Exploiting truce, Houthis deploy war machinery outside Marib

A Yemeni government fighter fires a vehicle-mounted weapon at Houthi positions, Marib, Yemen, Mar. 9, 2021. (Reuters)
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Updated 05 April 2022
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Exploiting truce, Houthis deploy war machinery outside Marib

  • Yemen’s FM Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak said that the Houthis breached the truce by launching strikes on government-controlled areas and reinforcing their positions outside Marib
  • Editor of Al-Masdar Online Ali Al-Fakih: They believe that they are militarily superior and are able to achieve more gains through force, not through consultations

AL-MUKALLA: Officials and military analysts have accused the Iran-backed Houthis of exploiting a truce announced by the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen to deploy heavy equipment and military forces outside the strategic city of Marib as they prepare to launch another offensive to capture the city. 

As the militia continues to mobilize military reinforcements outside the central city of Marib, Yemen’s president has again appealed to the Houthis to stop fighting, join peace talks and sever ties with Iran. 

Yemen’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak said that the Houthis breached the truce by launching drone and missile strikes on government-controlled areas and reinforcing their positions outside Marib with more troops and equipment.  

In a tweet, Mubarak said that the “truce has been greatly welcomed” but is threatened by the Houthis’ breaches, including military deployments, the mobilization of troops and vehicles, and artillery and drone strikes.

Yahiya Abu Hatem, a military analyst, told Arab News that Marib city is facing a “serious threat” from the latest Houthi military deployments of new forces, tanks, rocket launchers, artilleries and BMP military vehicles, calling for the coalition to resume airstrikes. 

“The airstrikes must be resumed. The legitimate government and the coalition must not let Marib fall prey to the Houthis,” Abu Hatem said.

Speaking on Monday evening to a gathering of senior government officials and participants in the Yemeni consultations in Riyadh, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi called upon the Houthis to relinquish their ideologies and expansionist ambitions, stop serving Iran’s agenda, form a political party and come to the negotiating table with his government to find a settlement to end the war. 

“I tell you, come back as a Yemeni political component that adheres to the republican and national constants, unity and democracy, and come to the dialogue table to make peace for our Yemeni people,” Hadi said, repeating his accusations against the Iranian regime of undermining peace and security in Yemen by supporting the Houthis. 

“Stay away from Iran’s destructive projects and come back to heal the wounds of our torn homeland and to [pledge] our loyalty to the united and great Yemen. Our hand is extended to you for a comprehensive and just peace,” the president added. 

The raging war that has killed thousands of Yemenis started in late 2014 when the Houthis militarily took power in Yemen, forcing Hadi and his government to the southern city of Aden. 

In a bid to find a solution to the conflict, the Gulf Cooperation Council has sponsored comprehensive and direct consultations between Yemeni factions at its headquarters in Riyadh.

At Monday’s iftar, Hadi also urged participants in the consultations to set their differences aside and focus on developing a roadmap for achieving peace and stability in the country, stressing that he would approve any recommendations to come out of the conference. 

“I am with you and with any recommendations that support unity and seek to build a state with strong national institutions,” he said. 

The Houthis rejected repeated calls from the GCC and many other countries to join the conference and demanded direct talks with Saudi Arabia. 

Yemeni political analysts say that it is unlikely that the Houthis would positively respond to Hadi’s call for peace. 

Ali Al-Fakih, editor of Al-Masdar Online, told Arab News that the Houthis would snub Hadi’s call as they see him as their primary enemy and think they have an upper hand on the battlefields and can make gains more quickly through military operations than peace talks. 

“They believe that they are militarily superior and are able to achieve more gains through force, not through consultations,” Al-Fakih said. 


Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

Updated 7 sec ago
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Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.

Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

Updated 35 min 46 sec ago
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Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

  • Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
  • War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.


Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

Updated 06 January 2025
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Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

  • A Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free in the first phase.


Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

Updated 06 January 2025
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Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

  • The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory

JERUSALEM: A shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people and wounded seven others on Monday, Israeli medics said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said those killed included two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the ongoing war there.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. The identities of the attackers and those killed were not immediately known. The military said it was looking for the attackers, who fled.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years. Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gunbattle with militants.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centers. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in scores of settlements, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a massive surprise attack nearly 15 months ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast. At least seven infants have died of hypothermia because of the harsh conditions, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.


New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Updated 06 January 2025
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New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Damascus: Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad Al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar Assad last month, official news agency SANA said.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, has arrived in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA reported.
Shaibani also posted a picture of himself on X stepping off a plane, and said he looked forward “to building constructive bilateral relations.”
The officials took office after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus in early December, toppling Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
Their trip to the UAE comes after they visited its Gulf neighbors Qatar on Sunday and Saudi Arabia last week.
Both Qatar and Turkiye, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, reopened their embassies in Damascus in the aftermath of Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Turkiye has long maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, leaving it with a direct line to Damascus.