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Page added on April 2, 2015
Yemen’s Shiite rebels capture presidential palace
Yemeni security officials say Shiite rebels and their allies have captured the presidential palace in Aden following heavy clashes in the commercial center of this southern coastal city.
Thursday’s capture came despite week-long airstrikes in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition trying to halt the advance of the rebels known as Houthis.
Aden’s Maasheeq palace is a cluster of colonial-era villas perched atop a rocky hill that juts into the Arabian Sea. The palace was President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s last seat of power before he fled to Saudi Arabia last month amid the Houthi advance.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
12 Comments on "Yemen’s Shiite rebels capture presidential palace"
BobInget on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 10:29 am
Pakistan, Egypt, both ENTIRELY dependent on Saudi oil hand-outs are gathering forces,
brigade sized, to invade Yemen.
In another of my famed predictions, these dudes know they are being used and will fight accordingly. No foreign force knows the countryside better then battle hardened Yemeni Shiite rebels.
There are unconfirmed reports of ‘armed foreign forces’ landing on Yemen shores.
Half of the Saudi army is Yemeni so we can be certain they ain’t Saudis.
This war will drag on until the Saudi ability
to export war machine oil is stopped.
BobInget on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 10:57 am
(Iran’s propaganda arm, Press TV reports)
Saudi Arabia has reportedly removed border fences with Yemen in a measure that could suggest Riyadh is preparing for a ground invasion of its southern neighbor days after unleashing airstrikes against the violence-hit country.
Local Yemeni sources reported on Thursday that Saudi forces had opened border fences with the northwestern Yemeni province of Hajjah.
Also on Thursday, local media sources broadcast online video footage, which apparently shows Saudi tanks being transferred to border areas with Yemen.
Meanwhile, other reports said al-Qaeda militants in Yemen stormed the center of the port city of al-Mukalla in the province of Hadhramaut early on Thursday, releasing some 300 inmates, including dozens of militants.
Poster’s notes:
Iran will do anything short of sending Iranian troops to Yemen. ‘Press TV ‘ like FOX, mixes up fact and fiction dishing it out as ‘news’ .
House of Saud shelf life, long past expiration.
Requesting and getting foreign troops to
do their fighting will cause both Pakistan and Egyptian government to collapse as casualty
number mount. Keep in mind, both Egypt and
Pakistan are under military rule.
The real ‘end time’ begins when all those KSA weapons, including nuclear get distributed about the region.
Plantagenet on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 11:23 am
The Shia rebels seized all the US weapons that US forces left behind when they fled the US base in Yemen, and also the US weapons the Obama administration gave to the prior Yemen government. Its a repeat of ISIS seizing US weapons from the fleeing Iraqi troops in Iraq.
Its not surprising the Houthi rebels are doing so well in their war—they’ve using the best weapons available.
BobInget on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 11:52 am
A state-chartered Russian plane destined for the Yemeni capital Sanaa had been diverted to Cairo, after the Saudi-led coalition reportedly refused it landing permission, leaving scores of Russian expats awaiting evacuation to languish at the airport.
“The crew made contact with coalition forces while flying over the Red Sea,” Khaled Shayef, the director of Sanaa airport, told the Lebanon-based Mayadeen channel. “The coalition refused to allow the landing in Sanaa and the plane had to fly to Cairo.”
Shayef said that Russian citizens – mostly oil industry employees and their families – had gathered in the airport in anticipation of the flight.
Mayadeen, which broadcasts all over the Arab world, claimed that the refusal was in contravention of earlier promises made by the coalition to Moscow, though Russian diplomats in Cairo stopped short of blaming Saudi Arabia.
“We can confirm that there is a Russian plane at Cairo airport, which is awaiting the opportunity to continue the evacuation Russian citizens from Yemen,” said a statement from the diplomats delivered to TASS news agency. “But a lot will depend on co-operation of other countries, including Saudi Arabia.”
“Oil Workers” “Russian Citizens” at risk!
BobInget on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 12:03 pm
CNN primer, Yemen ‘Proxy War’
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/middleeast/yemen-prison-break/
BobInget on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 12:13 pm
Who knew Sudan and South Sudan with
five million people on the verge of starvation
could afford fighter bombers?
ABU DHABI — Sudanese Air Force precision bombers participated in coalition operations in Yemen, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir told crowds in a rally in the western city of Zalingey, Sudan, on Wednesday.
According to a statement released by the Sudanese Armed Forces, al-Bashir saluted Air Force service members on their efforts to support operation Decisive Storm and that they are bombing Houthi targets and patrolling the Yemeni skies.
Sudan’s participation with four Su-24 “Fencer” supersonic precision bomber aircraft was confirmed on Tuesday as images of the planes prepped on the tarmac of the King Khalid Air Force Base appeared in videos released by the coalition command.
The statement released Wednesday by the Sudanese Armed Forces, however, did not specify the type of mission the Fencers conducted.
DEFENSE NEWS
Saudi Emerges as New Regional Leader
Coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmad al-Assiri Wednesday did not confirm or deny the participation of the Sudanese Air Force in strikes. Yet coalition member United Arab Emirates stated on its news agency WAM that it participated in sorties targeting Houthi groupings in Yemen on Tuesday.
The Sudanese Air Force acquired 12 Su-24 aircraft from Belarus in 2013, according to the Satellite Sentinel Project, which follows development of Sudanese armed forces operations in Darfur.
The aircraft have been modified to the Su-24M export model by Belarus, according to the end-user certificate issued, and are fitted with two external fuel pods that would extend the range and loiter time over a target area.
The operational range of the Fencer is a little over 600 kilometers.
BobInget on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 12:14 pm
Oh, forgot my starvation link… http://www.unocha.org/south-sudan/
JuanP on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 1:01 pm
Those foreign troops that landed in Yemen were Chinese Army forces sent to protect the evacuation of Chinese citizens, and they have already left. The evacuation was partially successful, they couldn’t evacuate everyone.
The Houthi leadership released an official statement on their official TV channel today saying that if Saudi Arabia doesn’t stop its air attacks immediately they will retaliate against the Saudis in Saudi Arabian territory, and that they have the means to do it.
Makati1 on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 9:47 pm
JuanP, you saw the same news I did about the Houthi taking the war to the SKA. I hope it happens. Time for some payback to the Western lap dogs.
Jimmy on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 11:41 pm
KSA started selling oil at a discount rate and as well talking the price down the same week the rebels took the capital. Oil was about $100/Barrel at the time. John Kerry also visited KSA that week.
It was at that time KSA decided it had to act, but if it acted at $100/Barrel the risk premium could push the price up to prices that would cripple the global economy.
So KSA decided to push the price down to the $40-50 range before engaging the rebels in Yemen so the risk premium caused by the fighting wouldn’t shatter the global economy.
If you need confirmation just compare daily spot prices with Houthi timeline. The price of oil was reduced because KSA began selling at a discount. No market fundamentals i.e. supply and demand have significantly altered anymore than they have in the last few years that saw oil hold steady at $95-110/barrel.
BobInget on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 10:35 am
http://www.wsj.com/articles/al-qaeda-storms-al-mukalla-in-yemen-1427973864
US Digs Itself in Deeper.
“When you see nothing but dirt 360, you are standing in a hole”.
WWJ
By HAKIM ALMASMARI in San’a, Yemen and MARIA ABI-HABIB in Beirut
Updated April 2, 2015 5:41 p.m. ET
24 COMMENTS
Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen suffered twin setbacks on Thursday as Iran-linked Houthi rebels gained ground in Aden and lost another port city to al Qaeda militants, who freed one of their leaders and other inmates from prison.
By evening, the rebels had taken most of Aden, Yemen’s second-largest city, despite a weeklong Saudi military offensive against them. They held the city center as well as a strategic hilltop military base and cluster of villas overlooking the port—the last stronghold of Yemen’s president before he fled the country on March 25.
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Iran Calls for Talks on Yemen (3/31/15)
The government losses pointed to deepening turmoil in a country that is central to U.S. counterterrorism operations in the region. A Saudi-led coalition, which includes the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf and is backed by the U.S., has declared an open-ended operation to defeat the Houthi rebels and restore President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.
The U.S. deepened its role in the conflict on Thursday by agreeing to allow American military planes to start refueling Saudi jets bombing Houthi fighters. American surveillance planes over Yemen are already providing the Saudi-led coalition with intelligence to help carry out airstrikes and try to minimize civilian casualties, U.S. officials said.
The United Nations said more than 500 people have been killed, among them civilians, and 1,700 injured in the past two weeks amid the Saudi airstrikes and fighting between the Houthis and government forces loyal to Mr. Hadi.
Al Qaeda’s predawn storming of al Mukalla, a port city east of Aden, was the latest sign that the extremist group is using the sectarian strife to expand its foothold in the country.
Abdullah al Sharafi, a Yemeni Defense Ministry official, said about one-third of those freed in Thursday’s prison break were militants of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. Among them, he said, was Khaled Batarfi, AQAP’s emir in the southern province of Abyan until his arrest in 2011 and served in the group’s Shariah council, which provides religious direction.
Extremist groups such as AQAP and Afghanistan’s Taliban have typically used prison breaks to free their own foot soldiers and force more secular inmates, detained for petty crimes, to join their ranks. “Al Qaeda needs to recruit and [there’s] no better way to recruit from prison,” Mr. Sharafi said. “A few of the escapees were senior al Qaeda leaders, but among those who escaped were dozens of al Qaeda fighters and loyalists.”
BobInget on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 11:14 am
Jimmy Gets It. How many others?
Saudis are in slow-motion suicide watch.
At some point The House of Saud needs to decide how to control DOMESTIC blow-back pandering to Israeli interests and creating even bigger divides between Muslims.
IE: Bombing Yemen, encouraging seven other Arab states to do so as well.
Bombing fellow Muslims by “Keepers of the Faith” can’t go much longer without creating
a negative image for KSA among fellow Arabs.
By the end of April it will become painfully evident, airpower alone will not quell the Shiites. Quite the reverse. Fighters from Iraq and Syria are already making bee lines to Yemen.
Domestic discontent would cause political headaches for any absolute monarchy in the 21st Century.
Then again, unemployed oil workers the world over are doubtless showing keen interest in Saudi mishandling of oil pricing.
Without traveling bands of foreign oil troops,
eventually, ‘new’ replacement crude will become even more difficult to deliver.
Mark beginning of Saudi bombing, Israeli cooperation, as the end of Saudi Royals.