ABU DHABI // A UAE serviceman died while “performing his national duty” with Saudi-led coalition forces, state news agency Wam announced on Thursday. Lt Abdul Aziz Sarhan Saleh Al Ka’abi was killed while participating in Operation Restoring Hope, in support of the internationally-recognised Yemen government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, said the UAE General Command of the Armed Forces. Prayers over the body of Lt Al Ka’abi […]
Anti-Houthi militiamen on Tuesday at the entrance to Aden’s international airport, which they recaptured from Shiite Houthi rebels. By SAEED AL-BATATI and KAREEM FAHIM July 14, 2015 AL MUKALLA, Yemen — Southern fighters battling Houthi rebels seized control of the international airport in Yemen’s port city of Aden on Tuesday, dealing the Houthis their most significant defeat in the city since they stormed it more than three months ago, witnesses and […]
By SAEED AL-BATATI and KAREEM FAHIM July 11, 2015 AL MUKALLA, Yemen — A cease-fire brokered by the United Nations that was intended to allow the delivery of relief supplies failed to take hold in Yemen on Saturday, as a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes, and fighting continued between the Houthis rebels and rival militias in several cities. The “pause” in the fighting had been scheduled to […]
A black-market fuel sale in Sana, Yemen, where food and fuel are in short supply because of the fighting. By SOMINI SENGUPTA July 9, 2015 UNITED NATIONS — The Saudi-backed government of Yemen has agreed to a “pause” in fighting, starting Friday, so that humanitarian relief can be delivered in the country, United Nations officials said Thursday. The Houthi rebels who control large parts of Yemen have agreed to […]
As the civil war in Yemen continues, many families say they are living in constant fear. Parents say that their older children have been wetting their beds at night, and that younger ones are so traumatized that they are sent running for cover by the sound of a door slamming. The fighting between Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government forces has displaced a million people, destroyed cultural heritage […]
SANA, Yemen — For nearly three months, Saudi Arabia, along with its allies, has been bombing Yemen, its southern neighbor, hoping to force the retreat of Shiite rebels who have seized major cities and to return the country’s president from the Saudi guest mansion where he lives to the presidential palace. So far, it has not worked. The rebels, known as the Houthis, have gained ground, more […]
Yemenis waited to buy food and water in Taiz on Friday. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has appealed for a two-week humanitarian truce in honor of Ramadan, which began this week. By SOMINI SENGUPTA June 19, 2015 UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations mediator for Yemen peace talks said on Friday that four days of discussions had ended with no agreement for even a brief pause in […]
By KAREEM FAHIM June 16, 2015 BAGHDAD — Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen released a video statement on Tuesday confirming the death of its leader, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, in an American missile strike last week. His death was also confirmed by the Obama administration on Tuesday. Mr. Wuhayshi, 38, who had led Qaeda operations in Yemen since 2002 and was also the global extremist network’s second-ranking leader, was killed along […]
ABU DHABI // The first flight carrying humanitarian aid from the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation to the people of Yemen left Abu Dhabi yesterday. The foundation said the flight would be the first of many before Ramadan begins next week, the state news agency Wam reported. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, ordered that […]
Video | Explosion in Old City of Sana A Unesco world heritage site was damaged on Friday by a blast that witnesses said was caused by airstrikes in Yemen’s capital. By RICK GLADSTONE June 12, 2015 A protected 2,500-year-old cultural heritage site in Yemen’s capital, Sana, was obliterated in an explosion early Friday, and witnesses and news reports said the cause was a missile or bomb from a Saudi […]
|TAP Special| Are Saudi Arabia and Iran heading towards a direct war? An opinion piece by influential Saudi commentator, carried by Al Arabia News, argues that the Saudi military operation against the Houthis is part of a Saudi policy combining diplomacy and war to stop Iranian influence and ultimately push it out of Syria and Yemen. The veteran commentator, Jamal Khashoggi, quotes Qassem Soleimani, commander of the […]
Video | Bahrain: Our Oath Dr. Nada Dhaif helped create a medical tent to treat injured protesters in Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout — and was sentenced to 15 years in jail. By KAREEM FAHIM June 7, 2015 The roundup of health workers who treated injured protesters set the tone for the furious and uncompromising reaction by Bahrain’s government to a popular uprising in 2011. The authorities arrested doctors, nurses and […]
By SHUAIB ALMOSAWA June 2, 2015 SANA, Yemen — Warplanes from a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes Tuesday in Yemen that killed at least 16 fighters allied with the Saudi-led group, witnesses said. The victims were fighters supporting President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was forced into exile by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this year. Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive against the Houthis in late […]
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR June 2, 2015 WASHINGTON — A senior State Department official held talks last week with the Houthi rebels of Yemen, opening a new round of diplomacy aimed at persuading the warring factions in that country to participate in a peace conference in Geneva, American officials said Tuesday. The meetings came just before the release on Monday of Casey L. Coombs, an American freelance journalist who had […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
The site of an explosion near a Shiite mosque in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, on Friday. By BEN HUBBARD May 29, 2015 BEIRUT, Lebanon — A suicide bomber dressed in women’s clothing detonated his explosive belt near the entrance to a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia on Friday, killing three other people, according to Saudi state media. The Islamic State jihadist group claimed responsibility, as it did just a […]
Mosed Shaye Omar, 64, a naturalized American citizen since 1978, sued the State Department and Secretary John Kerry, claiming he was coerced into acknowledging that he had a name different from what was on his passport. By LIZ ROBBINS May 27, 2015 For nearly five hours on Jan. 21, 2013, in a windowless room at the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen, an American citizen and Brooklyn grocery store […]
An anonymous painting of Turkish Emperor Mahmud II leading his troops. By DAVID MOTADEL May 23, 2015 CAMBRIDGE, England — THE last several months have brought a dramatic escalation in conflict across the Middle East, almost all of it involving tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims — which are in turn fueled by a power struggle between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia for regional supremacy. Tehran runs a […]
|By Alaa Alghamdi| Recently we have seen heightened security along the Saudi borders in response to the threat posed by Houthi rebels, those same rebels who exerted such power that they forced President Mansour Hadi to leave the country. The leadership of Khaled Bahah as Vice President offers hope that decisive action may be taken to resolve this matter. Meanwhile the UN is referring to the situation […]
|By Nafeesa Syeed & Rinat Gaynullin|Saudi Arabia is burning through foreign reserves at a record pace as the largesse of the new king and regional turmoil ratchet up pressure on public finances already hurt by the oil price slump. The kingdom spent $36 billion of the central bank’s net foreign assets — about 5 percent of the total — in February and March, the biggest two-month drop […]
The specter of an atomic arms race in the world’s most volatile region has heightened the stakes in Iran’s nuclear talks after Saudi Arabia’s repeated hints it would seek its own atomic weapons if Tehran ever did the same. Riyadh’s unprecedented action in assembling a coalition of other Sunni Muslim countries to bomb Tehran’s Houthi allies in Yemen this week has shown how seriously it takes the […]
The Yemeni president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has fired his powerful predecessor’s son as ambassador to the UAE, according to reports. Ahmed Ali Saleh and his father, the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, wield major influence in army units fighting alongside Houthi militias which have been hit by three days of Saudi-led air strikes, said Reuters. President Hadi departed on Thursday from his last base in the southern […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE Cabinet has paid tribute to the country’s Armed Forces during the ongoing Operation Decisive Storm military intervention in Yemen. The Cabinet also praised the leading role taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the action to restore safety and stability to Yemen, and stressed support for the international effort, reports Wam, the state news agency. “The UAE, and its brothers in […]
