Biden administration slams Houthis, Iran for prolonging Yemen crisis

Supporters of Yemen's Houthi militia and a protest in Sanaa. (AFP)
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Updated 10 August 2021
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Biden administration slams Houthis, Iran for prolonging Yemen crisis

  • Militia ‘fueling the conflict and Tehran unprepared for constructive role,’ US envoy warns
  • New appointees Tim Lenderking and Sarah Charles lead call for renewed aid funding

CHICAGO: US Special Envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking on Monday accused the Houthi militia of preventing a cease-fire in Yemen by manipulating the price of fuel and through their military offensive in the country’s gas-rich Marib region.

Lenderking, joined by Sarah Charles, USAID assistant administrator for the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, told reporters that the US was increasing its humanitarian aid to the war-torn country by $165 million dollars, calling the situation in Yemen “dire, and one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.”

The two Biden-appointed officials welcomed the decision by the UN Security Council to name Swedish diplomat Hans Grundberg as new UN envoy to Yemen. But they acknowledged that despite continued humanitarian efforts, Iran’s subversive relationship in backing the Houthis was prolonging the six-year conflict.

“There is of course a relationship between Iran and the Houthis that is not helpful to the Yemen conflict. In terms of Iran … I haven’t seen anything on the ground that leads me to believe the Iranians are prepared for a constructive role,” Lenderking said.

“We of course would welcome that. We would love to see that. Those of us who work on Yemen and see the intense suffering. We do not want to see the Yemen process held up by the Iranians or by the negotiations that have been taking place on the JCPOA. The Yemeni situation is urgent.”

Lenderking added: “We call on Iran to play a constructive role. Stop fueling the war effort through the provision of equipment, know-how and training that is only perpetuating the conflict. At the same time, if the Houthis understand the world current, they would do well to lessen their relationship on Iran and turn to others who are willing to support their presence inside Yemen and ensure their voices are heard in the political process.”

Lenderking and Charles praised Saudi Arabia and urged the Kingdom to lift fuel restrictions that are intended to prevent the Houthis from manipulating prices and funding their violence against Yemen and the Saudi coalition.

“It is very important for the Saudis to be fully engaged and constructive and it is one reason why I am in Saudi Arabia very often talking to the leadership. They are major actors, major donors through King Salman’s humanitarian center. We appreciate the donations and the funding the Saudis have provided, at the same time we are going to see more as I have stressed,” Lenderking said.

“What I do sense from the Saudis is a genuine desire to end the conflict. That doesn’t mean there is complete alignment on everything and we need to continue to narrow those gaps where we can. There has been a lot of constructive engagement from Saudi Arabia. I see that their efforts are continuing.”

Lenderking said that he is in discussions with the Kingdom to lift fuel restrictions in Yemen’s ports.

“That is something the Saudis can help us with. That the Yemeni government can help us with. It’s very important that that happens so that we do not face problems with the fuel restrictions,” Lenderking said.

“The fuel is vital to everything that Sarah and I are talking about. It goes to power mills that produce food. It goes to hospitals. It goes to the transportation network that Yemenis rely on. The humanitarian workers who are bravely out there in Marib need the fuel to power their activities. There should be no restrictions whatsoever on movement of fuel into the ports. That is something that I have had as an envoy in conversation with Saudi Arabia.”

Both officials criticized the Houthis, and slammed the militia for “fueling the conflict.”

Lenderking said: “At the same time, the fuel, once it arrives into Yemen, must be distributed in a way so that no party, including the Houthis, takes advantage of it or stockpiles it, and as Sarah and I have mentioned, it drives up black market prices and that is a way that people profit from the war in a way that is unconscionable.”

Charles said that the Houthis were killing civilians in the Marib offensive, which has threatened to displace hundreds of thousands more civilians and aggravate the humanitarian crisis even further, but that funding from donors is preventing the crisis from turning into a full-scale famine.

“The situation in Yemen is dire, one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world,” Charles said. “Two-thirds of the country needs humanitarian assistance, that’s more than 20 million Yemenis who struggle every day to survive without basic necessities, including more than 2 million young children facing deadly non-nutrition this year alone.”

The US is the largest single donor of humanitarian aid to Yemen, contributing more than $3.6 billion since the country’s conflict began in 2015.

Lenderking said that the humanitarian fund “is dangerously low” and urged regional donors to contribute more. He said the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is closely linked to economic problems in Yemen and that together they are fueling the conflict.

“Yemen continues to face the threat of mass famine and humanitarian assistance is critical to preventing this. We also believe that taking immediate steps to mitigate the humanitarian effects and save lives can contribute to progress on the peace process,” Lenderking said.

“The US remains the largest single donor to humanitarian assistance for the Yemeni people, providing more than $3.6 billion since the crisis began to alleviate suffering. Obviously, the US can’t do this alone, so other donors, particularly regional donors, must step up their contributions.

“The UN humanitarian appeal remains dangerously underfunded. We look forward to addressing this at the UN General Assembly in September and hope to see additional funding commitments that cannot wait.”


Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

Updated 29 November 2024
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Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

  • The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor
  • Militants cut highway linking Aleppo to capital Damascus on Thursday

BEIRUT: Militants and their Turkish-backed allies shelled Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday, in a major offensive against government troops that has sparked some of the deadliest fighting the country has seen in years.

The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor, most of them combatants on both sides but also including civilians, including 24 dead, most of them in Russian air strikes.

The offensive began at a sensitive time for Syria and the region, with a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel taking effect earlier this week in neighboring Lebanon.

Syria’s civil war began when President Bashar Assad’s forces cracked down in 2011 on pro-democracy protests.

Since then, it has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

Over the years, the conflict has morphed into a complex war drawing in militants and foreign powers, including Assad allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

While the army regained control over most of the territory that it lost earlier in the war, the area where the militants and their allies are based has been subject to a truce since 2020.

This week, militants and factions backed by Turkiye, which neighbors Syria and supported the anti-Assad rebellion, launched a major surprise offensive against government forces.

On Friday, they shelled a university student residence in government-held Aleppo, northern Syria’s main city, according to state media, which reported four civilian deaths in the latest attack.

By Friday, they had wrested more than 50 towns and villages in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the biggest advances that anti-government factions had made in years.

The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

“The highway has now been put out of service, after it was reopened by regime forces years ago,” said the monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people — nearly half are children — have been displaced” by the violence.

At a press conference earlier this week, Mohamed Bashir of the militant Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) said: “This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines.”

HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the northwest Idlib region as well as small parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire, repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding, brokered by Turkiye and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.

An AFP correspondent based in rebel-held areas said there were intense exchanges of fire in an area just seven kilometers (four miles) from the city of Aleppo.

HTS has close ties with Turkish-backed factions, and analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the fighters were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo.”

According to Heras, the Syrian government and its key backer Russia had been preparing for such a campaign.

Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favor of the president, whose forces at the time had lost control of most of country.

Turkiye, Heras said, may be “sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria.”

Other interests are also at stake.

As well as Russia, Assad has been propped up by Iran and allied militant groups, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah.

Anti-government forces are, according to Heras, “in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon.”

A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting, an Iranian news agency reported.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the deadly offensive was “part of a plan by the diabolical regime (Israel) and the US” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.”

During its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel intensified its strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria including Hezbollah.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Observatory, said Assad’s forces “were totally unprepared” for the attack.

“It is strange to see regime forces being dealt such big blows despite Russian air cover and early signs that HTS was going to launch this operation,” Abdel Rahman said.

“Were they depending on Hezbollah, which is now busy in Lebanon?”


Israeli tanks retreat from central Gaza camp, medics say 30 killed

Updated 52 min 56 sec ago
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Israeli tanks retreat from central Gaza camp, medics say 30 killed

  • Some tanks remained active in the western area of the camp
  • Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians overnight in the Gaza Strip, most of them in the Nuseirat camp at the center of the enclave, medics said on Friday after some tanks pulled back from an area they had raided.
Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in the northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave's eight long-standing refugee camps.
Some tanks remained active in the western area of the camp and the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped inside their houses.
The rest were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, medics added. There was no fresh statement by the Israeli military on Friday, but on Thursday it said its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip".
Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities released around 30 Palestinians whom it had detained during the ongoing offensive in Gaza in the past months. The released people arrived at a hospital in southern Gaza for medical checkups, medics said.
Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture in Israeli detention after they were released. Israel denies torture.
Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.
A ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and had overshadowed the Gaza conflict.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.
The Hamas-led militants who attacked southern Israeli communities 13 months ago, triggering the war, killed some 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, Israel has said.


France envoy urges Lebanon to pick president

Updated 29 November 2024
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France envoy urges Lebanon to pick president

  • Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Lebanon follows a fragile ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah
  • Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022

BEIRUT: France’s special envoy on Friday said it was urgent for Lebanon to elect a president, after a parliamentary vote to end over two years without a head of state was announced for January.
Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Lebanon follows a fragile ceasefire to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I came to Lebanon immediately after the ceasefire announcement to signal France’s support for its full implementation and to stress the urgent need, more than ever, to elect a president and restart the institutional process,” he said on Friday.
He said he was in support of Thursday’s announcement by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of a presidential election to be held on 9 January.
Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022, with neither of the two main blocs – the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its opponents – having the majority required to elect one.
However, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a wartime speech that Hezbollah would “bring an effective contribution to the election of a president.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Wednesday he hoped the ceasefire agreement would mark “a new page for Lebanon,” calling for a swift presidential election.
Le Drian held talks with Lebanese officials and foreign diplomats from the United States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – countries working to address Lebanon’s presidential crisis.
The special envoy has visited Lebanon several times since being appointed to the position by French President Emmanuel Macron in June 2023.


Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

Updated 29 November 2024
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Syria militants, allies shell Aleppo in shock offensive

  • The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor
  • The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus

BEIRUT: Militants and their Turkish-backed allies shelled Syria’s second city Aleppo on Friday, in a major offensive against government troops that has sparked some of the deadliest fighting the country has seen in years.

The violence has killed 242 people, according to a Syrian war monitor, most of them combatants on both sides but also including civilians, including 24 dead, most of them in Russian air strikes.

The offensive began at a sensitive time for Syria and the region, with a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel taking effect earlier this week in neighboring Lebanon.

Syria’s civil war began when President Bashar Assad’s forces cracked down in 2011 on pro-democracy protests.

Since then, it has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

Over the years, the conflict has morphed into a complex war drawing in militants and foreign powers, including Assad allies Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

While the army regained control over most of the territory that it lost earlier in the war, the area where the militants and their allies are based has been subject to a truce since 2020.

This week, militants and factions backed by Turkiye, which neighbors Syria and supported the anti-Assad rebellion, launched a major surprise offensive against government forces.

On Friday, they shelled a university student residence in government-held Aleppo, northern Syria’s main city, according to state media, which reported four civilian deaths in the latest attack.

By Friday, they had wrested more than 50 towns and villages in northern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the biggest advances that anti-government factions had made in years.

The fighters had on Thursday cut the highway linking Aleppo to Syria’s capital Damascus, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

“The highway has now been put out of service, after it was reopened by regime forces years ago,” said the monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people — nearly half are children — have been displaced” by the violence.

At a press conference earlier this week, Mohamed Bashir of the militant Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) said: “This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines.”

HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the northwest Idlib region as well as small parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire, repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding, brokered by Turkiye and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.

An AFP correspondent based in rebel-held areas said there were intense exchanges of fire in an area just seven kilometers (four miles) from the city of Aleppo.

HTS has close ties with Turkish-backed factions, and analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the fighters were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo.”

According to Heras, the Syrian government and its key backer Russia had been preparing for such a campaign.

Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favor of the president, whose forces at the time had lost control of most of country.

Turkiye, Heras said, may be “sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria.”

Other interests are also at stake.

As well as Russia, Assad has been propped up by Iran and allied militant groups, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah.

Anti-government forces are, according to Heras, “in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon.”

A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting, an Iranian news agency reported.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the deadly offensive was “part of a plan by the diabolical regime (Israel) and the US” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.”

During its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel intensified its strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria including Hezbollah.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Observatory, said Assad’s forces “were totally unprepared” for the attack.

“It is strange to see regime forces being dealt such big blows despite Russian air cover and early signs that HTS was going to launch this operation,” Abdel Rahman said.

“Were they depending on Hezbollah, which is now busy in Lebanon?”


Israeli military says Lebanese prohibited from moving south to several villages

Updated 29 November 2024
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Israeli military says Lebanese prohibited from moving south to several villages

  • Israel opened fire on Thursday toward what it called ‘suspects’ with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone

DUBAI: Lebanese residents are prohibited from moving south to a line of villages and their surroundings until further notice, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X on Friday.
Israel said it opened fire on Thursday toward what it called “suspects” with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone, saying it was a breach of the truce with Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, which came into effect on Wednesday.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah in turn accused Israel of violating the deal.
“The Israeli enemy is attacking those returning to the border villages,” Fadlallah told reporters, adding “there are violations today by Israel, even in this form.”
The Israeli military also said on Thursday the air force struck a facility used by Hezbollah to store mid-range rockets in southern Lebanon, the first such attack since the ceasefire took effect on Wednesday morning.
In his recent post, Adraee called on Lebanese residents to not return to more than 60 southern villages, saying anyone who moves south of the specified line “puts themselves in danger.”
The Lebanese army earlier accused Israel of violating the ceasefire several times on Wednesday and Thursday.
The exchange of accusations highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and France to end the conflict, fought in parallel with the Gaza war. The truce lasts for 60 days in the hope of reaching a permanent cessation of hostilities.