No End in Sight to the U.S.-Coordinated Saudi-GCC War Against Yemen
Mosques attacks and aerial bombings cannot mask Washington’s failures in the region
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Another Shiite mosque was bombed in Saudi Arabia on May 29 coupled with the continuing airstrikes throughout the country.
This was the second week running that attacks on religious institutions have occurred. The war in Yemen is over whether the people of the country, the most underdeveloped in the region, can achieve and maintain its right to self-determination and sovereignty.
United States designs on controlling the Yemeni people along with their land and waterways have been a major focus of Washington and Wall Street for many years. The withdrawal in March of Pentagon Special Forces and State Department personnel signaled the military aggressive actions on the part of the Saudi Arabian and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regimes which take their foreign policy initiative from imperialism.
Clashes Intensify in War for Control
On May 31 aircraft from the Saudi-GCC alliance struck Yemeni positions throughout the country, people on the ground said. The aerial bombardments hit what was said to have been an air base near Sanaa airport and a military outpost supposedly working with the Ansurallah.
There were renewed bombing operations as well in the areas overlooking the presidential palace compound in the capital Sanaa.
Yemeni television network al-Masira, which is allied with the Houthi Movement, said the Saudi-GCC coalition had carried out 25 bombing missions in the provinces of Saada and Hajja very close to the monarchy’s border. Additional reports said Saudi ground forces were shelling the same areas.
People living in Saada told Reuters press agency that territory held by the Ansurallah were bombed intensively by war planes, although Saudi officials did not confirm these attacks.
Periodically on May 30-31 there were renewed heavy artillery clashes along Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia as the war enters an even more deadly and protracted phase.
Al-Masuri TV ran news reports saying that the Ansruallah had discharged 20 rockets at Saudi Arabia's border city of Najran on May 30. A video was broadcast over the network showing Ansurallah fighters firing shells at a Saudi border position.
A Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman reported that a border guard was killed and seven others were wounded on May 30 in the Najran region by rocket attacks emanating from inside Yemen.
In the central regional city of Taiz, which has been a major center of armed struggle between the Saudi-backed Hadi militias and the Ansurallah, the Saudi-led coalition air strikes on these forces were centered in a mountaintop area and a nearby Special Forces base.
There were also recent claims that during the month of April the Saudi-GCC war planes utilized cluster bombs in the region of Saada in the northwest of the country. Human Rights Watch (HRW) asserted that these weapons, which are controversial and banned in various countries, were used against civilian populations.
According to a statement issued by HRW senior researcher Ole Solvang, "These weapons can't distinguish military targets from civilians, and their unexploded sub-munitions threaten civilians, especially children, even long after the fighting.”
Saudi government officials did not provide any response to these allegations.
Meanwhile earlier on May 27, many people were reported killed in fighting along the border between the Ansurallah and Saudi military units. These clashes combined with airstrikes from the U.S.-backed alliance, were directed at the Bakeel al-Meer area in Hajjah province across Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen. Reports say that an estimated 40 people were killed, with the majority of them being civilians.
Local fighters working with the Houthis have been engaging Saudi ground forces in the area and clashes on the border have intensified the war by taking it into the Saudi Kingdom.
One resident told Reuters that "Houthi gunmen were attacking Saudi border positions from this area but the coalition's planes have not hit the Ansurallah and bombed civilians (instead).”
It was reported later on May 27 that Saudi-GCC air strikes on a Yemeni Special Forces base took place against allies of the Ansurallah in central Sanaa, the state news agency Saba wrote based on the accounts conveyed by area residents. "Around 40 people were martyred and more than 100 others were wounded, according to a preliminary toll, in the bombing operations executed by the Saudi aggression's planes on the Sabaaeen area in the capital Sanaa today.” (Saba, May 27)
Meanwhile on May 27 as well the Red Sea port city of Hodeida which contains a naval base was hit by the Saudi-GCC bombers.
Reuters reported "The naval base was bombed by aircraft and ships. Large parts of it were destroyed and two warships were hit, and one of them, named the Bilqis, was destroyed and sank onto its side, and five gunboats shelled the administrative buildings of the base.” (May 27)
Bombings also continued against Shiite mosques in eastern Saudi Arabia, the second of such incidents in one week. On May 29 during prayers a car bomb exploded at the entrance of the religious institution in Dammam.
News reports said the al-Anoud mosque was hit resulting in 21 people being killed and 120 others injured in what is being described as the most violent of such attacks in Saudi Arabia in years. Just one week earlier a similar attack took place in Qatif.
United Nations Efforts Fail Amid Reports of U.S.-Houthi Talks in Oman
The failure of UN plans for the convening of peace talks to resolve the war in Yemen illustrates the unwillingness of the U.S.-backed forces to negotiate a political settlement. This war represents a further escalation of Washington’s imperialist efforts in the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden.
Nonetheless, on June 1, there were reports from the Yemeni ousted regime of fugitive President Abd-Rabbu Hadi that talks were held in Oman between representatives of the Ansurallah movement and U.S. governmental officials. "We have been informed that there are meetings, at American request, and that a private American plane carried the Houthis to Muscat," Rajeh Badi, who is described as a spokesman for Yemen's government in exile told the international press. (Reuters, June 1)
The representatives of the ousted President Hadi are not involved in the discussions, Badi told the media.
This meeting if confirmed represents the first talks between the Ansurallah and Washington envoys. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are supplying war materials and recognizance information to the Saudi-GCC forces in their bombing and ground campaign against Yemen for over two months.
Oman is reported not to be participating in the coalition now bombing Yemen. The latest UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of the North African state of Mauritania, has revealed indirect talks are taking place in Muscat.
The U.S. and its Saudi-GCC allies view the war as an effort to contain and lessen the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Arabian Peninsula. Even though Washington has participated in talks with Tehran over its nuclear program, the administration of President Barack Obama has not altered the decades-long hostility towards Iran since the revolution of 1979 which toppled the regime of the Shah.
Saudi Foreign Minister Abdel Al-Jubeir told i24 News TV that "We refuse Iran's actions, the instigating actions that Iran is taking, the negative actions and its support of terrorism. We are looking forward for the day when we can build strong relations with Iran. However, this depends on Iran's behavior and whether it stops intervening in the region's affairs, stops supporting terrorism, stops taking procedures that harm the region's interest and the people's interest. So this is in Iran's hands. The improvement and fortification of the relationship with Iran is up to Iran however we will not be silent and stand still over Iran's intervention in the region.” (June 1)
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Another Shiite mosque was bombed in Saudi Arabia on May 29 coupled with the continuing airstrikes throughout the country.
This was the second week running that attacks on religious institutions have occurred. The war in Yemen is over whether the people of the country, the most underdeveloped in the region, can achieve and maintain its right to self-determination and sovereignty.
United States designs on controlling the Yemeni people along with their land and waterways have been a major focus of Washington and Wall Street for many years. The withdrawal in March of Pentagon Special Forces and State Department personnel signaled the military aggressive actions on the part of the Saudi Arabian and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regimes which take their foreign policy initiative from imperialism.
Clashes Intensify in War for Control
On May 31 aircraft from the Saudi-GCC alliance struck Yemeni positions throughout the country, people on the ground said. The aerial bombardments hit what was said to have been an air base near Sanaa airport and a military outpost supposedly working with the Ansurallah.
There were renewed bombing operations as well in the areas overlooking the presidential palace compound in the capital Sanaa.
Yemeni television network al-Masira, which is allied with the Houthi Movement, said the Saudi-GCC coalition had carried out 25 bombing missions in the provinces of Saada and Hajja very close to the monarchy’s border. Additional reports said Saudi ground forces were shelling the same areas.
People living in Saada told Reuters press agency that territory held by the Ansurallah were bombed intensively by war planes, although Saudi officials did not confirm these attacks.
Periodically on May 30-31 there were renewed heavy artillery clashes along Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia as the war enters an even more deadly and protracted phase.
Al-Masuri TV ran news reports saying that the Ansruallah had discharged 20 rockets at Saudi Arabia's border city of Najran on May 30. A video was broadcast over the network showing Ansurallah fighters firing shells at a Saudi border position.
A Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman reported that a border guard was killed and seven others were wounded on May 30 in the Najran region by rocket attacks emanating from inside Yemen.
In the central regional city of Taiz, which has been a major center of armed struggle between the Saudi-backed Hadi militias and the Ansurallah, the Saudi-led coalition air strikes on these forces were centered in a mountaintop area and a nearby Special Forces base.
There were also recent claims that during the month of April the Saudi-GCC war planes utilized cluster bombs in the region of Saada in the northwest of the country. Human Rights Watch (HRW) asserted that these weapons, which are controversial and banned in various countries, were used against civilian populations.
According to a statement issued by HRW senior researcher Ole Solvang, "These weapons can't distinguish military targets from civilians, and their unexploded sub-munitions threaten civilians, especially children, even long after the fighting.”
Saudi government officials did not provide any response to these allegations.
Meanwhile earlier on May 27, many people were reported killed in fighting along the border between the Ansurallah and Saudi military units. These clashes combined with airstrikes from the U.S.-backed alliance, were directed at the Bakeel al-Meer area in Hajjah province across Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen. Reports say that an estimated 40 people were killed, with the majority of them being civilians.
Local fighters working with the Houthis have been engaging Saudi ground forces in the area and clashes on the border have intensified the war by taking it into the Saudi Kingdom.
One resident told Reuters that "Houthi gunmen were attacking Saudi border positions from this area but the coalition's planes have not hit the Ansurallah and bombed civilians (instead).”
It was reported later on May 27 that Saudi-GCC air strikes on a Yemeni Special Forces base took place against allies of the Ansurallah in central Sanaa, the state news agency Saba wrote based on the accounts conveyed by area residents. "Around 40 people were martyred and more than 100 others were wounded, according to a preliminary toll, in the bombing operations executed by the Saudi aggression's planes on the Sabaaeen area in the capital Sanaa today.” (Saba, May 27)
Meanwhile on May 27 as well the Red Sea port city of Hodeida which contains a naval base was hit by the Saudi-GCC bombers.
Reuters reported "The naval base was bombed by aircraft and ships. Large parts of it were destroyed and two warships were hit, and one of them, named the Bilqis, was destroyed and sank onto its side, and five gunboats shelled the administrative buildings of the base.” (May 27)
Bombings also continued against Shiite mosques in eastern Saudi Arabia, the second of such incidents in one week. On May 29 during prayers a car bomb exploded at the entrance of the religious institution in Dammam.
News reports said the al-Anoud mosque was hit resulting in 21 people being killed and 120 others injured in what is being described as the most violent of such attacks in Saudi Arabia in years. Just one week earlier a similar attack took place in Qatif.
United Nations Efforts Fail Amid Reports of U.S.-Houthi Talks in Oman
The failure of UN plans for the convening of peace talks to resolve the war in Yemen illustrates the unwillingness of the U.S.-backed forces to negotiate a political settlement. This war represents a further escalation of Washington’s imperialist efforts in the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden.
Nonetheless, on June 1, there were reports from the Yemeni ousted regime of fugitive President Abd-Rabbu Hadi that talks were held in Oman between representatives of the Ansurallah movement and U.S. governmental officials. "We have been informed that there are meetings, at American request, and that a private American plane carried the Houthis to Muscat," Rajeh Badi, who is described as a spokesman for Yemen's government in exile told the international press. (Reuters, June 1)
The representatives of the ousted President Hadi are not involved in the discussions, Badi told the media.
This meeting if confirmed represents the first talks between the Ansurallah and Washington envoys. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are supplying war materials and recognizance information to the Saudi-GCC forces in their bombing and ground campaign against Yemen for over two months.
Oman is reported not to be participating in the coalition now bombing Yemen. The latest UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of the North African state of Mauritania, has revealed indirect talks are taking place in Muscat.
The U.S. and its Saudi-GCC allies view the war as an effort to contain and lessen the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Arabian Peninsula. Even though Washington has participated in talks with Tehran over its nuclear program, the administration of President Barack Obama has not altered the decades-long hostility towards Iran since the revolution of 1979 which toppled the regime of the Shah.
Saudi Foreign Minister Abdel Al-Jubeir told i24 News TV that "We refuse Iran's actions, the instigating actions that Iran is taking, the negative actions and its support of terrorism. We are looking forward for the day when we can build strong relations with Iran. However, this depends on Iran's behavior and whether it stops intervening in the region's affairs, stops supporting terrorism, stops taking procedures that harm the region's interest and the people's interest. So this is in Iran's hands. The improvement and fortification of the relationship with Iran is up to Iran however we will not be silent and stand still over Iran's intervention in the region.” (June 1)
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