Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned Tuesday of civil war. Saleh said the opposition, which is calling for his immediate departure, is trying to stage a coup, the BBC reported.
"Those who want to climb up to power through coups should know that this is out of the question. The homeland will not be stable. There will be a civil war, a bloody war," he said.
The United States and Saleh have been allies against terrorist networks in Yemen, and the Saudi government supports him, fearing an unstable country on its southern border.
The wave of defections was set in motion Friday when 52 protesters were killed.
In November protests continued throughout Yemen. On November 23, 2011, Saleh went to Saudi Arabia for the GCC meeting where he signed the power transfer agreement and left for the United States where he received medical treatment for his injuries. The GCC-brokered agreement allowed Saleh to retain the title, President, but gave full power to Hadi. Elections were to be held within 3 months.
In response, the CCYR worked collaboratively with civil society to produce the Declaration of the Youth Revolution Demands outlining what the transition of power should look like. The youth activists claim the GCC agreement was a deal between political elites, and did not address their demands.
On January 21, the Yemeni government approved a law acknowledging the GCC’s promise for Saleh’s immunity. Top government aides and Saleh's family would not be tried in any way. Saleh left Yemen on the 22nd, unsuccessfully sought residency in Oman, then flew to the US for treatment.
On February 21, 2012, Yemen held it's first elections. Hadi was the only candidate and was sworn in on February 27.
While many revolutionary youth claimed that this was just the first step to completely change Yemen's political realities and were angry that Saleh and his cronies avoided court over corruption and the deaths of so many protesters, the election of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi marked the end of Saleh's thirty-year rule over Yemen, achieving what Tawakul Karman and the first groups of youth began thirteen months earlier.
Sana’a: Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers on Wednesday accused Al Houthi militia in Yemen of attempting to stage a “coup” against President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a day after the Al Houthi fighter seized the presidential palace.
“The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council consider what happened in Sana’a on Tuesday... a coup against the legitimate authority,” the ministers said in a statement following an emergency meeting in Riyadh.
The GCC also expressed support for the “constitutionally legitimate authority” of Hadi, and rejected “all measures aimed at imposing change by force”.
They warned that Gulf states “would take all measures necessary to protect their security, stability and vital interests in Yemen.”
The powerful militia seized almost full control of the capital Sana’a in September and have fought battles with government forces this week as they press for more political power.
At least 18 people have been killed in the fighting that erupted on Monday and dozens more wounded, medical sources said.
The UN Security Council condemned the attacks and backed Hadi as Yemen’s “legitimate authority”.
Yemen’s deposed leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, suspected of backing the rebels’ power grab, urged his successor to call early elections as a way out of the deepening turmoil in the country. He also advised him to seek “national unity.”
Aden’s main security body said in a statement that it was closing its airport, its seaport and entrances to the city due to “dangerous developments in the capital” and “attacks on the symbol of national sovereignty and constitutional legitimacy.”
Residents said hundreds of pro-government militia fighters had also arrived in Aden from several southern provinces. The rising unrest has fuelled longtime divisions in Yemen, where the government, Al Houthis, southern separatists, powerful Sunni tribes and the local Al Qaida branch are all vying for influence. It has raised fears of a collapse of Hadi’s Western-backed government, a key ally in Washington’s fight against Al Qaida, and the country descending into chaos.
The Al Houthis began increasing pressure on the authorities on Saturday with the kidnapping of Hadi’s chief of staff, Ahmad Awad Bin Mubarak, in an apparent bid to extract changes to a draft constitution opposed by the militia. Mubarak is leading efforts to reform how the country is governed. His plans for dividing Yemen into a six-region federation have angered the Al Houthis, who claim it would split the country into rich and poor regions. Both Hadi and Mubarak are from the south.
The Gulf Cooperation Council has accused Shi’ite Houthi of staging a coup in Yemen after they announced they were dissolving parliament and forming a new government, Kuwait’s official news agency said on Saturday.
The opposition of the GCC, a six-nation bloc comprising energy-rich Gulf states, may signal growing isolation for the impoverished Yemen and reflects the hostility of its majority Sunni Muslim neighbours towards the Iranian-backed Houthis.
Yemen has been in political limbo since the president and prime minister resigned last month after the Houthis seized the presidential palace. On Friday, the movement dissolved parliament and said it would set up a new interim government.
Abdel Malik al-Houthi, the group’s leader, said on Saturday he was open to all parties playing a role in Yemen’s future.
“Our hand is extended to every political force in this country ... the space is open for partnership, cooperation and brotherhood and now everybody bears their responsibility for building, not destruction,” he said in a televised speech.
Sunni Muslim militants in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have repeatedly clashed with the increasingly powerful Houthis, raising fears of an all-out sectarian war.
The Houthis entered Sanaa in September and began to fan out into more cities in Yemen’s south and west. Their spread has destabilised the country’s fragile security forces and stoked anger among tribal fighters allied to AQAP.
Four Houthi fighters were killed in a suspected AQAP attack in the southern al-Bayda province on Friday, while army forces clashed with tribesmen and AQAP fighters in a neighbouring district on Saturday.
The United States has evacuated its remaining military personnel from Yemen because of the deteriorating security situation, US officials have confirmed.
On Saturday, Yemeni officials said about 100 US troops were leaving an air base near a southern city that was stormed by al-Qaeda fighters on Friday.
The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting on Yemen on Sunday.
It was requested by Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who fled to the southern port city of Aden after the capital was taken over by Houthis last month.
Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis, said that their forces were not aiming to "occupy" the south.
"They will be in Aden in few hours," Abdel-Salam told the Houthis' satellite Al-Masirah news channel.
Early Wednesday, Al-Masirah reported that the Houthis and allied fighters had "secured" the al-Annad air base, the country's largest. It claimed the base had been looted by both al-Qaida fighters and troops loyal to Hadi.
The reported Houthi takeover of the base took place after hours-long clashes between rival forces around the base. The US recently evacuated some 100 soldiers, including Special Forces commandos, from the base after al-Qaida briefly seized a nearby city. Britain also evacuated soldiers.
The base was crucial in the US drone campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which America considers to be the most dangerous branch of the terror group.
The takeover of the base is part of the wider offensive led by Houthis and loyalists of Saleh within Yemen's armed forces.
The Houthis, in the aftermath of suicide bombings in Sanaa last week that killed at least 137 people, ordered a general mobilization of its forces. The group's leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, vowed to send his forces to the south to fight al-Qaida and militant groups.
The Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in September and have been advancing south alongside forces loyal to Saleh.
Egyptian security and military officials say Saudi Arabia and Egypt will lead a ground operation in Yemen against Shiite forces and their allies after a campaign of airstrikes to weaken them. Three senior officials told the Associated Press that forces would enter by land from Saudi Arabia and by sea from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. They said Thursday that other nations will also be involved.
Timo wrote:This does, however, place the burden on the US in choosing one side over the other, Sunni v. Shia. That decision will shape all of US diplomacy across the world for decades to come.
Cid_Yama wrote:If the American people knew the truth, they would never go along with this crap.
Yeahbut, in Yemen they are backing the Saudis against the Shia.Plantagenet wrote:Obama has already decided that one. US forces are bombing the Sunni rebels in both Iraq and Syria, thereby helping the Shia. Now the US is cooperating with Shia Iran in attacking the Sunni forces in Tikrit. And Obama's apparently going to allow Shia Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, making Iran and the Shia the regional hegemons in the Middle east.
Timo wrote:Well, I suppose Obama, or our next president, can launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran
Timo wrote:I'd rather bomb later, AFTER Iran has violated their agreement (if there ever is one) with the US and Europe not to do so. Then, and only then, can war be politically justified under international law.
Timo wrote: Even if they do hate Israel, they are still useful to us in several other areas, like fighting ISIS.
Plantagenet wrote:our-arab-allies-are-watching-horror-obama-allies-iran
In this cartoon from the March 18 edition of Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, Iranian leader Khamenei is shooting at Syrian Sunnis and Iraqi Sunnis from under an American umbrella. Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab states are watching in horror as the U.S. increasingly openly switches sides from supporting them to supporting their (and our) worst enemy in the region.
I have argued many times for NR that the Sunnis of the Middle East may be ISIS’s base, but they are also its principal victims. The overriding object of U.S. policy in the Middle East must be to protect and ally with the Sunnis — particularly by building a coalition of moderate Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, or rather, re-building the one that Obama threw away when he withdrew all U.S. forces in 2011. Obama’s rapprochement with Iran is so wrong at so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin. But to put it in historical perspective, it’s as if, in 1989, the U.S. has led a massive assistance package and diplomatic effort to extend the life of Soviet Communism, and its subjugation of Eastern Europe, for another 30 years.
When Obama got to the White House, the Islamic Revolution of Iran was entering its fourth decade without having succeeded anywhere outside Iran except for Lebanon, in the form of the Hezbollah. (The essential bridge between Iran and Hezbollah was Syria, a majority Sunni country whose dictators are Allawite Baathist, not part of the Islamic Revolution at all). Its economy was starting to suffer the catastrophic effects of sanctions. The U.S. was the dominant stabilizing force in Iraq, underwriting the risks of a coalition of moderate Sunnis and moderate Shiites, who were openly allied with the U.S. and openly opposed to the extremists in both camps.
Now Iranian soldiers can march virtually all the way across Iraq into Syria and Lebanon not just unimpeded, but under American air cover!
Hezbollah Calls on Saudi Arabia to Immediately Halt Its Aggression on Yemen
Hezbollah offered the Yemeni people deep condolences for the large number of martyrs who were claimed by the Saudi-led offensive.
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?fromval=2&cid=19&frid=21&seccatid=19&eid=203025
Iran Condemns Saudi Arabia’s Military Intervention in Yemen
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-condemns-saudi-arabias-military-intervention-in-yemen-1427366776
Saudis preparing to face Iran's allies in Yemen
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4640756,00.html
Cid_Yama wrote:Your right, Agent. If it's too complex to fit into a sound bite, they wouldn't understand anyway.
6 is a perfect example. They haven't told him what to think yet, so his mind sits, running on idle.
U.S. Caves to Key Iranian Demands as Nuke Deal Comes Together
Limited options for Congress as Obama seeks to bypass lawmakers
LAUSSANE, Switzerland—The Obama administration is giving in to Iranian demands about the scope of its nuclear program as negotiators work to finalize a framework agreement in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the administration’s position in the negotiations.
U.S. negotiators are said to have given up ground on demands that Iran be forced to disclose the full range of its nuclear activities at the outset of a nuclear deal, a concession experts say would gut the verification the Obama administration has vowed would stand as the crux of a deal with Iran.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-caves-to-key-iranian-demands-as-nuke-deal-comes-together/
● The country’s pipeline network remains a key area of concern, due to its sheer size and complexity. Sections of the pipeline network run through unstable population centers.
● The Kingdom’s precarious economic situation over recent years, in addition to the problem of widespread poverty and corruption in the oil-rich nation, could metastasize into a security threat by vigilante groups and disaffected Saudi citizens unconnected to any particular religious or nationalist agenda.
● While much attention has been paid to the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Shi’a elements pose as much of a threat to the security of the oil infrastructure, particularly since the bulk of this infrastructure is located in Saudi Arabia’s predominantly Shi’a volatile Eastern Province.
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