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Saudi’s Savage War on Yemen
Invasion as Investment Opportunity: Emirati Capital Follows Its Troops into Yemen
Socotra Island, Yemen. Photo: Amira Al Sharif
From Al Safir Al Arabi
For the clever Sheikhs who run the United Arab Emirates, jumping headfirst into Saudi Arabia’s ill-considered invasion of Yemen was clearly a business decision, writes Abdelhadi Khalaf. Once they had secured their hold on a few ports, airports, and developable tourist destinations, they stopped participating in the military operations and got down to the business of securing their new assets.
When Saudi Arabia launched an attack on Yemen in March 2015,
Confronting Goliath, a Yemeni David
Saada. North of Yemen. Photo CC: Dietmar.
From Al Akhbar
Saudi Arabia’s bloody intervention in Yemen has not merely bogged down, writes Yahya al-Shami, Al Akhbar’s correspondent in northern Yemen: it has induced the ruling princes to pursue such questionable strategies as recruiting vast numbers of religious extremists into the armed forces.
For two years, Saudi Arabia has been trying with little success to take back a vast strip of its own territory, comprising dozens of military outposts and Saudi towns
While War Rages Nearby, Al-Qaeda Quietly Builds a Yemeni Emirate
Historic city of Shibam in Hadramout, Yemen. Photo: Hussein Al Khateeb.
From Al Akhbar
While Saudi Arabia fights a bloody war against the Shi’ites of western Yemen, Al-Qaeda has quietly established an ‘emirate’ in the vast, but sparsely populated eastern region of Hadramaut. Al-Akhbar’s Adnan Bawzir surveys this Sunni “Emirate,” uncontested by the Saudis, and largely ignored by the rest of the world, and concludes that it is a product of a different form of Saudi expansionism.
The Hadramout coastal region in Yemen is an ideal location for a terrorist organization like al-Qaeda.
Saudi Arabia: The Jihad Draws Near
Abdallah al Mheisny, one of the leaders of the Nusra Front, FB page cover.
From Al Akhbar
Saudi rulers have a peculiar relationship with violent extremist groups and ideologues, simultaneously cultivating them in other countries while trying to minimize their influence domestically. But the Saud family’s two-front war in Yemen and Syria, fought with the aid of Sunni jihadi allies, might easily morph into a different kind of fight if their inconstant allies turn on them. In Al-Akhbar, Nour Ayoub studies the tea leaves of jihadi social media and internet posts for insight into the increasingly troubled Saudi war in Yemen.
When Saudi Arabia launched Operation Decisive Storm against Yemen
Behind the Scenes of a Stagemanaged War
Searching for survivors in Sanaa after Saudi bombs fall on homes. Photo Oxfam
From Al-Akhbar
The Saudi war in Yemen was launched by a tiny clique within the royal family, ignoring the wishes of many high-level princes and catching the Saud family’s allies in the other gulf monarchies by surprise, writes Fouad Ibrahim in Al-Akhbar. The giant Saudi military’s remarkable incompetence in the fighting so far has exposed the kingdom’s weakness, as well as its disquieting links to Al-Qaeda allies who control parts of Yemen, Ibrahim writes.
"Decisive Storm" was a home cooked Saudi-American plot.
Saudi’s Choice: the Menace of Democracy, or the Shi’ite Devils?
Abdelmalik Al Houthi. Photo: Anonymous. Yemenfox.
From Orient XXI
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have at long last shown their hand and formally seized the capital city that they have controlled for many months. In the face of this improbable victory, Francois Burgat wonders why Yemen’s neighbors in Saudi Arabia seem to have suddenly come to terms with a “Shi’ite” regime on their southern border. Within the country, religious sectarianism between Sunnis and Shi’ites, as well as regional rifts, threaten war.
On the evening of January 20th, in an extensive speech, Abdelmalik al-Houthi, long dismissed as the provincial leader of the decade-old “Zaydi Shi’ite rebellion in the north
In Yemen, the Generator’s Whine, a Country’s Decay
Sana'a, Yemen. Photo CC: Rod Waddington.
From Al Safir Al Arabi
The only visible fruit of Yemen’s ‘anti-terror’ alliance with Washington, writes journalist Mohammed al-Abbasi: the ubiquitous electrical generator that starts up during the country’s daily power blackouts; symbol of the collapse of the economy and the decomposing of the Yemeni state.
If you plan a shopping trip to Gamal Abdel Nasser Street.
