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Yemen war clouds raise dangers for top oil shipping route

LONDON (Reuters) – Conflict in Yemen risks spilling out into the busy sea lanes that pass it and potentially disrupt the narrow Bab el-Mandeb passage through which nearly 4 million barrels of oil are shipped daily to Europe, the United States and Asia. Oil prices rose as much as 6 percent on Thursday after neighboring Saudi Arabia and its allies launched air strikes on Yemen that targeted Iran-backed Houthi rebels fighting to oust Yemen’s president. The development is a gamble by the world’s top oil exporter to check Iranian influence in its backyard. "The collapse of Yemen as a political reality and the power of the Houthis will enable Iran to expand its presence on both sides of the Bab el-Mandeb, in the Gulf of Aden and in the Red Sea. Already discrete numbers of Iranian naval vessels regularly sail these waters," J. Peter Pham of U.S. think tank […]

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Yemen Houthis respond to Sana’a air raids with rocket attacks

People search for survivors on Thursday after an air strike near Sana’a airport Houthi rebels say they have responded to Saudi Arabia-led air strikes on Sana’a, the Yemen capital, by launching rockets across the northern border into the oil-rich kingdom, as civil conflict threatens to escalate into a regional war. Saudi Arabia, backed by a 10-country Muslim coalition, launched the air strikes early on Thursday against targets in Houthi-controlled Sana’a, including the airport and a military air base. News of the strikes and retaliation triggered a surge in the price of crude oil . Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose $2.89, or 5.1 per cent, to $59.37 while West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, also rose, up $3.01 to $52.22 a barrel. It had reached $52.48 a barrel in earlier trading. Although the attack is not expected to cause any major disruption, the narrow waters between Yemen and Djibouti […]

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Why Bombing This Tiny Oil Producer Is Roiling the Energy Market

(Bloomberg) — While Yemen contributes less than 0.2 percent of global oil output, its location puts it near the center of world energy trade. The nation shares a border with Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, and sits on one side of a shipping chokepoint used by crude tankers heading West from the Persian Gulf. Global oil prices jumped more than 5 percent on Thursday after regional powers began bombing rebel targets in the country that produced less than Denmark in 2013. Yemen’s government collapsed in the face of an offensive by rebels known as Houthis, prompting airstrikes led by Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The Gulf’s main Sunni Muslim power says the Houthis are tools of its Shiite rival Iran, another OPEC member, and has vowed to do what’s necessary to halt their advance. “While thousands of barrels of oil […]

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Exclusive: Saudi Arabia building up military near Yemen border – U.S. officials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict. The buildup follows a southward advance by Iranian-backed Houthi Shi’ite militants who took control of the capital Sanaa in September and seized the central city of Taiz at the weekend as they move closer to the new southern base of U.S.-supported President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The slide toward war in Yemen has made the country a crucial front in Saudi Arabia’s region-wide rivalry with Iran, which Riyadh accuses of sowing sectarian strife through its support for the Houthis. The conflict risks spiraling into a proxy war with Shi’ite Iran backing the Houthis, whose leaders adhere to the Zaydi sect of Shi’ite Islam, and Saudi Arabia and the […]

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Oil Companies Begin to Give Up on Yemen

A Houthi fighter in front of the U.S. Embassy in San’a, Yemen’s capital. ENLARGE Photo: Associated Press The political upheaval in Yemen has dealt a powerful blow to the country’s oil industry, forcing companies to abandon productive oil patches and evacuate staff as a rebel group consolidates power. Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. , which has been operating in Yemen for nearly three decades, flew its staff out of the country in January, executives and local officials said, after gunmen stormed its compound in the capital, San’a, where Houthi militants have tightened their grip on power. Since then, executives and local officials said, Norway’s DNO AS A, Dove Energy Group of Dubai and Nexen Inc., which is owned by China’s Cnooc Ltd. , are all moving to relinquish their rights to blocks that produce thousands of barrels of crude a day. Meanwhile, Austrian energy company OMV AG , which produces […]

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Yemen clashes kill 26 as embassy closures continue

SANAA (Reuters) – Clashes between Shi’ite Houthi militiamen and Sunni tribesmen fighting alongside Al Qaeda militants killed 26 people in Yemen, local officials said, as the United Arab Emirates joined Saudi Arabia and Western countries in closing its embassy in the country. Heavy fighting was ongoing in the southern mountainous province of al-Bayda, leading to the death of 16 Houthi rebels along with 10 Sunni tribesmen and militants, security officials and tribal sources told Reuters. The state faces collapse in Yemen two weeks after the Houthi group took formal control of the country and continued an armed push southward. France, the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy and Saudi Arabia have closed their missions in the capital Sanaa and withdrawn staff, citing security concerns. The United Arab Emirates announced the closure of its embassy in Sanaa on Saturday, state news agency WAM said. It cited "the increasing deterioration of the […]

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Shiite rebels take power in Yemen, fan fears of civil war

AP Photo/Hani Mohammed World Video Latest News Buy AP Photo Reprints SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen’s Shiite rebels proclaimed a formal takeover of the Arab nation Friday, dissolving parliament in a dramatic move that completes their power grab in the region’s poorest nation where an al-Qaida terrorist offshoot flourishes. Angry demonstrators protested the rebels’ move in street rallies in several cities, raising fears of a full-blown sectarian conflict between Yemen’s new Shiite tribal rulers, known as Houthis, and the disenfranchised Sunni majority. The unrest could strengthen Yemen’s al-Qaida branch, considered the world’s most dangerous wing of the terror movement, and complicate U.S. counter-terrorism operations in Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor. While Houthi rebels are bitter enemies to al-Qaida, they also are hostile to the United States, and frosty to the predominantly Sunni Saudis. The region’s Shiite powerhouse, Iran, looms as a potential key backer. White House spokesman Eric Schultz said […]

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Shiite rebels violently disperse demonstrators in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Shiite rebels armed with knives and batons have attacked and detained demonstrators trying to protest against them in Yemen’s capital. The Houthi rebels seized Sanaa in September and last week put the president, prime minister and top Cabinet members under house arrest. On Monday, Houthi militiamen attacked protesters and journalists at Sanaa’s Change Square. It wasn’t clear how many people they detained, though witnesses said they saw rebels attack those gathered there. Last week, the standoff in the capital grew violent and Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi resigned as the country’s president. His Cabinet also resigned, though parliament has yet to accept their resignations. In the time since, demonstrations against the Houthis have grown across the country.

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Yemen risks disintegration as south rejects Shi’ite group’s takeover

SANAA (Reuters) – No sooner had Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced his resignation than his country’s tenuous political fabric began to disintegrate.     Provinces across a nation barely held together by a complex web of tribal and religious alliances said they would no longer take military commands from Sanaa after the Iranian-allied Shi’ite Houthi group besieged Hadi’s home and palace this week. The emerging fragmentation of the Arabian Peninsula country has sparked fears of the "Somalization" of a state which is home to a revitalized al Qaeda insurgency as well as a neighbor to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.     For Washington, Yemen’s splintering would make it hard to carry out a counter-terrorism strategy against al Qaeda plotters who have targeted it and its ally Saudi Arabia and claimed responsibility for the Jan. 7 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. Through Hadi, a supporter of U.S. drone […]

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U.S. pulls more staff from Yemen embassy amid deepening crisis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has pulled more staff out of its embassy in Yemen, U.S. officials said on Thursday as Washington scrambled to cope with the collapse of a government that had been a key ally in the fight against al Qaeda. The scaling down of its presence in Yemen is the first sign that the latest turmoil there will affect U.S operations in a country that President Barack Obama hailed just four months ago as a model for “successful” counter-terrorism partnerships. The U.S. diplomatic contingent in Sanaa was drawn down due to the deteriorating security situation in the Yemeni capital, the officials said. They insisted there were no plans to close the embassy, which could been seen as erosion of U.S. resolve in counter-terrorism operations in the volatile Arab country. However, current and former U.S. officials say the chaos engulfing Yemen has already threatened the administration’s […]

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