Category Archives: Yemen

Qassim al-Rimi: US forces killed al-Qaida leader in Yemen, Trump confirms

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Al-Rimi had claimed responsibility for a shooting at a Florida naval base, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors

Donald Trump confirmed on Thursday that a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen killed Qassim al-Rimi, an al-Qaida leader who claimed responsibility for last year’s deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors.

Unconfirmed reports of his death, including indicative tweets from the president, have been circulating since 31 January, but the neither the Department of Defense nor the CIA had issued official confirmation.

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Trump appears to confirm killing of al-Qaida leader in Yemen

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  • New York Times reports Qassim al-Rimi of AQAP believed dead
  • President retweets intelligence analyst and reporter

Donald Trump appeared on Saturday to confirm the death of Qassim al-Rimi, the leader of an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen, through a series of tweets.

Related: Yemeni terror chief warns US: 'Your security has broken away'

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Africa is humanitarian ‘blind spot’: the world’s top 10 forgotten crises – report

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Climate emergency is fuelling drought, food poverty and disaster in the global south but humanitarian crises under-reported

The African continent is a “blind spot” for coverage of the humanitarian crises that are being fuelled by the climate emergency, according to a new analysis [pdf].

Madagascar’s chronic food crisis, where 2.6 million people were affected by drought in 2019, came top of the list of 10 of the most under-reported crises last year, Care International’s annual survey found.

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Yemen rise in violence threatens to derail peace moves, UN warns

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Special envoy calls for emergency meeting of security council as violence flares

The sudden surge in violence in Yemen could scupper fragile moves towards a peace settlement, the UN’s special envoy for the country has said.

“We have to get the genie back in the bottle,” said Martin Griffiths. “Whoever started this renewed violence, it is unequivocally the case that there has been a huge rupture of confidence and a huge loss of life for the sake of uncertain territorial gains.”

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Britain must be held to account for its role in the war in Yemen

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As the death toll in Yemen passes 100,000, questions must be asked about UK arms exports to the Saudi-led coalition

As British politics reverberates with the results of the general election and Brexit approaches, the announcement from researchers that the death toll in the war in Yemen now exceeds 100,000 went unnoticed in the mainstream press at the end of last year.

With heightened US-Iranian hostility after the US government’s killing of Qassem Suleimani, the prospects for the war in Yemen look increasingly bleak.

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Houthi rebels kill at least 70 Yemeni soldiers in missile attack on mosque

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Military sources say the attack came during evening prayers at a military base in Yemen’s Marib province

Houthi rebels have killed at least 70 Yemeni soldiers in a missile attack on a mosque in the central province of Marib, according to medical and military sources.

The Houthis attacked a mosque in a military camp in Marib – about 170km (105 miles) east of Sanaa – during evening prayers on Saturday, military sources said.

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One in four countries beset by civil strife as global unrest soars

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Researchers predict worldwide turmoil will continue in 2020, with Venezuela, Iran and Libya at greatest risk

A quarter of all countries experienced a dramatic surge in civil unrest last year in a worrying trend that is likely to continue into 2020, researchers have found.

Verisk Maplecroft, a leading risk analysis and strategic forecasting company, said in a report published on Thursday that 47 countries experienced a significant rise in the number of protests over the course of the past year. Hong Kong, Chile, Nigeria, Sudan, Haiti and Lebanon were among the states affected.

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Yemen heads list of countries facing worst humanitarian disasters in 2020

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Venezuela also in top five as IRC’s David Miliband warns of devastating impact from war, floods, droughts and disease

Yemen has topped an annual watchlist of countries most likely to face humanitarian catastrophe in 2020, for the second year running.

Continued fighting, economic collapse and weak governance mean that more than 24 million Yemenis – about 80% of the population – will be in need of humanitarian assistance this year, according to analysis by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which found that another five years of conflict could cost $29bn (£22bn).

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Failure to end civil war in Yemen now could cost $29bn

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NGO warns conflict may drag on for five years if current peace efforts fail

A failure to capture the present rare chance for peace in Yemen may potentially cost the international community $29bn (£22bn) in further humanitarian aid if the current civil war continues for another five years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns on Monday in a new report.

It is also likely to prolong Yemen’s inability to return to pre-crisis levels of hunger by 20 years just as famine conditions are improving.

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Reopening Sana’a airport ‘critical first step’ for Yemenis needing medical care

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Patients requiring life-saving treatment to be allowed to fly, but aid agencies say imports of medicine and humanitarian aid crucial

Aid agencies have welcomed news from the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that it will allow some flights out of Houthi-held Sana’a, for Yemeni civilians requiring life-saving medical treatment.

As many as 32,000 people in need of overseas medical care may have died since the airport closed to commercial flights in August 2016, according to ministry of health estimates. The figures have not been verified independently, but in 2017 the UN estimated that up to 20,000 people had been denied access to potentially life-saving healthcare due to restrictions on airspace.

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Yemen government signs power-sharing deal with separatists

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Deal aims to create cohesive government capable of challenging Houthi forces

Yemen’s UN-recognised government has signed a Saudi Arabian-brokered power sharing agreement with separatists in the south of the countryafter months of fighting in the area.

The deal aims to create a new, cohesive government capable of challenging the Iranian-backed Houthi forces that control the capital, Sana’a, and the north.

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‘Manhattan of the desert’: civil war puts Yemen’s ancient skyscrapers at risk

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In addition to the conflict’s huge human cost, Yemen’s rich cultural heritage has been ravaged, from the Queen of Sheba’s reputed throne room to the mudbrick high-rises of Shibam

On the edge of the vast Empty Quarter desert that dominates the Arabian peninsula, white and brown towers rise together out of the valley floor like tall sandcastles. Once they welcomed weary caravans traversing the Silk Roads: now they stand as testimony to the ingenuity of a lost civilisation.

This is the ancient walled city of Shibam, nicknamed the “Manhattan of the desert” by the British explorer Freya Stark in the 1930s, in modern-day Yemen, a country also home to an untold number of other archeological treasures. The kingdom of Saba, ruled by the legendary Queen of Sheba, and many other dynasties of the ancient world rose and fell here, their fortunes linked to Yemen’s position at the crossroads of early frankincense and spice trades between Africa and Asia.

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A father’s grief and the Made in USA bomb dropped in Yemen

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Cluster bomb, a type of munition invented by the Nazis to kill as many as possible, used in coalition strike on farm that killed Raja, 14

The last day of 14-year-old Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud’s life began like any other.

She got up early along with the rest of the family because there was always a lot of work to do on the farm in the spring planting season. White drones had intermittently circled above their cornfields for the last few weeks, but there was no sign of them that morning.

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UK stance on Khashoggi murder betrayed by unlawful arms sales to Saudis

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The UK government’s continued loyalty to Saudi Arabia is causing its ‘rigorous and robust’ arms export control regime to descend into tatters

Wednesday marked the anniversary of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Outrage at his death at the time served as a trigger for public reckoning over US and UK support for Saudi Arabia and its involvement in the war in Yemen.

At that point, the war was three and a half years old, notable for airstrike attacks on civilians and a blockade that has pushed millions into famine – violations of international law, some of which that may amount to war crimes. The murder of a prominent western-friendly journalist seemed to be the final straw.

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Yemen: Aden’s changing alliances erupt into four-year conflict’s newest front

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Fighting in the south between separatists and government forces points to why peace is even more elusive

Every soldier in the Yemeni city of Aden is on edge. The main checkpoint on the coastal road has two large holes in the roof from mortar shells and the beach has been dug up into berms to slow the advance of any hostile vehicles.

The problem is that the 25 men milling around their posts are not sure what their enemy looks like. In the recent fighting which saw the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) eject from the city troops loyal to the exiled Yemeni president – their former allies – al-Qaida took advantage of the chaos, putting on STC uniforms to ambush the soldiers here.

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Houthis claim to have killed 500 Saudi soldiers in major attack

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Yemen militant group says it captured further 2,000 troops in operation in Saudi Arabia

Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have killed 500 Saudi soldiers, captured a further 2,000 and seized a convoy of Saudi military vehicles.

The extraordinary claims at a press conference on Sunday, involving still photographs and inconclusive videos of captured soldiers, many not in uniform, could not be corroborated, and there was no independent confirmation from Saudi Arabia.

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UN Yemen envoy welcomes Houthi offer to halt attacks on Saudi Arabia

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Proposal by Iran-backed rebels ‘could send message of the will to end the war,’ says Martin Griffiths

The United Nations envoy for Yemen has welcomed an offer from the country’s Houthi rebels to halt all attacks on Saudi Arabia, saying it could bring an end to years of bloody conflict.

Implementation of the initiative by the Houthis “in good faith could send a powerful message of the will to end the war,” special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said.

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Iran threatens ‘all-out war’ if action taken over Saudi oil strike

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Foreign minister’s comments further inflame tensions in Persian Gulf after oil attacks

Iran’s foreign minister has warned that any attack on his country after a series of missile strikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry would result in “all-out war”.

Javad Zarif also demanded that Riyadh hand over the evidence that it claimed proved the attack came from Iran, and not from Houthi-occupied Yemen.

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Middle East drones signal end to era of fast jet air supremacy

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Tiny, cheap, unmanned and hard-to-detect aircraft are transforming conflicts across region

In the history of modern warfare, “own the skies, win the war” has been a constant maxim. Countries with the best technology and biggest budgets have devoted tens of billions to building modern air forces, confident they will continue to give their militaries primacy in almost any conflict.

Tiny, cheap, unmanned aircraft have changed that, especially over the battlefields of the Middle East. In the past three months alone, drones have made quite an impact in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and possibly now Saudi Arabia, where half the country’s oil production - and up to 7% of the world’s global supply – has been taken offline by a blitz that caused no air raid sirens and seems to have eluded the region’s most advanced air warning systems.

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Everything you need to know about the Saudi Arabia oil attacks

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Saturday’s drone attacks severely disrupted global energy infrastructure and sent oil price soaring

Saudi pipelines, oil installations and tankers have occasionally been attacked over the past two years, but analysts say what happened in eastern Saudi Arabia in the early hours of Saturday morning is a much larger escalation: a hit to the jugular of the kingdom’s oil industry.

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