JIZAN, SAUDI ARABIA — Yemen’s army, loyal to the Houthis, launched a large-scale military operation on Sunday against the Saudi military bases in the Kingdom’s southwestern region of Jizan, some 900 kilometers (560 miles) south of the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The operation comes as the deadly Saudi war against Yemen enters its fourth year.
RIMBO, SWEDEN — Following three years of one of the bloodiest battles of the 21st century, the Saudi assault on Yemen’s key port city of Hodeida may be nearing its end. The Saudi-led coalition and Ansar Allah, the political wing of the Houthi resistance movement, have agreed to a ceasefire in Hodeida and in the Taiz Province of northwestern Yemen, the scene of some of the most intense battles in the war, to facilitate the delivery of aid.
RIMBO, SWEDEN — Among the issues under discussion in Yemen peace negotiations currently underway in Sweden — the first such talks between the Saudi-led Coalition and Ansar Allah in two years — are potential humanitarian corridors, a prisoner swap, the reopening of the defunct Sana’a International Airport, and the fate of the crucial port city of Hodeida.
SANA’A, YEMEN — Yemeni forces reportedly targeted Apache helicopters as well as a Saudi airbase in Bir Askar in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region of Najran on Wednesday evening. The attack was carried out with a salvo of high-precision ballistic missiles dubbed the Badr P-1. The short-range ballistic missile uses a solid-propellant, an upgrade from its previous iteration, the Badr-1.
SANA’A, YEMEN — Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of Ansar Allah’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee, welcomed U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ recent remarks urging an end to the three-year-long Saudi-led war in Yemen. In a tweet, Al-Houthi urged Mattis to announce an immediate end to the war, as well as to the Saudi coalition’s blockade that has triggered a famine in the world’s poorest nation.
JIZAN, SAUDI ARABIA — The media branch of Yemen’s Ansar Allah military released footages on Friday showing the moment that strategic Saudi military locations were captured in the eastern al-Doud mountains and al-Reqa’h military bases deep inside of Saudi Arabia. The bases are located in the southwestern region of Jizan, some 900 kilometers (559 miles) south of the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Saudi Arabia has not yet commented on the recent attacks.
Professor Isa Blumi joins me for part 2 of our series on Yemen. We pick up in the late 90’s after Ali Abdullah Saleh has come to power in a unified Yemen. Isa discusses Saleh’s strategy of sowing chaos all over the country in order to maintain absolute power. Isa talks about Saleh’s use of extreme violence, and his reliance on US power. We then explore how the so called Arab Spring played out in Yemen. We discuss the orchestrated nature of the movement, and how is sought to control the very real desires of the Yemeni public.
