Iran sends warships to Yemen, raises the stakes of a faceoff

Share:

yemen iran saudi mapIran dispatched a naval destroyer and a support vessel Wednesday to waters near Yemen as the United States quickened weapons supply to the Saudi-led coalition striking rebels there, underlining how foreign powers are deepening their involvement in the conflict.

Iran’s English-language state broadcaster Press TV quoted Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari as saying the ships would be part of an anti-piracy campaign “safeguarding naval routes for vessels in the region.”

The maneuver in the Gulf of Aden comes amid an intense Saudi-led Gulf Arab air campaign targeting the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, who come from a Shiite sect. Critics say Shiite power Iran backs the Houthis, though both the Islamic Republic and the rebels deny any direct military assistance.

Speaking a day earlier in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed the violence in Yemen on the Houthis, and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, saying that the U.S. is committed to defending Saudi Arabia.

“We have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint coordination and planning cell in the Saudi operations center,” he said in a statement to reporters after meeting with Saudi royals and Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled his country amid rebel advances.

Intelligence sharing includes making available raw aerial imagery the coalition could use to better strike anti-Hadi forces, said a U.S. defense official who was not authorized to comment publicly. Blinken said the U.S. and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council must coordinate closely and press all parties to seek a political solution.

The Gulf Arab-backed air campaign supporting Hadi, which began on March 26, has so far failed to stop the Houthis’ advance on Aden, Yemen’s second-largest city, which was declared the provisional capital by Hadi before he fled.

The U.S. says that the chaos has allowed the local al Qaeda branch, which it considers the world’s most dangerous wing of the group, to make “great gains” on the ground, causing Washington to rethink how it prevents it from launching attacks in the West.

Speaking from Tokyo, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the collapse of the central government in Yemen makes it harder to conduct counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has ambitions to strike Western targets, including the United States. Regarding the weapons deliveries, he said it involved “some resupply of equipment and munitions” to Saudi Arabia.

The World Health Organization warned Tuesday of an unfolding humanitarian crisis, saying at least 560 people, including dozens of children, have been killed, mostly in the air campaign and ground battles. The aid group said that over 1,700 people have been wounded and another 100,000 have fled their homes as fighting has intensified over the past three weeks.

The first boat carrying medical aid to Yemen since the coalition began bombing arrived in the southern port city of Aden on Wednesday, international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders said.

The group’s head of mission in Yemen, Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, said the ship carried some 2.5 tons of supplies from Djibouti for its hospital in Aden.

The group is concerned about how it will transport the supplies and wounded people given the chaos in Aden’s streets, where the situation continues to deteriorate and combat intensified overnight.

“We have street fighting, snipers, tanks in the street, roads cut and areas not accessible, and electricity, water and fuel cuts,” she said. “Last night the different groups were fighting around the hospital. It lasted all night into the morning and continues now, so all our employees were forced to sleep at the hospital.”

Tons of desperately needed aid awaits clearance to be flown into Yemen, including a Red Cross shipment with 17 tons of medical supplies from Jordan which emergency workers hope can be flown into the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on Wednesday. Another 35 tons of supplies were also ready for shipment.

Also Wednesday, Human Rights Watch cited witnesses as saying that Houthi forces fired into crowds of demonstrators in the cities of Taiz and Torba the day before the bombing campaign began, killing at least 7 people and wounding over 80 others. The New York-based group called on Houthi authorities to investigate the incidents.

“Yemen’s spiraling conflict is causing a calamitous breakdown in law and order,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Security forces in control, whatever side they are on, have responsibilities to uphold and protect people’s rights and to take action against their members who commit abuses.”

CBS/ AP

Share:

Comments

11 responses to “Iran sends warships to Yemen, raises the stakes of a faceoff”

  1. zabada Avatar

    America planted Syiah uprising.Now America face Iran and Sunnis isis.One day America will face all sunnis and all Syiah. America have too many faces.It really playing dirty games that not only destroy others..it is also will destroy America.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Well, Zabada … speaking of ‘games’ … one needs to check some little histories to know where certain brainless but killing-directed heads come from. Some ugly humanoids make it a ‘profession’ and switch gangs as easily as religions, as necessary, to keep applying their ‘special skills’. For some, it’s a lifestyle….
      Here’s a part of some ‘notes’ from 2005 by one of those UN Peacekeepers who’s never listened to.

      “World forgetting Darfur crisis, says Dallaire
      CTV.ca News Staff
      Romeo Dallaire says the world’s silence over the crisis in Sudan bears haunting resemblance to what he remembers before the massacre in Rwanda a decade ago.
      The retired lieutenant general, whose horrific experiences in Rwanda became both an award-winning book and documentary, is now a fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. There, he works on preventing other Rwandan-style crises.
      Dallaire says the atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan are not any different from the genocide he observed in Rwanda, in which about 800,000 Rwandans, most of them Tutsis, died at the hands of Hutus.
      “It is. It’s another Rwanda,” Dallaire told Canada AM from Boston.
      “It’s not a matter of whether the scale is totally comparable. It is the whole nature of the abuse of innocent people by another group that is specifically targeting them because of who they are, and where they are.”
      Since 2003, nearly 70,000 people have died in Darfur and another two million have had to flee their homes as pro-government militia, known as janjaweed, rape, kill and loot non-Arab villages.
      Many have accused Sudan’s government of directing the militia. But the United Nations has been reticent to call the situation “genocide.””

      Etc, etc, etc … Same folks as Boko Haramics, or raised BY them in the child armies … same as ISIS is doing now … a continuous stream … either on weed or amphetamines or Khat … whatever ….

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Side note: Some will say 800,000 wasn’t enough to call it ‘Genocide’. Don’t listen to them.

        1. zabada Avatar

          civilization and modernization is able to stabilize politic and social events,,,but the west is not helping them on the way..they are eyeing only for benefit and oil.Africans and Arabs politician do not understand what is civilization and modernization.They not understand the two is the main factor to stabilize a country or a nation.Religion also need the two.

          1. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            I would agree … people need to be ‘civil’ with each other.
            What you call ‘the west’ came up with ‘modern’ things …. which included better killing machines, as well as the TV’s and Cell-phones. It was not ‘the west’ which put the diamonds on their Lambourghini’s after BUYING the oil. Although, as Hind Notes, when you have a couple million extra to shower a singer with, why not flaunt it. ๐Ÿ˜‰
            A gold throne in an airplane may be a little ostentatious ….
            However, in ‘the west’ there are amazingly poor people too … and yet most of them remain ‘civil’ with each other, because it is expected and the society supports the concept. The poor live closer to the dirt, and understand the need to be civil …. the rich far above pretend to be civil … and THE MASS of people do their jobs, pay the rent or buy a home, and try to put some aside for the time their bones won’t carry a load.
            Being ‘civil’ does not mean just saying ‘PBUH’ or ‘Bless You’ to everyone, and hoping to slide past them without a knife finding your throat.
            There is a large difference in the lifestyles … Over here, one has a choice if one can afford it … see an opera or a strip-show … listen to an orchestra or a rap-crap group in concert … all are accommodated in some way, and you have the freedom to decide what you want to throw any extra money at. And the person who watched opera will be civil to the rap-lover, or visa-versa, when they meet at work to decide how to build the next sewer for the expanding city. (they all love to boink, don’t they? ๐Ÿ˜‰
            ‘Civility’ includes accepting that your team lost … in sports or in politics … there’s a always a ‘next time’. And sure, some may try to fudge even those ‘rules’, but there’s going to be politicians getting more calls than expected if there’s something going wrong with ‘the system’ …. they will hear from people, in a generally civil way … most of the time. ๐Ÿ˜‰
            Bottom line, be ‘nice’ to your neighbour even if his dog poops on your lawn every day … you can let him know about it without cutting a tree to fall on his house. Be civil.

          2. zabada Avatar

            they do civil to each others only among themselves..but they are bullied other countries with modern weapon and destabilize the world…even invade by killing and pressing they even plan to destroy others.they not only avoid to say pbuh to Isa..or Jesus..pbuh..they also regard non whites is less human kind..that,s why they invaded and killing them..that is their history at the past.Many eastern countries now stopped colonialism,but America still in operating in Middle East.Zionist force them to enslave Middle East or destroy it on behalf of Israel.They still a bad people like at the past.Love your neighbor in Bible is not practice by them.Most of them convert Zionist,Hence they turned to the worse people even they are really civilize people.Especially Americans and British .All people knows America atrocities on 9 11 and on Sunnis Iraqis in Iraq.

  2. Reasonableman Avatar
    Reasonableman

    Either take it down or wait to be taken down.
    Surely its not there for humanitarian aid.

  3. Rudy1947 Avatar
    Rudy1947

    Anti-piracy campaign????? What garbage.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Well Rudy … could be a few Somalis who floated in … ๐Ÿ˜‰

  4. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Fighting around hospitals … and maybe in them soon too?
    Hmmm. Sounds like Tripoli Lebanon last year …..

  5. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    “Iran dispatched a” … ‘navel destroyer’ … “and a support vessel” (floating kitchen)….

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *