Yemen minister says world must push Houthis to accept peace

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Updated 01 April 2021
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Yemen minister says world must push Houthis to accept peace

  • In exclusive interview, information minister says Yemenis “disappointed” by US decision to delist Houthis from terror list
  • Al-Eryani deplores international rights groups’ silence on Houthi crimes, including the deadly Sanaa migrant camp fire

RIYADH: Members of the international community with open channels to Yemen’s Houthi militia must use their leverage to encourage it to sever ties with Iran and commit to the Saudi-led peace initiative, a senior Yemeni Cabinet minister has said. 

Moammar Al-Eryani, Yemen’s minister for information, culture and tourism, issued the appeal in an exclusive interview with Arab News, adding he was under no illusions about the role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG), in particular its extraterritorial Quds Force, in the Houthis’ ongoing military offensive in Marib and its attacks on civilian facilities and commercial shipping. 

“Although we understand that the Houthi militia is merely a dirty tool to carry out the Iranian agenda of targeting Saudi Arabia, spreading chaos and terrorism in the region and threatening commercial ships and international shipping lanes, we call on countries that are communicating with the Houthis to play a constructive role,” Al-Eryani said. 

He added these countries should pressure the militia to “drop Iranian guardianship over its political and military decisions,” to “immediately halt its military escalation in Marib,” and to “immediately and unconditionally respond to the initiative made by our brothers in Saudi Arabia. 

“These countries must put pressure on the Houthis to stop their daily crimes and violations against civilians in their areas of control, which are considered war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said. 

Tehran installed Quds Force officer Hassan Irloo as its ambassador in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in Oct. 2020, making Iran the only nation to officially recognize and appoint formal representation to the Houthis. Irloo, a Quds Force veteran, has been sanctioned by the US Treasury for his role in the supply of advanced weaponry to the Houthis. 

The militia, which has control of most of Yemen’s north, has been battling forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s internationally recognized government with funding and weaponry provided by Iran as part of its proxy campaign across the Middle East. 

The military and financial support given by Iran to the Houthis has been an open secret from long before the militia’s takeover of Sanaa in 2015. The general consensus of security analysts is that Tehran’s malign influence has fanned the flames of war, undermined numerous peace attempts and contributed to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

The US State Department listed the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on Jan. 19 in one of the final acts of the Trump administration in its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. 

However, with the Biden administration reversing the FTO designation on Feb. 15 with the stated objective of easing the humanitarian situation in the country, the Houthis have ratcheted up their assaults on Yemeni government forces, and targeting of Saudi population centers and civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones. 




Newly recruited Houthi fighters take part in a gathering in the capital Sanaa to mobilize more fighters to battlefronts in several Yemeni cities. (AFP file photo)

“The decision of the US administration to delist the Houthis as a terrorist organization has disappointed Yemenis, who saw it as encouraging the militia to carry out more crimes and violations against civilians,” Al-Eryani said. 

“They also saw it as giving the Houthis a free hand to launch a military offensive in Marib province, to increase the frequency of terrorist attacks on civilians and vital installations in Saudi Arabia, and to threaten the security and stability of global energy supplies, as well as international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandab.” 

Al-Eryani said the terror-delisting decision ignored the truth about the Houthis’ association with the IRGC, as well as “their extremist views, hostile slogans and criminal practices against civilians in their areas of control, which are no different from those of other terrorist groups.” 

The Houthis’ disregard for civilian lives was further demonstrated on March 7 when scores of Ethiopian migrants kept in a detention camp in Sanaa were burned alive after teargas canisters and flash bangs fired by guards caused a fire. 

For Al-Eryani, the only thing worse than the atrocity itself was the silence of normally outspoken rights groups and the international community. 

“Unfortunately, the horrific crime for which the Houthi terrorist militia claimed responsibility, killing and injuring dozens of African migrants in a deliberate fire in one of the detention camps, has not received much attention from the international community or international human rights organizations, except for a few timid statements,” Al-Eryani said. 




Moammar Al- Eryani (right) being interviewed by Arab News’ Mohammed Al-Sulami. 

“This shameful and unjustified international silence regarding the crimes and violations of the Houthi militia is not limited to just this incident. Consider the thousands of crimes and violations committed by the militia in cold blood against innocent women, children and the elderly, including the attempt to target the government at Aden International Airport.” 

According to diplomats, an investigation by a UN team of experts has found that the Houthis were responsible for that Dec. 30 attack, which killed at least 22 people and injured dozens more. Missiles landed just as Yemeni government officials arrived at the airport to join members of the Southern Transitional Council in a new cabinet as part of a Saudi-led reconciliation effort. The dead included government officials and three ICRC staff members. 

According to Al-Eryani, since their emergence in the Saada governorate in the early 2000s, the Houthis have perpetrated all sorts of crimes against defenseless civilians, including: “Killings and kidnappings; forced disappearances; psychological and physical torture; assaults on women in secret detention centers; looting of public and private properties; bombing of opposition houses and mosques; child soldier recruitment; compulsory conscription of civilians and refugees; planting of land and sea mines, and attacks on commercial vessels and oil tankers in international sea corridors.” 

Saudi Arabia has led repeated attempts to reach a comprehensive resolution between the Houthis and the Yemeni government. The latest attempt came on March 22, when it announced a wide-ranging initiative that calls for a UN-supervised nationwide ceasefire, the reopening of Sanaa airport, and new talks to end the conflict. 

Al-Eryani believes it is Iran’s influence over the Houthis that has stalled progress on the plan. 

“The Saudi initiative came at an important and crucial time to clearly reveal the role played by Tehran in undermining efforts to bring peace to Yemen, and the role of Irloo as the de-facto ruler in Sanaa. Irloo controls the political and military decisions of the Houthi militia,” Al-Eryani said. 

Negotiations being necessarily a two-way street, Al-Eryani says the Yemeni government has already shown it is willing to make concessions. “During the rounds of consultations with the Houthis under the auspices of the UN, the government made many concessions to stop the bloodshed and end the suffering of Yemenis,” Al-Eryani said. “But the Houthis dealt with these concessions with indifference and exploited them to regroup and compensate for its human losses, and also to amass weapons smuggled from Iran such as ballistic missiles and drones for military re-escalation and in an attempt to impose its coup.” 




The FSO safer is being used by Houthis as a time bomb and a means to blackmail the international community. (File photo)

In addition to the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the international community has urgent business in the form of the FSO Safer — an abandoned oil tanker moored off Yemen’s western coast. Unless the Houthis allow urgent repairs to take place, the vessel’s payload — 48 million gallons of oil — could spill into the Red Sea, devastating the environment and coastal fishing communities. 

While announcing the Kingdom’s latest peace initiative in Riyadh, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, described the dilapidated ship as a “ticking time bomb” in view of its potentially destructive ecological impact. 

“The Saudi foreign minister’s description is very accurate,” said Al-Eryani. “The Houthis are using the FSO Safer as a time bomb and a means to blackmail and pressure the international community for political and material gains. Unfortunately, the Houthis are not interested in the looming environmental, economic and humanitarian disaster.” 

Expressing the Yemeni government’s concerns on the FSO Safer issue, Al-Eryani said: “We call on the international community, primarily the member states of the UN Security Council to put pressure on the Houthis to immediately and unconditionally implement the agreements with the UN, and to allow the technical team to assess the status of the Safer and avoid a disaster that will have serious consequences for all Red Sea countries and will affect the region and the world.” 

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Twitter: @md_sulami


Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

Updated 26 November 2024
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Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

  • Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry

GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 44,235 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,638 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
 

 


Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

  • The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry

THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.


Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

  • The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries

DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.

 

 


Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

Updated 26 November 2024
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Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

  • A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.
 

 


11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

Updated 26 November 2024
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11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

  • Seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in the attack and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that control swathes of northeast Syria.

BEIRUT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkiye-backed militants in north Syria.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed... in the bombing of a military position... used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkiye,” the Britain-based monitor said.
It said seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swathes of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkiye-backed group’s military position and killed three militants, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew, in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkiye militants but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the Observatory said.
On Sunday, 15 Ankara-backed Syrian militants were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the monitor reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkish troops and allied armed factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.