Yemeni Military Operations Continue in Sa'ada Against Houthi Rebels

Military Operations Continue in Sa'ada

By Muhammed Bin Sallam

Yemen Times,

Sana’a, Aug 26, 2009 –

A relative calmness between the government army and the Houthis prevailed in Sa’ada city last Tuesday during the daytime, according tribal sources in Sa’ada.

The army did, however, resume shelling and using rockets against Houthi strongholds after sunset. In addition, fighter planes and bombardiers targeting Houthi sites were heard over a number of districts. The confrontations resumed in all points of contact in the districts that are at war.

A source in the local authority in Sa’ada announced last Tuesday that security authorities arrested a cell of Houthis in Sa’ada city.

The state-run Saba News Agency reported that the source said, “The cell was fortressed inside a cell in the old city of Sa’ada, after confrontations with security men which resulted in a soldier killed and another one wounded.”

Media reports said this week that confrontations between the two sides took place in Sa’ada city after groups of Houthis infiltrated and launched an abrupt attack against public buildings. They targeted the Al-Jawazat area, Al-Muwasalat and Bab Najran, Al-Mehwar and Al-Salam neighborhoods and the governor’s office.

The Houthis said that they repelled a sudden attack launched by the army in Al-Malahidh area last Tuesday evening, when the army attempted to recover the area that the Houthis had announced they controlled two around weeks ago.

Local sources said that the army focused on Al-Malahidh-Haradh front for tactical reasons and that it is currently mobilizing the 12th Military Division with all its equipment in an area between Abs and Haradh.

The Houthis focus on the front of Harf Sufian and Al-Safra districts because they are a key to controlling the road to Sana’a used to carry government military supplies to Sa’ada.

The source said that the Houthis attempted last Sunday evening to open a new front in the eastern side of Sa’ada city in Aal Salem area where clashes between the two sides took place. The source said people from both sides were killed and injured.

“The Houthis had opened a first front from Al-Anad-Al-Mahather road that leads to Sana’a and a second front in the entry to Sa’ada-Al-Talh-Dhahyan near the city,” said the source. “The Houthis used mortars last Tuesday evening and many shells fell on empty areas near Political Security Office and Al-Salam hospital in Sa’ada city.”

Abdul Malek Al-Houthi announced in a statement that his supporters have taken a number of military sites since the beginning of the sixth war including Tuwaileq, Al-Hasama, Muthallath, Al-Dhay’a and Habish, which are all located in Shada and Al-Malahidh districts, Ghaman strategic site in Sehar district, Tanfan, Jabal Esa sites in Al-Safra district and Al-Juh, Al-Qafl and Al-Qafif sites in the Saqain district.

Al-Houthi further pointed out that other military sites, including Al-Farsh, Al-Arous, Al-Mefrakh, Mahdida, Jabal Ghanem Fella site, Khanf’ar Al-Hareba Ahma Al-Talh school and Al-Khaza’en withdrew due to the siege and extensive attacks launched by his supporters.

The official spokesman for the government, Hassan Al-Laawzi, said that the local authority and military and security forces in Sa’ada currently give priority in their operations to securing roads and clearing of the Houthis. He pointed out that the Houthis block roads and set up ambushes to hinder the delivery of supplies to the districts and villages of Sa’ada, camps of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and other areas.

He denied that military forces found over a hundred dead bodies of Houthis after clearing Harf Sufian. “We don’t know about this news,” he said. “The military and security forces cleared Harf Sufian and the nearby areas but they didn’t find any dead bodies of the Houthi elements in the area.”

He confirmed that Doha agreement signed between the government and the Houthis last year has been cancelled, stressing that military operations against the Houthis will continue until they surrender.

Informed sources in Sa’ada city said that “citizens leave their villages toward safer areas due to the shelling of fighter planes which launch air raids mainly at night.”

“The city is surrounded by the government, which prevented citizens from entering or coming out of it,” said the source. “It lives in a state of an unannounced emergency.”

He pointed out that the security authorities imposed curfew in the city and the streets are free from people and cars, with the exception of tanks and military forces in Sa’ada deployed in the city.

He said that citizens, including IDPs, coming from the conflict districts live in bad conditions in spite of efforts of relief circulated by the media.

Sources said that “The price of food, gasoline and gas increased unprecedentedly since the beginning of war, as a twenty-letter jerry can of petrol costs YR 3,000 and a gas cylinder YR 2,000.

British Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of International Development appealed to the Yemeni government in a statement issued last Monday to reach a peaceful reconciliation for the conflict in Sa’ada.

The two ministries said that they support the statement issued by the European Union and the statement of Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General. They further demanded that humanitarian aid be allowed to reach citizens who have been forced to leave their houses due to the recent events.

The statement said that Britain pays attention to the crisis in Sa’ada, observes the situation closely and keeps in contact with the UN and other international agencies. It points out that the aid offered by the British Ministry of International Development is aimed to address the humanitarian needs in Sa’ada where there are around 100,000 IDPs. Brittan has offered 2.54 million Pounds Sterling in response to the call of the World Food Program to help the affected citizens due to war in Sa’ada.

UN WFP assists thousands of newly displaced people as conflict intensifies in Yemen

Posted in: Local News
Written By: Observer Staff
Article Date: Aug 25, 2009 - 12:54:36 PM

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun distributing emergency rations to thousands of people displaced by the latest upsurge of fighting in north-western Yemen. Yet funds for its ongoing operations in the country are running out.
 
The five-year conflict in Sa’adah has already forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes and thousands more have been displaced by renewed fighting in recent weeks.
 
The WFP provided high-energy biscuits and dates to 7,000 people in Hajjah governorate last week, and today began distributing a full one-month ration pack comprising of cereals, pulses, vegetable oil, salt and sugar to a further 10,000 individuals. The WFP airlifted an additional 40 metric tons of high energy biscuits from the UN humanitarian depot in Dubai last week and is planning another airlift in the next few days. “The WFP responded rapidly to this sudden crisis, providing life-saving assistance to thousands of homeless and hungry people who are reliant on our help,” said Gian Carlo Cirri, WFP Country Director in Yemen. “But we are very short of funds for our operations, especially now that the situation is deteriorating and the needs of those affected are increasing.”
 
In July, a shortage of funds forced the WFP to halve its rations, and as a result distribution reached only 95,000 war-affected people, many of whom depend entirely on food assistance. Currently, the WFP only has enough food in Sa’adah to cover the newly expanded caseload of 150,000 beneficiaries for two weeks. Overall, the WFP is facing a shortfall of US$20 million for 2009.
 
In June 2009, WFP had to suspend food assistance programmes linked to health and education, which benefited 815,000 of the most vulnerable Yemenis. From November onwards, more than one million people risk losing food assistance if the WFP does not receive any additional finances. These beneficiaries include families who lost their homes and livelihoods during last year’s floods in eastern Yemen and those who have been pushed deeper into poverty, hunger and malnutrition as a result of high food prices.
 
The WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency and the UN’s frontline agency for hunger solutions. In 2009, WFP aims to feed 108 million people in 74 countries.

Iran urges political solution to Yemen fighting

Mon Aug 24, 2009 4:44am EDT  

TEHRAN, Aug 24 (Reuters) -

 Iran called on Monday for a political solution to fighting in Yemen, days after a Yemeni government official implied Iranian involvement in a Shi'i Muslim rebellion in the Arab country's north.

But Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi also said that Iran, a mainly Shi'i Muslim country, saw it as an internal issue and that it had always respected Yemen's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Mostly Sunni Muslim Yemen, an impoverished state of some 23 million people on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is battling al Qaeda militants and secessionist discontent in the south, as well as the rebellion in the north bordering Saudi Arabia.

"We believe the issue ... is Yemen's internal issue and we think there should be a political solution. Bloodshed can not help solve the problems there," Qashqavi told a news conference.

On Sunday, government forces reported more than 100 rebels killed as battles intensified in northern Yemen two days after the government urged a ceasefire, although a rebel spokesman disputed the claim.

Yemeni forces have used air strikes, tanks and artillery in an offensive described by officials as an attempt to crush the revolt. The rebels are adherents of the Zaydi branch of Shi'i Islam, a tribal minority in Yemen.

Last Tuesday, a Yemeni government spokesman said the rebels were receiving financial support from abroad, strongly implying Iranian involvement.

Qasqavi said: "We have always respected Yemen's territorial integrity and national sovereignty and we want to see peace, stability and calmness in that country."

He added, in comments translated by Iran's English-language Press TV: "What propaganda or media say, that's not true." (Reporting by Reza Derakhshi; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Richard Williams)

Fighting in Yemen escalates

The government says it killed more than 100 Shi'i Muslim rebels in the northwest. Humanitarian groups say 100,000 people have fled their homes.

By Jeffrey Fleishman
August 24, 2009

Reporting from Cairo -

Fighting in the mountains of northwestern Yemen intensified Sunday as the government announced that it had killed more than 100 Shiite Muslim rebels, and humanitarian organizations voiced alarm over an estimated 100,000 people who have fled their homes since the conflict flared nearly two weeks ago.

The rebels rejected a cease-fire offer from the Sunni Muslim-dominated government at the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan on Friday. The region has since echoed with the fire of artillery, tanks and aircraft as Yemeni forces moved to crush a five-year rebellion led by Shi'i militant Abdul Malik Houthi in Saada and Amran provinces.

The fighting near the border with Saudi Arabia was another spasm across an increasingly unstable Yemen, a poor yet strategic country on the Gulf of Aden. U.S. officials are concerned that the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is engulfed in conflicts that also include a separatist insurgency in the south and growing numbers of Al Qaeda fighters using the nation as a base to launch attacks across the Middle East.

The Shi'i revolt in the northwest is unfolding amid Yemen's tricky mix of tribes and clans, and larger regional animosities between Iran's Shi'i-led government and its Sunni Arab neighbors. Yemen has intimated that Iran is funneling weapons and money to the rebels. Iran's news media have alleged that Saudi forces have joined Yemeni troops in putting down the rebellion. The Saudis, who worry the unrest may seep across their border, have only publicly acknowledged that the kingdom is consulting with Yemen about the violence.

Yemeni officials have denied any joint military operations with the Saudis. Yemen's news agency reported Sunday that Iran's allegations had "no credibility," noting "this puts Iran in a suspicious position that raises many questions about the possible ulterior motives it pursues in reporting such information."

In its cease-fire offer, the government demanded that the rebels withdraw from mountain strongholds, return weapons seized from the army and provide details about the kidnappings of at least seven foreigners, including two Germans and a South Korean who were found dead in June. The rebels have denied involvement in the hostage-taking.

Yemeni forces said they killed two rebel leaders identified as Saleh Jarman and Mohsen Hadi Qaoud. The deaths could not be independently confirmed.

"There has been a discovery of 100 bodies belonging to Houthi rebels on the sides of the roads outside Haraf Sufyan," according to a government statement. "It seems these are members who had attempted to escape from the fierce fighting in Sufyan city and were chased down."

Yemen's news agency reported that Education Minister Abdul-Salam Jawfi met with officials from UNICEF and the U.N. agency for refugees. The agency said international medical and humanitarian organizations have sent teams to "the restive province but worsening security there has limited their effectiveness. The fighting has shown no signs of letting up."

The U.N. is trying its "best to reach the most vulnerable children and women who have fled their homes empty-handed in a state of panic," a UNICEF statement said.

The government alleges that the Shi'is, who want a return to the clerical rule abolished in the national revolution of 1962, have taken over schools and killed more than 330 people over the last year. The rebels assert that they have been a persecuted minority.

Shiites make up about 42% of Yemen's 23 million people.