Yemen

Saudi Arabia’s determination to lay waste to Yemen has reached new heights over the past few weeks, adding to an already deplorable litany of war crimes. Faced with the possibility of a new war front, in that the Houthis directed their ire directly at the United Arab Emirates after Riyadh called on their help to precipitate…

If Yemen remains an indecipherable puzzle for even the most astute of analysts, the Houthis’ decision of late to bring fire and brimstones to the UAE – a player who so far averted the ire of the movement by limiting its meddling to the southern part of the country, a region the Houthis have long decided to abandon to better consolidate their hold…

After nearly seven years of conflict, the bloody war in Yemen, waged by Saudi Arabia at the instigation of the United States, now is threatening security and stability in important areas of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. For the first time, Abu Dhabi airport and the Adnoc oil refinery were the targets of a Houthi missile and drone attack that killed three foreign workers…

Ever since the opening of Dubai Expo 2020 in Dubai, the UAE appears to have become the centre of tourism in the region, adding to its overall standing as a modern, peaceful state. The UAE’s image-politics also involves its legal reforms – in particular, those targeted at attracting foreign (non-Muslim) investors and residents…

Earlier this September media outlets close to Saudi Arabia announced with much fanfare that Yemen’s intelligence services had scored a massive victory in arresting the man they dubbed the ‘Khomeini of Yemen’, and that thanks to such efforts the Houthis had had the wind taken off their sail…

Sounding the alarm this December Nicholas Papachrysostomou, MSF head of mission in Yemen made clear that well beyond the many casualties War claimed over the past seven years, famine weighs much heavier on the war-torn nation, a fate Afghanistan unfortunately shares. “A nearly seven-year long conflict has badly…

Joe Biden has taken a lot of stick for the disorganised withdrawal from Afghanistan, and for his comment that “After 20 years I’ve learned the hard way that there is never a good time to withdraw US forces”. However he was absolutely right – there would never have been a good time for the US to leave, because it should never have gone there in the first place…

The United Nations has warned that if the war in Yemen continues through the end of 2021, the death toll of the conflict will have reached 377,000 people, with 154,000 succumbed to direct hostilities and violence while 223,000, or almost 60%, will be indirectly caused by it. The report says that of the total deaths, 259,000, or almost 70% of total conflict…

Just as Saudi Arabia has hardened its tone towards Lebanon over the smuggling into its territories of the drug Captagon – ISIS and other radical groups’ drug of choice as it is said to instill courage to its practitioners, Yemen could soon be flooded with the product, yet another plague the war-torn nation will have to weather. Earlier this…

With Yemen well within its seventh year of a conflict that has all but ravaged the country, power dynamics seem to have shifted rather dramatically – interestingly enough not in favour of either engaged parties. If anything Yemen seems to have fallen prey to political entropy whereby players have all but ensured their mutual destruction, without any room…

UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder has just returned from Yemen with some tragic news about children living in what the United Nations calls the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, he said: “The Yemen conflict has just hit another shameful milestone: 10,000 children have been killed or maimed since Saudi Arabia’s bombing…

The war in Yemen, now in its sixth year, remains an important element of the broader Middle East conflict, in particular the confrontation between Iran with the Shiite “Axis of Resistance” and the Saudi coalition, which is indirectly supported by the United States and Israel. This conflict has already created the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. According to the UN…