Yemen update 3/24/2016..Warring parties in Yemen to halt fighting before talks
Warring parties in Yemen to halt fighting before talks
Sanaa residents sceptical after Yemen ceasefire announced
Deputy Spokesperson on Cessation of Hostilities in Yemen
Deputy Foreign Minister Iran Supports Yemen Peace Talks
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian voiced Tehran’s strong support for national dialogue to end the ongoing war in Yemen.
Amir Abdollahian told United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed earlier this week on a phone conversation that the settlement of the Yemeni crisis hinges on pursuit of a political approach, holding dialog among Yemeni sides, and encouraging all regional states to pursue talks as the solution to lead Yemen out of the current conflict.
“Iran’s principled approach is based on a halt to war and settlement of differences through dialogue. Iran supports any effort to this end,” he added.
The UN envoy, for his part, hailed constructive consultation with Iran on ways to resolve the Yemeni crisis through political approaches.
Ahmed called on all influential parties to help settle the crisis.
He said the Yemeni people are facing difficult conditions following Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes against their country and expressed hope that establishment of ceasefire would prepare the ground for the delivery of humanitarian aid to crisis-ridden zones.
The Saudi-led coalition has been striking Yemen for one year now, leaving thousands of innocent people dead, injured and displaced.
Amnesty International has urged Washington and London to halt arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia, which is leading a brutal war on Yemen.
In a new statement released one year into the Saudi-led intervention and titled “Reckless arms flows decimate civilian lives,” the rights watchdog urged the two Western powers and other states to “halt all transfers of arms for use in the Yemen conflict”.
“Saudi Arabia’s international partners have added fuel to the fire, flooding the region with arms despite the mounting evidence that such weaponry has facilitated appalling crimes and the clear risk that new supplies could be used for serious violations,” said James Lynch, Amnesty International’s regional deputy director.
Amnesty said that Washington and London, the largest arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia, “have continued to allow transfers of the type of arms that have been used to commit and facilitate serious abuses, generating a humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale.”
The group said it has documented since the beginning of the conflict at least 32 air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition “that appear to have violated international humanitarian law”.
The strikes had killed “almost 361 civilians, including at least 127 children”, it said.
Amnesty also accused the coalition of having “repeatedly used cluster munitions, inherently indiscriminate weapons whose use is prohibited, in attacks that have killed and maimed civilians.”
UN Security Council Resolution 2216, adopted in April last year, imposed an arms embargo only on the Yemeni army and Popular Committees that are resisting the Saudi-US aggression.
On February 25, the European Parliament called for an EU-wide arms embargo against Saudi Arabia, Amnesty said.
“In the absence of a Security Council embargo, Amnesty International is calling on all states to ensure that no party to the conflict in Yemen is supplied – either directly or indirectly – with weapons, munitions, military equipment or technology that would be used in the conflict.”
The World Health Organization says Saudi war on Yemen has killed almost 6,300 people since March 2015, and the United Nations has warned of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
UN must investigate war crimes by Saudi-led coalition in Yemen
UK Labour leader calls for Saudi arms embargo
US Backing Saudi-Led War Crimes Against Civilians In Yemen
Ramping up a bombing campaign the U.N. believes might constitute war crimes, the Saudi-led, U.S.-allied coalition carried out a number of airstrikes in Yemen that left over 200 people dead.
Late Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook announced the U.S. had bombed an al-Qaeda affiliate group’s “training camp,” killing “dozens” of people, the Guardian reported. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) reportedly operated the mountain camp, used by “more than 70 AQAP terrorists,” Cook described.
“We continue to assess the results of the operation, but our initial assessment is that dozens of AQAP fighters have been removed from the battlefield,” he euphemized. “This strike deals a blow to AQAP’s ability to use Yemen as a base for attacks that threaten U.S. persons, and it demonstrates our commitment to defeating al-Qaeda and denying it safe haven.”
Cook added, “The planes struck as al-Qaeda people stood in line to receive their dinner.”
A previous airstrike, carried out by Saudi-led forces on March 15, decimated a marketplace in Mastaba in northern Yemen. As The Intercept noted, that strike occurred around noon, local time, when area residents typically congregated there — the “only marketplace in the entire district” — to purchase food and goods.
In the aftermath, at least 120 people had been killed — “families could barely identify their dead,” an eyewitness wrote.
“The carnage caused by two airstrikes on the Al Khamees market was one of the deadliest incidents since the start of the conflict a year ago,” said Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, reported the Independent. “The people of Yemen have suffered enough. A very poor country is having its limited infrastructure decimated, and people are struggling desperately to survive.”
He added, “Looking at the figures, it would seem that the coalition is responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together, virtually all as a result of airstrikes.”
Though the U.S. tries to maintain the appearance of distance from the Saudi coalition’s activities in Yemen, its continued support by way of arms, refueling of jets, and intelligence belies the extent of its involvement. Robert Malley, a top White House official in charge of Middle East policy, was even reported by The New York Times on March 13 as saying the conflict in Yemen “is not our war.”
But the mounting number of dead in mass-casualty incidents have led analysts to suspect U.S. policy in Yemen might have quietly changed from the practice of targeted killings to more conventional warfare, according to the Guardian.
“This strike was conducted consistent with the policy for counter-terrorism direct action announced by the President in May 2013,” claimed Pentagon spokesman Major Ben Sakrisson, in an attempt to deny such a shift.
The Intercept provided a brief summary about the bombing campaign taking place in Yemen:
The Saudi coalition consists of nine Arab states that have joined forces against Houthi rebels who have taken over large parts of Yemen. While U.S. fighter jets are not involved in the bombing campaign, the U.S. is providing intelligence and other forms of assistance, including weapons sales and aerial refueling of the Arab jets. After the latest attack, a top United Nations official, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the high commissioner for human rights, said the coalition might be committing war crimes. While the horrific terrorist attacks against civilians in Europe receive extra media coverage, the U.S.-supported bombings of civilians in Yemen get scant attention.
An ongoing contradictory theme in Western mainstream media often appears to arbitrarily reduce the existential value of innocent human life in Middle Eastern and African countries, as it simultaneously beseeches the world to mourn when Europeans are killed in terror attacks. But the Western-led coalition simply fuels the fires of terrorism as it drops bombs on civilian marketplaces — ignoring its own role in worsening such issues. This article (US Backing Saudi-Led War Crimes Against Civilians In Yemen) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org.
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2016/03/yemen-update-3242016warring-parties-in.html
