoing Khamenei’s stance, Raisi said Iran’s “regional activities and ballistic missile program” were non-negotiable.

A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015 after Iran-backed Houthi forces drove its government out of the capital Sanaa. The conflict has been largely stalemated for several years.

“They (the United States) did not comply with the previous agreement, how do they want to enter into new discussions?” he said.

Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran, which severed ties in 2016, began direct talks in Iraq in April aimed at containing tensions. “The reopening of the Saudi embassy is not a problem for Iran,” said Raisi.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; writing by Raya Jalabi and Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Timothy Heritage)

Battle for Yemen’s Marib scrambles U.S. push for truce

By Jonathan Landay and Aziz El Yaakoubi

DUBAI (Reuters) – The battle for Yemen’s gas-rich Marib region is complicating U.S. efforts to reach a ceasefire needed to end a six-year-old war and secure a foreign policy win for President Joe Biden, two sources familiar with the talks and a diplomat said.

A U.N./U.S. peace initiative presented by Saudi Arabia in March proposed a nationwide ceasefire and the reopening of air and sea links, to bolster efforts to end a devastating conflict widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Riyadh, which leads a military coalition battling Yemen’s Houthi movement, has been under increasing pressure to end the war since Biden signaled Washington would no longer support the intervention and as the United Nations warns of looming famine.

But the initiative has been stuck since Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis made a series of counter-proposals, including for a phased truce that could allow them sufficient time to seize Marib, the Saudi-backed government’s last northern stronghold.

Potentially crippling the peace initiative, fighting has intensified in recent days as the Houthis push their offensive to take Marib, which if successful would strengthen the movement’s hand in any future political negotiations.

“Probably the Houthis, given a choice between a ceasefire and taking Marib, would choose to take Marib,” said a senior diplomat based in the region.

The peace initiative can only be saved by a “mutually hurting stalemate” in which Houthi losses reach a point where they lose tribal support, the diplomat said, adding the group has replaced seasoned fighters lost to coalition bombs with inexperienced youth.

BLOCKADE

U.S. envoy Tim Lenderking and U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths have been touring the region for discussions to try to break the deadlock and secure a ceasefire, but so far without success.

The U.N./U.S. initiative would reopen Sanaa airport, and allow fuel and food imports through Hodeidah port, both of which are controlled by the Houthis. But the movement said last month that these steps would not go far enough.

Two people involved in the talks told Reuters the main issue now is sequencing, since the Houthis insist on a full lifting of the blockade followed by a gradual ceasefire: a halt to Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and coalition airstrikes on Yemen, and then a truce with Yemen’s government.

Coalition airstrikes are the only thing keeping Marib, home to major oil and gas fields, from falling, since Houthi forces, now 15 km (9 miles) west of the city, have more advanced weaponry than pro-government troops, military sources said.

Hundreds of fighters from both sides have been killed in the desert plain, but military and local sources say the Houthis have lost more in the war’s most deadly clashes since 2018.

The Houthis, who seized swathes of Yemen’s conventional military when they ousted the government from the capital Sanaa in late 2014, have sent thousands of fighters to the Kasara and Mushaja areas near Marib city whose terrain provides some cover, pro-government military and local sources said.

The fighting has displaced some 13,600 people in the region since February, according to the United Nations, which said four displacement camps were shut after being hit by shelling, injuring dozens and compounding overcrowding.

Marib hosts a quarter of Yemen’s four million refugees.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people in Yemen, and caused what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with millions facing famine.

But Saudi Arabia has also felt the impact of the war. It has faced a barrage of Houthi drone and missile strikes, and is seeking security guaranties along its border as it tries to contain the influence of arch-rival Iran.

‘KNOCKOUT BLOW’

Saudi and Iranian officials discussed Yemen during direct talks this month aimed at easing tensions, six years after diplomatic ties were severed, sources said.

Michael Knights, an expert on Gulf military affairs with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Saudi Arabia has enough reserves of U.S.-supplied precision-guided munitions to keep defending Marib, but time remained a factor.

The Houthis, who already control most big urban centres, have a window of time to press their offensive during hazy summer weather that reduces coalition air operations.

“If the Houthis take it, they’re going to take it in the next three months,” Knights said, adding that the group is advancing in pulses to seize ground and reinforce positions.

“The Houthis view Marib as a knockout blow. It makes them into a state with resources, a coastline, and most of the population. Whereas if you’re (Saudi-allied Yemeni president) Hadi, it knocks you out of the game,” he added.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington and Aziz El Yaakoubi in Dubai, Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Aden; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous, Editing by William Maclean)

Yemen famine could threaten opportunity for peace, U.N. warns

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A massive famine could wipe out a new opportunity, created by renewed U.S. engagement, to end the war in Yemen, top U.N. officials told the Security Council on Thursday.

U.N. Yemen mediator Martin Griffiths also called for a stop to an offensive by the Houthi movement on the government-held city of Marib, warning “the quest for territorial gain by force threatens all of the prospects of the peace process.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has made ending the conflict in Yemen a priority since taking office last month, appointing a special envoy and ending U.S. support for offensive operations by Saudi Arabia in neighboring Yemen.

“International support for ending the conflict is indispensable, and this offers us a new opportunity to reopen space for a negotiated solution,” Griffiths told the 15-member Security Council.

However, U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock then warned: “There’s an important opportunity right now to help Yemen move towards lasting peace … but that opportunity will disappear, it will be wasted, if Yemen tips into a massive famine.”

The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the people in need of help.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015, backing government forces fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis. The more than six-year-long conflict is widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Griffiths visited Tehran this month for the first time since becoming the U.N. envoy three years ago. He made no reference to his visit during his public Security Council statement.

He said the warring parties needed to immediately agree to a nationwide ceasefire, allow the unhindered flow of fuel and other commodities into Hodeidah port and permit international commercial traffic to use Sanaa airport. Griffiths said these issues had been discussed regularly for the past year.

“What is needed is simply and fundamentally the political will to end this conflict. We know need a decision,” he said.

Lowcock said some $4 billion was needed in 2021 to fund humanitarian operations as “Yemen is speeding towards the worst famine the world has seen in decades.” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Switzerland and Sweden plan to convene a pledging conference on March 1 to raise funds for Yemen.

When famine loomed in 2019, Lowcock said it was averted after the United Nations received about 90 percent of the $4 billion it requested. But last year the world body only received about $1.9 billion, about half of what it needed.

Lowcock said some 16 million people in Yemen were going hungry and 5 million of those people are “just one step away from famine.”

Some 400,000 children under the age of 5 are severely malnourished, he said. “Those children are in their last weeks and months,” he warned. “They are starving to death.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman)

U.N. envoy, Iran’s Zarif discuss how to end war in Yemen

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – United Nations Yemen mediator Martin Griffiths and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed on Monday how to make progress toward a nationwide ceasefire and reviving the political process in Yemen, a U.N. spokesman said.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015, backing government forces fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis. The more than six-year long conflict is widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is Griffiths first visit to Iran since becoming the U.N. envoy three years ago.

Zarif and Griffiths “exchanged views on Yemen and how to make progress towards a resumption of the political process,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

“Mr. Zarif and Mr. Griffiths further discussed the urgent need to make progress towards a nationwide ceasefire, the opening of Sanaa airport and the easing of restrictions on Hodeidah ports.”

He added that Griffiths welcomed Iran’s expression of support for the U.N. efforts to end the conflict in Yemen.

While Griffiths office said the visit to Iran had been planned for some time, it comes after new U.S. President Joe Biden declared last week that the war in Yemen “has to end” and said Washington would halt support for the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign against the Houthis.

The United States also said on Friday it intends to revoke its terrorist designation of the Houthis to avoid worsening Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of its people in need and millions on the verge of famine.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Alex Richardson)