Yemen's war spills into Saudi border towns

[bemildred]

NAJRAN, Saudi Arabia -- Thousands of Saudi troops are struggling to halt cross-border attacks by Yemeni rebels who fire rockets and carry out lethal ground incursions.

The Yemeni fighters have killed or captured hundreds of Saudi soldiers in a conflict that presents Saudi Arabia with a challenge to its territory. Thousands of mortar shells and crude rockets have slammed into schools, mosques and homes in Najran, a city of several hundred thousand people a few miles from the mountains of northern Yemen.

The border assaults have come in response to an air and ground war that a Saudi-led military coalition started in Yemen last year. That conflict has in turn spilled across the border with devastating consequences, said Maj. Gen. Saad Olyan, who commands more than 20,000 Saudi forces along the 1,100-mile southern border.

"Just last week, 10 of my men were killed by these militiamen on the border," he said. His forces are battling increasingly sophisticated ambushes by the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, and units from Yemen's splintered military.

http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2016/feb/25/yemen-s-war-spills-into-saudi-border-to/

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1. Yemen government says Hezbollah fighting alongside Houthis

Yemen's Gulf-backed government accused the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim militia Hezbollah on Wednesday of training Houthi forces, fighting alongside them and planning attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Yemen's government and its Gulf partners have long accused Hezbollah's ally Iran of backing the Houthis and seeking to transform the group into a replica of the Lebanese militia to use as a proxy against its main regional rival, Saudi Arabia.

Its latest assertion, in a statement carried by official media, is based on "many documents and physical evidence", found in military positions abandoned by the Houthis, which it said Hezbollah would not be able to deny.

Both Iran and Hezbollah reject accusations they have provided military aid to the Houthis.

http://in.reuters.com/article/yemen-security-idINKCN0VX23P

[EdwardBernays]

2. Good

Honestly f*ck the Saudis.

They started all of this by indescrminently bombing N Yemen. And helping the Sunnis (and al Qaeda and ISIS) kill Shia civilians.

Saudi Arabia can't collapse soon enough.

[bemildred]

8. It's coming.

Bullshit will only take you so far.

[monicaangela]

3. This horrible conflict has been

"The Saudis don't have the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capability to determine all of these targets," he said. "They've had to have had some help, and I think it probably came from us."

Arab and senior Obama administration officials tell CNN that an interagency U.S. coordination team is in Saudi Arabia. The sources said the Saudis have not specified what they want yet, but will probably ask for American air support, satellite imagery and other intelligence.

"We can help with logistics and intelligence and things like that, but there will be no military intervention by the U.S.," a senior administration official said.

No military intervention? Intelligence and interagency coordination is military intervention IMHO. And, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was involved heavily in selling arms to Saudi Arabia:

Saudi transaction is just one example of nations and companies that had donated to the Clinton Foundation seeing an increase in arms deals while Hillary Clinton oversaw the State Department. IBT found that between October 2010 and September 2012, State approved $165 billion in commercial arms sales to 20 nations that had donated to the foundation, plus another $151 billion worth of Pentagon-brokered arms deals to 16 of those countries—a 143 percent increase over the same time frame under the Bush Administration. The sales boosted the military power of authoritarian regimes such as Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, which,
like Saudi Arabia, had been criticized by the department for human rights abuses.

From the IBT investigation:

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton also accused some of these countries of failing to marshal a serious and sustained campaign to confront terrorism. In a December 2009 State Department cable published by Wikileaks, Clinton complained of "an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority." She declared that "Qatar's overall level of CT cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region." She said the Kuwaiti government was "less inclined to take action against Kuwait-based financiers and facilitators plotting attacks." She noted that "UAE-based donors have provided financial support to a variety of terrorist groups." All of these countries donated to the Clinton Foundation and received increased weapons export authorizations from the Clinton-run State Department...


In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/hillary-clinton-foundation-state-arms-dealse Saudi Arabia, had been criticized by the department for human rights abuses.

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4. MEPs: Arms embargo against Saudi Arabia over airstrikes in Yemen

The EU must impose an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia to pressure the oil-rich country to stop the shelling of civilians in Yemen.

Today, the European Parliament urged the EU High Commissioner, Federica Mogherini, “to launch an initiative aimed at imposing an EU arms embargo against Saudi Arabia.”

Saudi Arabia airstrikes in Yemen

In January, British daily, The Guardian, reported that a UN report found out that the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen performs “widespread and systematic” attack on civilians. The Guardian, obtained the 51-page UN report conducted by a panel of experts on Yemen, which was sent to the UN Security Council.

According to Guardian, in one of the key findings, the report says: “The panel documented that the coalition had conducted airstrikes targeting civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law, including camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; civilian gatherings, including weddings; civilian vehicles, including buses; civilian residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and food storage warehouses; and other essential civilian infrastructure, such as the airport in Sana’a, the port in Hudaydah and domestic transit routes.” The report added that: “The panel documented 119 coalition sorties relating to violations of international humanitarian law.”

http://neurope.eu/article/meps-call-for-an-arms-embargo-against-saudi-arabia-over-airstrikes-in-yemen/

[bemildred]

5. Warship hit by Houthi missile off Yemeni coast

The missile force of the Houthi rebels and allies have managed to destroyed a warship belonging to the Saudi-led coalition off Khokha coast of Hodeidah province.

A military official told SABA that the missile force targeted the hostile battleship on Tuesday while it was trying to advance towards the coast of al-Faza area in Khokha district.

He explained that the missile bombing hit the warship accurately and flames were seen rising from it and violent explosions were heard.

Saudi-backed Apache helicopters were intensively flying over the district after targeting the warship, the official added.

http://www.albawaba.com/news/warship-hit-houthi-missile-yemeni-coast-810018

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6. Yemeni Missile Kills 54 Saudi Troops in Jawf

TEHRAN (FNA)- Yemeni forces on Wednesday killed at least 54 Saudi troops, including commanders, in a ballistic missile attack in the northern Jawf province, said the country’s Defense Ministry.

The Yemeni Army, backed by Popular Committees loyal to the Ansarullah movement, targeted a Saudi military installation in Beir al-Maraziq region with a Qaher-1 ballistic missile in the early hours of Wednesday.

A large number of Saudi forces also sustained injuries in the attack.

The Yemeni surface-to-surface missile also destroyed a number of military equipment of the installation and inflicted heavy damage on its infrastructure.

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941206000542

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7. UAE troops leave Aden as airport is shut, Yemeni officials say

PanARMENIAN.Net - Yemeni officials say troops from the United Arab Emirates pulled out of the airport in the southern city of Aden, a day after it was stormed by disgruntled pro-government fighters from the country's south, the Associated Press reports.

The officials say the Emiratis pulled out on Wednesday, February 24.

The authorities then shut the airport, the country's main air hub for the internationally recognized government and the Saudi-led coalition, which is helping the government forces fight Shiite rebels in the north. The UAE forces are part of the anti-rebel coalition.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/206817/

[KoKo]

9. You warned of this way back...

remember?

I'm having a hard time keeping up with all of it and the politics in U.S. at same time...and thank you for all your posts! I'm torn because I think our "Foreign Affairs" may be more important than the latest Trash Talk from this election year, in the end. I should just spend the time here rather than dealing with the rest.

Yet....who will take the legacy of Bush/Cheney (and those before with PNAC) forward is important, also.

[bemildred]

10. Yes.

It is very messy. Sometimes I have to let it go. It's not like it depends on us much.

But as you must have noticed these things drag on for a long time, it is not neat and sized to fit between dinner and bedtime like a movie.

So you don't have to pay close attention all the time, but you do have to pay close attention, and you do have to see that they are all unreliable narrators, biased observers if not outright propagandists.

And most of them are confused too. It is amazing to me how often politicans accomplish the opposite of what they set out to do. It's almost a law, but every so often one comes along and displays real control for a while. Then they get a swelled head and do something stupid and then next buffoon comes along and it's business and usual, corrupt and just functional enough to keep the public at bay.

You notice how 5 months along since Putin jumped in and everybody is coalescing around the idea "You know, we really need to end this fucking war?"