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Yemen is turning into Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam

Fighters loyal to Yemen’s government celebrate after receiving three armored personnel carriers from the United Arab Emirates in the southwestern city of Taiz. (Reuters) BEIRUT — Eight months after launching a war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia appears trapped in a protracted and devastating conflict that is straining relations with its allies, intensifying internal power struggles and emboldening its regional rival, Iran, analysts say. Since March, the key U.S. ally has led a coalition of mostly Gulf Arab countries and Yemeni fighters in a military campaign to drive out Iranian-aligned rebels who seized the capital, Sanaa, and swaths of the Arabian Peninsula country. But the coalition appears increasingly hobbled by divisions and unable to find a face-saving way to end the costly conflict. The rebels, known as Houthis, still control much of Yemen’s north. And in southern areas where the coalition has driven them out, lawlessness has spread as attacks […]

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New cyclone heading for Yemen: UN

. View gallery The UN said up to 44,000 people had already been displaced by Tropical Cyclone Chapala Geneva (AFP) – The UN weather agency warned Friday that another rare cyclone was heading towards war-ravaged Yemen which would bring more rain to areas already badly battered by cyclone Chapala. The new storm, named Megh, is brewing in the Arabian Sea and is expected to intensify into "a severe cyclonic storm" over the next 24 hours, with wind speeds of up to 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. Megh is not as powerful a Chapala, which killed eight people in southeastern Yemen this week, but is expected to slam into or pass close to the country’s already badly hit Arabian Sea island of Socotra on Sunday, WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis told AFP. From Socotra, the storm is expected to weaken into a low pressure […]

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Saudis Seek to Fend Off U.N. Inquiry on Yemen

GENEVA — As Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies pressed their military offensive against Houthi rebels in Yemen , Saudi diplomats were waging their own battle to fend off calls in the United Nations Human Rights Council for an international inquiry into abuses by all parties to the Yemeni conflict. Those calls came in a council resolution submitted Thursday by the Netherlands , with support from a group of mainly Western countries, that requests the United Nations high commissioner for human rights send a mission to Yemen. The Dutch resolution draws on deepening international alarm over the civilian toll inflicted by both sides in the conflict and the effect of a blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition that has delayed delivery of humanitarian aid, including medicine and the fuel needed to keep the dwindling number of hospitals operating. At least 1,527 civilians were killed and an additional 3,548 injured […]

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Saudi-led offensive in Yemen faces dangerous new phase

Supporters of the Houthi rebel movement at a rally to protest a military offensive by the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s ousted president, Aug. 24, 2015, in Sanaa. Mohammed Huwais / AFP / Getty Images ADEN, Yemen — When young garage mechanic Aidaroos Saleh heard the familiar ping of his smartphone, he could never have imagined the journey on which the incoming message would take him. In a matter of weeks, Saleh, 22, went from fixing cars in his adopted country of Saudi Arabia to the battle front of his southern Yemen homeland. The message was an official communication, a call to arms for Yemenis in Saudi Arabia to join a fighting force that would “defend Aden” — the southern Yemeni city that descended into civil war in mid-March. Four months after he responded to the message in April, the young fighter sat cradling an AK-47 assault rifle between his […]

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Coalition strikes Yemen capital, more foreign troops reported arriving

A Saudi-led alliance launched more air strikes on Yemen’s capital and more foreign troops were reported to be moving into the country as the campaign to rout Houthi forces intensified. The Houthi-run state news agency Saba said that 15 citizens were killed and 77 were wounded in the attacks by warplanes on Sanaa. Medical sources said at least 15 civilians were killed in similar attacks on Monday. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the figures. The alliance, made up mainly of Gulf Arab countries, has increased air strikes on Sanaa and other parts of the country since Friday, when a Houthi missile attack killed at least 60 Saudi, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates soldiers at a military camp east of Sanaa. They were part of a force preparing to assault the capital, which the Iranian-allied Houthis seized last September. Friday’s attack was the deadliest yet for Gulf […]

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Gulf Arabs Expand Yemen Ground War as More Troops Enter Country

The city Sana’a in Yemen Gulf Arab nations are expanding the ground war in Yemen, pouring more troops into the country to defeat Houthi rebels they say are backed by regional rival Iran. About 1,000 troops from Qatar entered the country on Sunday from the Wadia post on Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen, the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera television reported. The soldiers, backed by armored vehicles, missiles and missile launchers, were headed to the oil-rich central Marib province, Al Jazeera said, citing its corresponding at the border. The reinforcements arrived after 45 troops from the United Arab Emirates and 10 Saudi soldiers were killed in Marib on Friday in the worst setback for the coalition since the Saudi-led military campaign started in March. Bahrain, another member of the coalition, said five of its soldiers were also killed defending Saudi Arabia’s southern border. Expanding the ground war carries a “huge risk […]

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Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen ramp up as allies push north

AP Photo/Hani Mohammed SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels in Yemen doubled its near-daily airstrikes Monday in the central province of Marib and the adjacent border area of Jawf, in order to allow allies on the ground to push north toward insurgent strongholds, authorities said. Marib’s pro-government forces also received major reinforcements, including hundreds of Saudi-trained troops, ambulances and armored personnel carriers manned by Saudi and Emirati soldiers, pro-government officials said. The forces aim to take Saada, the main northern stronghold of the Houthi rebels, they added. Yemen’s conflict pits the Iran-allied Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against an array of forces including southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni Islamic militants as well as troops loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Pro-government forces recently pushed the Houthis out of several key southern areas. Meanwhile, in Yemen’s third-largest city, […]

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Al Qaeda Fighters Try to Seize Yemeni Military Base in Aden

In Their Own Words Children are terrified by noises. Finding food is a challenge. There’s rarely power. Many people in Yemen and beyond dream of an end to the fighting. The Many Miseries of Yemeni Families MARCH 1, 2015 MAHRA, Yemen — Dozens of fighters belonging to Al Qaeda ’s Yemeni affiliate briefly tried to seize control of a military base and the presidential palace in the port city of Aden before suddenly withdrawing on Sunday, according to local fighters and a senior military official in the city. By Sunday afternoon, there were no signs of Qaeda militants in Tawahi, the neighborhood surrounding the palace. But their appearance, however fleeting, was an embarrassing setback for the exiled government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which had described its success in securing Aden as a major victory in its war with the Houthi rebels. The government, which is backed by […]

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Yemen conflict: Country on brink of famine, says UN official

More than 21 million people in Yemen are in need of help, according to the UN Months of conflict in Yemen has pushed the country to the brink of famine, according to a top United Nations official. Ertharin Cousin, head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), said markets in the country do not have enough food to feed the population. Aid agencies are also unable to reach areas of need because of the ongoing violence, she added. The WFP estimates that nearly 13 million people urgently require help. The conflict has involved Houthi rebel fighters clashing in many places with forces loyal to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and its allies. ‘Perfect storm’ Ms Cousin, who was speaking in Cairo after a three-day trip to Yemen, said fighting around the major ports is stalling deliveries of aid. She said Yemen faced the "perfect storm" because those people most in […]

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Saudi-led coalition bombs Yemen ‘aid port’ Hodeida

Jets from a Saudi-led coalition targeted rebel Houthi positions in Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeida early on Tuesday, port officials said, destroying cranes and warehouses at a main import hub for critical aid supplies to the country’s north. There were also clashes further south overnight in Yemen’s third city, Taiz, Arab television stations reported, as local groups opposed to the Houthis attempted to consolidate recent advances to take the city. As well as retaining a foothold in Taiz, the Houthis and allied army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh control the northern highlands and Red Sea coastal plain as far south as Ibb, where coalition-backed forces advanced last week. Ibb is around 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Taiz and 200 kilometers southeast of Hodeida. The port, which lies almost due west of the capital Sanaa, has become a focal point of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, which […]

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