AL-MUKALLA: A maritime coalition led by the US in the Red Sea foiled a major drone attack by the Houthis on Saturday as the Yemeni militia claimed to have fired dozens of drones and ballistic missiles at commercial and navy ships.
The US Central Command said that its navy ships, warplanes and others from allied countries shot down 15 drones fired by the Houthis in Yemen at commercial and navy ships in the Red Sea, accusing the militia of endangering international maritime navigation in the strategic shipping channel.
The French military also said that its warships and aircraft shot down four drones launched by the Houthis on Saturday targeting the EU maritime operation in the Gulf of Aden.
In Sanaa, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said that their naval and drone forces launched a “number” of missiles at the “US-owned” cargo ship Propel Fortune, as well as 37 drones at US Navy vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis claim that their missile and drone assaults against US ships are both in support of the Palestinian people and vengeance for US and UK bombings on regions under their control in Yemen.
According to information about the targeted ship on www.marinetraffic.com, which provides data on ship movements and whereabouts, the bulk carrier is sailing under the flag of Singapore and left India’s Dhamra Port on Feb. 25 to an undisclosed location, posting a “No connect to Israel” message on the website to avoid being targeted by the Houthis.
Since November, Iran-backed Houthis have seized a commercial ship and launched hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles, and remotely operated and explosive-laden boats, against foreign commercial and naval vessels in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis claim that their strikes are intended to push Israel to release supplies of water, food and medicine into the besieged Gaza Strip in Palestine.
However, many Yemenis believe that the Houthis are attacking ships to win the hearts and minds of Yemenis who are outraged by Israeli military operations in Gaza, to divert attention away from their failure to address public services or pay public employees in areas under their control, and to prepare for attacks against their opponents in Yemen.
Tawfeeq Al-Sharjabi, Yemen’s water and environment minister, and a member of the Yemen government’s crisis cell tasked with dealing with the sunk MV Rubymar ship in the Red Sea, told Arab News that an oil spill expert from the UN team would assist in the rescue of the ship after arriving in Aden on Saturday and that the remaining four members of the same team would arrive in the coming days.
“When the remaining specialists arrive, which is anticipated within a few days, they will meet with the government’s ship crisis management cell to go over the emergency response plan and commence field landing and inspection,” Al-Sharjabi said.
On March 2, the Belize-flagged and Lebanese-operated ship sank in the Red Sea, carrying more than 21,000 tons of ammonium phosphate-sulfate NPS fertilizer and more than 200 tons of gasoline, almost two weeks after being severely damaged by Houthi missiles.
The ship has raised concerns about an impending environmental calamity in the Red Sea, prompting the Yemeni authorities to request international aid in retrieving the ship.
On Saturday, hundreds of people, including fishermen, organized a demonstration in the Red Sea Khokha region to condemn Houthi assaults on ships in the Red Sea and to urge for the rescue of the sinking ship.
The demonstrators held banners accusing the Houthis of harming Red Sea security and nautical life, as well as threatening their livelihoods.
“The targeting of commercial ships damaged us, the fishermen, not Israel,” read one of the posters.
“Thousands of fishermen’s families face famine due to the Rubymar ship’s sinking,” said another.
US-led marine coalition foils ‘large-scale’ Houthi drone attack in Red Sea
https://arab.news/6vhdv
US-led marine coalition foils ‘large-scale’ Houthi drone attack in Red Sea
- The US Central Command said that its navy ships, warplanes and others from allied countries shot down 15 drones fired by the Houthis in Yemen
- The French military also said that its warships and aircraft shot down four drones launched by the Houthis on Saturday
After decades in Assad jails, political prisoner wants justice
Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that “everyone must be held accountable for their crimes“
DAMASCUS: Syrian fighter pilot Ragheed Tatari was 26 when he was arrested. Now 70, the country’s longest-serving political prisoner is finally free after Bashar Assad’s fall, seeking justice and accountability.
Tatari, arrested in 1981 and sentenced to life behind bars, was among scores of prisoners who walked free when longtime ruler Assad was overthrown on December 8 in an Islamist-led offensive.
He has made it out alive after 43 years in jail, but tens of thousands of Syrian families are still searching for their loved ones who disappeared long ago in Syria’s hellish prison system.
“I came close to death under torture,” Tatari told AFP in his small Damascus apartment.
Since a military field court gave him a life sentence for “collaborating with foreign countries” — an accusation he denies — Tatari was moved from one prison to another, first under late president Hafez Assad and then his son Bashar who succeeded him in 2000.
Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that “everyone must be held accountable for their crimes.”
“We do not want anyone to be imprisoned” without due process, said Tatari.
More than two million Syrians were jailed under the Assad dynasty’s rule, half of them after anti-government protests in 2011 escalated into civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
The Britain-based monitor says around 200,000 died in custody.
Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, said that Tatari was “the longest-serving political prisoner in Syria and the Middle East.”
Rights group Amnesty International has called the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus a “human slaughterhouse.”
Tatari had been detained there, but he said his 15 years in the Palmyra prison in the Syrian desert were the most difficult.
The Palmyra facility operated “without any discipline, any laws and any humanity,” Tatari said.
Detainees were “not afraid of torture — we wished for death,” he added.
“Everything that has been said about torture in Palmyra... is an understatement.”
“A guard could kill a prisoner if he was displeased with him,” Tatari said, adding that inmates were forced under torture to say phrases like “Hafez Assad is your god,” although he refused to do so.
In 1980, Palmyra witnessed a massacre of hundreds of mostly Islamist detainees, gunned down by helicopters or executed in their cells after a failed assassination attempt on Hafez Assad.
Tatari said he was completely disconnected from the outside world there, only learning of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union through a prisoner who had returned from a hospital visit.
In Sweida prison in the south, where Tatari was transferred after the 2011 revolt began, some inmates had phones that they would keep hidden from the guards.
“The cell phone gets you out of prison, it makes you feel alive,” he said, recalling how he used to conceal his device in a hole dug in his cell.
But after his phone was discovered, he was transferred to a prison in Tartus — his final detention facility before gaining freedom.
Tatari was one of several military officers who were opposed to Syria’s intervention in Lebanon in 1976, and to the violent repression in the early 1980s of the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria’s main opposition force at the time.
“Many of us were against involving the army in political operations,” he said.
After two of his fellow pilots defected and fled to Jordan in 1980, he escaped to Egypt and then on to Jordan.
But he returned when security forces began harassing his family and was arrested on arrival.
His wife was pregnant at the time with their first and only son.
For years, the family assumed Tatari was dead, before receiving a proof of life in 1997 after paying bribes, a common practice under the Assads’ rule.
It was then that Tatari was finally able to meet his son, then aged 16, under the watchful eye of guards during the family’s first authorized prison visit that year.
“I was afraid... I ended the meeting after 15 minutes,” Tatari said.
His wife has since died and their son left Syria, having received threats at the start of the protest movement, which had spiralled into war and eventually led to Assad’s overthrow.
During his time behind bars, Tatari said he “used to escape prison with my thoughts, daydreams and drawing.”
“The regime getting toppled overnight was beyond my dreams... No one expected it to happen so quickly.”
Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday
- No fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months
- Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast
MUWASI, Gaza Strip: With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays.
To mark Eid Al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice — Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes.
But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. And nearly all the territory’s homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.
Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday.
“I can’t even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,” said Abdel Rahman Madi. “The prices are astronomical.”
The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts.
But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago.
At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices.
“Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there’s no flour, no clothes, no joy,” said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. “We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.”
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself. The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead. More than 95 percent of Gaza’s prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the UN to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the UN says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives.
Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah — from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis — to find some possessions she’d left behind.
She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts.
“I can’t buy them clothes or anything,” the 38-year-old said. “I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can’t bring meat, and I can’t even feed the girls with bread.”
Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes.
Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid Al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid Al-Fitr, two times each under the war. “During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.”
Iraq holds Kurdish government legally responsible for continued oil smuggling
- The ministry reserves the right to take all legal measures in the matter, it added
- Control over oil and gas has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Irbil
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s oil ministry said on Thursday it holds the Kurdish regional government (KRG) legally responsible for the continued smuggling of oil from the Kurdish region outside the country.
The ministry reserves the right to take all legal measures in the matter, it added.
Control over oil and gas has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Irbil.
Iraq is under pressure from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut output to compensate for having produced more than its agreed volume. OPEC counts oil flows from Kurdistan as part of Iraq’s quota.
In a ruling issued in 2022, Iraq’s federal court deemed an oil and gas law regulating the oil industry in Iraqi Kurdistan unconstitutional and demanded that Kurdish authorities hand over their crude oil supplies.
The ministry said the KRG’s failure to comply with the law has hurt both oil exports and public revenue, forcing Baghdad to cut output from other fields to meet OPEC quotas.
The ministry added that it had urged the KRG to hand over crude produced from its fields, warning that failure to do so could result in significant financial losses and harm the country’s international reputation and oil commitments.
Negotiations to resume Kurdish oil exports via the Iraq-Turkiye oil pipeline, which once handled about 0.5 percent of global oil supply, have stalled over payment terms and contract details.
Jordan, Spain sign partnership deal, affirm support for Palestinian state
- King Abdullah meets King Felipe VI, Spanish PM in Madrid
- Jordan plays vital role in supporting Palestinians, Pedro Sanchez says
LONDON: Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday witnessed the signing of a declaration to establish a strategic partnership between their countries.
The deal is designed to increase cooperation in the economic, commercial, social, cultural and defense fields. A memorandum of understanding for the agriculture sector and an extradition agreement were also signed, the Jordan News Agency reported.
During his visit to Madrid, King Abdullah also met King Felipe VI of Spain. He praised the European nation’s support for Palestinian rights, its efforts to achieve peace in the region and its commitment to ending the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip.
He emphasized the significance of Spain’s decision to recognize the Palestinian state and said Jordan was working to gain greater European support for the Arab plan aimed at rebuilding Gaza without displacing its residents.
Sanchez said Jordan had a vital role in supporting Palestinians and that the war in Gaza must end.
King Abdullah was joined for the talks by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Director of the King’s Office Alaa Batayneh and Jordan’s Ambassador to Spain Raghad Al-Saqqa.
Red Sea marine traffic up 60 percent after Houthis narrowed targets, EU commander says
- Shipping traffic, which reached a low of 20-23 ships daily in August last year, is still short of an average of 72-75 ships a day, said Gryparis
- Gryparis said he could not guarantee that merchant ships won’t be attacked
MADRID: Red Sea marine traffic has increased by 60 percent to 36-37 ships a day since August 2024, but is still short of volumes seen before Yemen’s Houthis began attacking ships in the region, according to the commander of the EU’s Aspides naval mission.
The number of merchant ships using the narrow Bab Al-Mandab strait increased after missile and drone attacks by the Houthis slowed and the US and the rebel group signed a ceasefire deal, Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis said in an interview in Madrid.
But shipping traffic, which reached a low of 20-23 ships daily in August last year, is still short of an average of 72-75 ships a day seen before the Houthis began attacks in the Red Sea in November in 2023 in support of Palestinians over Israel’s war in Gaza, said Gryparis.
The mission, which was established to safeguard navigation in the strategic trade route linking the Mediterranean with the Gulf of Asia through the Suez Canal, was extended in February when it was also tasked with tracking illegal arms shipments and monitoring vessels carrying sanctioned Russian oil.
The last attack on a merchant ship took place in November 2024 and the Houthis have also narrowed their objectives, saying their targets are Israeli ships and ships that have a connection with Israel or have docked at an Israeli port, Gryparis said.
“If you have a vessel that does not correspond to this criteria... there is a huge possibility — more than 99 percent — that you’re not going to be targeted by the Houthis,” Gryparis said.
Still, Gryparis said he could not guarantee that merchant ships won’t be attacked.
Some companies have been deterred from using the route because of the mission’s lack of ships, which can cause delays of as much as a week for those seeking to be escorted through the area, he said.
He said the mission has between two and three ships operating at one time and has requested the EU provide it with 10 ships to increase its capacity for protection.
The mission has provided close protection to 476 ships, shot down 18 drones, destroyed two remote-controlled boats used to attack ships and intercepted four ballistic missiles, he said.
