Thəorətic Muslim
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Ya Ali Baba, Please give me this for Eid Ul Fitr or Adha whichever, I want one.
Operation 'Decisive Storm' | Saudi lead coalition operations in Yemen - Updates & Discussions.
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Ya Ali Baba, Please give me this for Eid Ul Fitr or Adha whichever, I want one.
Daneshmand
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The SiLent crY
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Houthis have already fought Saudis a couple of times and they're not bunch of big belly pussies like Saudis and their allies around Persian Gulf . They know how to deal with their enemies on the ground the same way they sent 26000 Egyptians home in body bags .
Let them take Aden and kill Hadi supporters , Then we'll see how serious Saudis will grab Americans' balls and beg them to save their oil tankers in Bab Al mandeb .
We've got a long day ahead , Patience is advised .
Frogman
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sisi withdrawing?
Nope, just saying Egypt won't do the job for them (loyal Yemeni Army and militias). Basically, it's your own country, you fight for it.
WTH is that
GMG
Daneshmand
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Saudi air campaign fails to halt rebel advance in Yemen
Jim Michaels, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – A Saudi-led air campaign has failed to halt the advance of Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, where growing violence is plunging the country deeper into chaos and further undermining the U.S.-backed government.
Houthi rebels continued to advance toward the port city of Aden, where forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are attempting to make a stand. Friday, the Arab coalition dropped weapons and supplies for the first time to forces battling Houthis around Aden.
Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Saudis have hit fixed military installations and weapons caches, but they lack the sophisticated intelligence and other capabilities that would allow them to react quickly to fast-moving and widely dispersed forces.
"A lot of what they're doing is of cosmetic effect," Knights said. "It's hard to imagine the coalition becoming effective enough unless the United States becomes much more involved."
U.S. help is limited largely to surveillance and planning support. American drones provide the general location of the Houthis and other forces but not specific targeting information.
The Pentagon has offered to provide aerial refueling capabilities to the coalition, which would allow pilots to remain in the air longer to track targets. U.S. tanker aircraft would not enter Yemen airspace.
Analysts say Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations improved pilot training over the past decade to match the billions of dollars they have spent on sophisticated American warplanes. Analysts credit the countries for being able to mobilize a complex coalition quickly and begin airstrikes.
"Arab countries are stepping up to take care of their own issues," said Charles Wald, a retired Air Force general. "This is something we ought to be applauding."
Initially, several hundred airstrikes a day disrupted the Houthis' advance. More recently, the rebels appear to have regrouped and continued their advances.
Knights said the air campaign is reminiscent of the 1990s-era NATO airstrikes in the Balkans. He said the Saudi coalition lacks precision strikes based on immediate intelligence.
The fighting is growing increasingly complex. The airstrikes on Houthi forces help a powerful al-Qaeda terror affiliate, a rival in Yemen. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization, and the Houthis are Shiites.
Thursday, al-Qaeda militants overran Mukalla, a major port city in southern Yemen, the Associated Press reported.
The Houthis are allied with military forces who remained loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president ousted from power after protests in 2011. As a result, the airstrikes have targeted military installations and army units that would be needed to help stabilize the country should fighting cease.
"At the end of the day, were going to have a force that might not be able to reunite," said Katherine Zimmerman, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. "Most units have been rendered combat-ineffective."
Jim Michaels, USA TODAYWASHINGTON – A Saudi-led air campaign has failed to halt the advance of Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, where growing violence is plunging the country deeper into chaos and further undermining the U.S.-backed government.
Houthi rebels continued to advance toward the port city of Aden, where forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are attempting to make a stand. Friday, the Arab coalition dropped weapons and supplies for the first time to forces battling Houthis around Aden.
Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Saudis have hit fixed military installations and weapons caches, but they lack the sophisticated intelligence and other capabilities that would allow them to react quickly to fast-moving and widely dispersed forces.
"A lot of what they're doing is of cosmetic effect," Knights said. "It's hard to imagine the coalition becoming effective enough unless the United States becomes much more involved."
U.S. help is limited largely to surveillance and planning support. American drones provide the general location of the Houthis and other forces but not specific targeting information.
The Pentagon has offered to provide aerial refueling capabilities to the coalition, which would allow pilots to remain in the air longer to track targets. U.S. tanker aircraft would not enter Yemen airspace.
Analysts say Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations improved pilot training over the past decade to match the billions of dollars they have spent on sophisticated American warplanes. Analysts credit the countries for being able to mobilize a complex coalition quickly and begin airstrikes.
"Arab countries are stepping up to take care of their own issues," said Charles Wald, a retired Air Force general. "This is something we ought to be applauding."
Initially, several hundred airstrikes a day disrupted the Houthis' advance. More recently, the rebels appear to have regrouped and continued their advances.
Knights said the air campaign is reminiscent of the 1990s-era NATO airstrikes in the Balkans. He said the Saudi coalition lacks precision strikes based on immediate intelligence.
The fighting is growing increasingly complex. The airstrikes on Houthi forces help a powerful al-Qaeda terror affiliate, a rival in Yemen. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization, and the Houthis are Shiites.
Thursday, al-Qaeda militants overran Mukalla, a major port city in southern Yemen, the Associated Press reported.
The Houthis are allied with military forces who remained loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president ousted from power after protests in 2011. As a result, the airstrikes have targeted military installations and army units that would be needed to help stabilize the country should fighting cease.
"At the end of the day, were going to have a force that might not be able to reunite," said Katherine Zimmerman, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. "Most units have been rendered combat-ineffective."
Mutakalim
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Whatever it is. It is monarchy and dictatorship.
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Russia calls UNSC session on Yemen crisis amid Saudi-led airstrikes
Reuters / Mike Segar
As fighting in Yemen intensifies Russia has called up an emergency UN Security Council session to put on pause Saudi-led coalition airstrikes for humanitarian purposes in an effort to quell the violence that is impacting civilians.
Russia insists it is necessary for the international community to discuss the establishment of regular and mandatory “humanitarian pauses” in the ongoing coalition air strikes on Yemen, Russian UN mission’s spokesman Aleksey Zaytsev told Sputnik.
An extraordinary meeting is scheduled for Saturday, at 3pm GMT at the UN headquarters in NYC.
A coalition of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, has been engaging Houthi militias from the air for over a week now, after the Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was forced to flee the country and asked for an international intervention to reinstate his rule.
Moscow is calling for a diplomatic solution to the conflict emphasizing that foreign military intervention would only lead to more civilian deaths. On Friday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with the newly appointed Saudi ambassador, conveying the “necessity of a ceasefire” to create favorable conditions for a peaceful national dialogue.
Russia has already taken steps to evacuate all of its personnel from its Yemeni consulate, which was damaged in the conflict. It has also taken an active role evacuating Russian nationals and other civilians from the country.
On Thursday Russia proposed amendments to a UN Security Council draft resolution on Yemen. The world security body “should speak in a principled manner for ending any violence…in the Yemen crisis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that a draft resolution on the crisis has already been submitted to the UNSC.
Echoing Lavrov’s words, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich also called on immediate cessation of hostilities, adding that Russia will continue active diplomatic efforts in dealing with all Yemeni factions and Middle Eastern partners in order to restart political process. Lukashevich also called on the UN special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, to play a bigger role in the settlement of the crisis.
Reuters / Mike Segar
As fighting in Yemen intensifies Russia has called up an emergency UN Security Council session to put on pause Saudi-led coalition airstrikes for humanitarian purposes in an effort to quell the violence that is impacting civilians.
Russia insists it is necessary for the international community to discuss the establishment of regular and mandatory “humanitarian pauses” in the ongoing coalition air strikes on Yemen, Russian UN mission’s spokesman Aleksey Zaytsev told Sputnik.
An extraordinary meeting is scheduled for Saturday, at 3pm GMT at the UN headquarters in NYC.
A coalition of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, has been engaging Houthi militias from the air for over a week now, after the Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was forced to flee the country and asked for an international intervention to reinstate his rule.
Moscow is calling for a diplomatic solution to the conflict emphasizing that foreign military intervention would only lead to more civilian deaths. On Friday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with the newly appointed Saudi ambassador, conveying the “necessity of a ceasefire” to create favorable conditions for a peaceful national dialogue.
Russia has already taken steps to evacuate all of its personnel from its Yemeni consulate, which was damaged in the conflict. It has also taken an active role evacuating Russian nationals and other civilians from the country.
On Thursday Russia proposed amendments to a UN Security Council draft resolution on Yemen. The world security body “should speak in a principled manner for ending any violence…in the Yemen crisis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that a draft resolution on the crisis has already been submitted to the UNSC.
Echoing Lavrov’s words, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich also called on immediate cessation of hostilities, adding that Russia will continue active diplomatic efforts in dealing with all Yemeni factions and Middle Eastern partners in order to restart political process. Lukashevich also called on the UN special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, to play a bigger role in the settlement of the crisis.
Rain
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Me too.
Honestly we all muslim have chosen a person like abu hanifa hambal etc and follow him blindly ignoring the fact they too were human n pron to err.
Secondly we look at our problems as sunni shia etc not as humans and citizen of nation states.
monitor
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Is regional balance starting with Yemen?
Khalid Al-Dakhil
Wednesday, 01 April 2015 11:58
The timing of the coalition intervention is significant, coming as it does after so much patience in the face of the transgressions by the Houthis...
If you want to know the impact of "Decisive Storm" in Yemen on those who were taken aback by it or those who are afraid of it, and what it is likely to lead to, and what is likely to be its outcome in the region, then listen (do not just read) to what was said by Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, last Friday. The significance of his words does not spring from his own importance but rather from what he represents as an Iranian proxy in the region and as a spokesperson for the Iranian regime in the Levant.
Three features in Nasrallah's speech reflect this significance. The first is that the speech was made on the second day of the coalition attack on Yemen, and "Decisive Storm" was the only topic discussed. The second was the psychological condition that prevailed on Nasrallah as he was delivering his speech. Right from the start his tongue struggled with the froth between his lips to the extent that he needed more than once to take a drink of water to "resist and deter" the dryness in his throat. This was never the case in any of his previous speeches, and there have been quite a few of them. The third, and most important, feature was that the speech constituted a long defence against "Decisive Storm", stressing the inevitability of its failure, a desperate defence of Iran and a declaration of its innocence. Iran, in the Hezbollah chief's speech, came across as a charitable society, or a band of angelic beings roaming the region bearing honey, roses and all sort of goodies for those in need. Moreover, Nasrallah used abusive language to attack Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt, Sudan and Morocco as part of his fierce and erratic onslaught on Saudi Arabia and its princes, all the while defending Iran and proclaiming it to be honest and decent.
Within this context, he asked several times, with overt defiance and envious audacity, for a single piece of evidence of Iranian intervention in the whole region, especially in Lebanon. In his nervousness, the Secretary General missed out on the ironic fact that his own role in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as his speech, provides the most important proof of this intervention. Can he prove that Tehran did not ask him to deliver his speech or suggest when it should be made? If Iran does not intervene in the region, then what goes on in Yemen should be of no interest to the government in Tehran. Consequently, Nasrallah should not have been so nervous to seem to be out of control. Why did he rush to deliver his speech to defend Iran less than 48 hours after the start of the Saudi-led attack on Yemen? Perhaps he realised, belatedly, that through his speech, his nervousness and his defence did indeed prove what he had been trying to deny through his words.
The fact of the matter is that there was no need for Nasrallah's speech in order to learn about the Iranian position on "Decisive Storm" and Tehran's shock at the intervention by the broad Arab and Islamic coalition to restore political legitimacy in Yemen. The Iranian government must have felt that the isolation of the Houthis by the coalition is the isolation of itself and a barrier imposed on its role around the periphery of the Arabian Peninsula.
Iran has always benefited from divisions in the Arab world and has exploited them to expand its own influence. These divisions plus the collapse of the state in Iraq and Syria, have caused a regional imbalance in Iran's favour. However, it seems that the Iranian leadership has not paid attention to the fact that what has happened in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions is not a final shift; it is part of a historic and fluid process the end of which nobody can predict. Hence, Iran's surprise at "Decisive Storm". The Saudi-led initiative in Yemen defied all expectations. The dominant belief was that Riyadh's year-long silence about the Houthis' military expansion and capture of Sanaa, as well as the house arrest of President Abed Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and the members of his cabinet, followed by the move on Aden to where Hadi had fled and set up his government, all suggested that Saudi Arabia had limited options, if any at all. It looked as if the balance of power inside Yemen had already been decided in favour of the Houthis and thus, by proxy, in favour of the deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh through the extension of a regional imbalance that could no longer be rectified easily.
In this sense, the Saudi move is unprecedented, not only in terms of the size of the coalition and the seriousness of the role undertaken in Yemen, but also in terms of it being Riyadh which has taken the lead militarily and politically. Perhaps the element that took everyone by surprise was the return of Saudi Arabia to the known and correct political equation that foreign policy loses its effectiveness and impact at home and abroad without a military capability commensurate with its size and ability to protect its role and interests, and impose its will when necessary. When a state has the military capacity but not the political will to use it, then it loses its effectiveness. However, "Decisive Storm" has proved that the Saudi silence and delay was calculated to await an opportune moment for action.
For Saudi Arabia and the rest of the coalition the restoration of political balance in Yemen was a priority option. They could not accept the possibility of a Yemeni "Hezbollah" on the Saudi border, especially because it would consolidate Iranian influence in another part of the Arab world. The Houthis, and Iran behind them, want to repeat this experience in full. The mistake of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab countries is that they allowed an imbalance to take place in Lebanon in favour of Hezbollah and Iran. "Decisive Storm" indicates that Riyadh and its coalition partners have learnt their lesson. It will be impossible to have a genuine dialogue in Yemen without some degree of balance between the various forces in the country. The only way such a balance can be achieved is to disarm the Houthis completely and transform them into a political party like all the other parties. Weapons should be possessed exclusively by the state, in which all citizens participate on an equal footing. This is the exact opposite of what Tehran wants, which is for the logic of the militias to prevail and for the state to disappear, just as has been done in Iraq and Syria.
In this sense, and within the context of balance itself, the coalition's military operation in Yemen represents a very smart pre-emptive step to close the door completely on terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda, which would otherwise confront the Houthis and proclaim themselves to be the saviours of the Yemeni people. This is what happened in Iraq and Syria as a result of the inaction of the Arab states and regional divisions. What would have happened had the coalition not intervened to arrest the advance of the Houthis? It is most likely that Yemen would have been left wide open for the militias; terrorist organisations such as ISIS would enter under the pretext of defending the Sunnis and Hezbollah would say that it is there to defend the Shia Houthis. This would have been a devastating repeat of the Iraq-Syria experience and the Iranian role played in both.
In order for the strategic aim of "Decisive Storm" to be accomplished, five objectives would have to be achieved simultaneously. For a start, the complete destruction of the Houthis' arsenal would be the means to disarm the group. "Decisive Storm", by virtue of the support it enjoys locally, regionally and internationally, provides the sole opportunity to accomplish this. Failure to disarm the Houthis now will make such a mission very close to impossible in the future both politically and militarily.
The second objective is to send the former president and his son into exile and to retire all of his allies in the army and security establishment, and exclude them all from the political process. What the former president is doing is criminal in that he is endangering the security of Yemen and its future for the sake of his personal ambitions, stabbing Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states in the back in the process with his actions and unstable alliances.
The third objective is to maintain an aerial blockade and put an end to Iranian supply aircraft bringing weapons and equipment for the Houthis. Fourthly, Yemen's ports should be declared to be restricted zones under coalition naval control; all ships entering and leaving should be searched. Finally, the most important objective is for the Yemeni parties to draft a transparent political agenda for everyone, including the Houthis.
These are all entirely achievable objectives which may not require a ground war. The purpose of "Decisive Storm" is not the occupation of Yemen but rather the ending of the Houthis' military capability and paving the way for a political solution.
The timing of the coalition intervention is significant, coming as it does after so much patience in the face of the transgressions by the Houthis and after the attempt to persuade them that the only way to get Yemen out of its predicament is through political concord without resorting to violence. The operation was launched before the Arab Summit at Sharm Al-Sheikh, which is expected to endorse a proposal to create a joint Arab rapid response force to defend regional interests in these troubled times. As a matter of principle, this is a correct proposal, but it should proceed with caution, lest it end up like previous suggestions such as that made following "Desert Storm" in 1991.
The timing also shows that moves to correct the current imbalances in the region may be starting in Yemen. If this is true, should they stop at the borders of the Arabian Peninsula? There are political and intellectual dimensions to consider in all of this.
Translated from AlHayat newspaper, 29 March, 2015
Khalid Al-Dakhil
Wednesday, 01 April 2015 11:58
The timing of the coalition intervention is significant, coming as it does after so much patience in the face of the transgressions by the Houthis...
If you want to know the impact of "Decisive Storm" in Yemen on those who were taken aback by it or those who are afraid of it, and what it is likely to lead to, and what is likely to be its outcome in the region, then listen (do not just read) to what was said by Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, last Friday. The significance of his words does not spring from his own importance but rather from what he represents as an Iranian proxy in the region and as a spokesperson for the Iranian regime in the Levant.
Three features in Nasrallah's speech reflect this significance. The first is that the speech was made on the second day of the coalition attack on Yemen, and "Decisive Storm" was the only topic discussed. The second was the psychological condition that prevailed on Nasrallah as he was delivering his speech. Right from the start his tongue struggled with the froth between his lips to the extent that he needed more than once to take a drink of water to "resist and deter" the dryness in his throat. This was never the case in any of his previous speeches, and there have been quite a few of them. The third, and most important, feature was that the speech constituted a long defence against "Decisive Storm", stressing the inevitability of its failure, a desperate defence of Iran and a declaration of its innocence. Iran, in the Hezbollah chief's speech, came across as a charitable society, or a band of angelic beings roaming the region bearing honey, roses and all sort of goodies for those in need. Moreover, Nasrallah used abusive language to attack Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt, Sudan and Morocco as part of his fierce and erratic onslaught on Saudi Arabia and its princes, all the while defending Iran and proclaiming it to be honest and decent.
Within this context, he asked several times, with overt defiance and envious audacity, for a single piece of evidence of Iranian intervention in the whole region, especially in Lebanon. In his nervousness, the Secretary General missed out on the ironic fact that his own role in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as his speech, provides the most important proof of this intervention. Can he prove that Tehran did not ask him to deliver his speech or suggest when it should be made? If Iran does not intervene in the region, then what goes on in Yemen should be of no interest to the government in Tehran. Consequently, Nasrallah should not have been so nervous to seem to be out of control. Why did he rush to deliver his speech to defend Iran less than 48 hours after the start of the Saudi-led attack on Yemen? Perhaps he realised, belatedly, that through his speech, his nervousness and his defence did indeed prove what he had been trying to deny through his words.
The fact of the matter is that there was no need for Nasrallah's speech in order to learn about the Iranian position on "Decisive Storm" and Tehran's shock at the intervention by the broad Arab and Islamic coalition to restore political legitimacy in Yemen. The Iranian government must have felt that the isolation of the Houthis by the coalition is the isolation of itself and a barrier imposed on its role around the periphery of the Arabian Peninsula.
Iran has always benefited from divisions in the Arab world and has exploited them to expand its own influence. These divisions plus the collapse of the state in Iraq and Syria, have caused a regional imbalance in Iran's favour. However, it seems that the Iranian leadership has not paid attention to the fact that what has happened in the region in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions is not a final shift; it is part of a historic and fluid process the end of which nobody can predict. Hence, Iran's surprise at "Decisive Storm". The Saudi-led initiative in Yemen defied all expectations. The dominant belief was that Riyadh's year-long silence about the Houthis' military expansion and capture of Sanaa, as well as the house arrest of President Abed Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and the members of his cabinet, followed by the move on Aden to where Hadi had fled and set up his government, all suggested that Saudi Arabia had limited options, if any at all. It looked as if the balance of power inside Yemen had already been decided in favour of the Houthis and thus, by proxy, in favour of the deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh through the extension of a regional imbalance that could no longer be rectified easily.
In this sense, the Saudi move is unprecedented, not only in terms of the size of the coalition and the seriousness of the role undertaken in Yemen, but also in terms of it being Riyadh which has taken the lead militarily and politically. Perhaps the element that took everyone by surprise was the return of Saudi Arabia to the known and correct political equation that foreign policy loses its effectiveness and impact at home and abroad without a military capability commensurate with its size and ability to protect its role and interests, and impose its will when necessary. When a state has the military capacity but not the political will to use it, then it loses its effectiveness. However, "Decisive Storm" has proved that the Saudi silence and delay was calculated to await an opportune moment for action.
For Saudi Arabia and the rest of the coalition the restoration of political balance in Yemen was a priority option. They could not accept the possibility of a Yemeni "Hezbollah" on the Saudi border, especially because it would consolidate Iranian influence in another part of the Arab world. The Houthis, and Iran behind them, want to repeat this experience in full. The mistake of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab countries is that they allowed an imbalance to take place in Lebanon in favour of Hezbollah and Iran. "Decisive Storm" indicates that Riyadh and its coalition partners have learnt their lesson. It will be impossible to have a genuine dialogue in Yemen without some degree of balance between the various forces in the country. The only way such a balance can be achieved is to disarm the Houthis completely and transform them into a political party like all the other parties. Weapons should be possessed exclusively by the state, in which all citizens participate on an equal footing. This is the exact opposite of what Tehran wants, which is for the logic of the militias to prevail and for the state to disappear, just as has been done in Iraq and Syria.
In this sense, and within the context of balance itself, the coalition's military operation in Yemen represents a very smart pre-emptive step to close the door completely on terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda, which would otherwise confront the Houthis and proclaim themselves to be the saviours of the Yemeni people. This is what happened in Iraq and Syria as a result of the inaction of the Arab states and regional divisions. What would have happened had the coalition not intervened to arrest the advance of the Houthis? It is most likely that Yemen would have been left wide open for the militias; terrorist organisations such as ISIS would enter under the pretext of defending the Sunnis and Hezbollah would say that it is there to defend the Shia Houthis. This would have been a devastating repeat of the Iraq-Syria experience and the Iranian role played in both.
In order for the strategic aim of "Decisive Storm" to be accomplished, five objectives would have to be achieved simultaneously. For a start, the complete destruction of the Houthis' arsenal would be the means to disarm the group. "Decisive Storm", by virtue of the support it enjoys locally, regionally and internationally, provides the sole opportunity to accomplish this. Failure to disarm the Houthis now will make such a mission very close to impossible in the future both politically and militarily.
The second objective is to send the former president and his son into exile and to retire all of his allies in the army and security establishment, and exclude them all from the political process. What the former president is doing is criminal in that he is endangering the security of Yemen and its future for the sake of his personal ambitions, stabbing Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states in the back in the process with his actions and unstable alliances.
The third objective is to maintain an aerial blockade and put an end to Iranian supply aircraft bringing weapons and equipment for the Houthis. Fourthly, Yemen's ports should be declared to be restricted zones under coalition naval control; all ships entering and leaving should be searched. Finally, the most important objective is for the Yemeni parties to draft a transparent political agenda for everyone, including the Houthis.
These are all entirely achievable objectives which may not require a ground war. The purpose of "Decisive Storm" is not the occupation of Yemen but rather the ending of the Houthis' military capability and paving the way for a political solution.
The timing of the coalition intervention is significant, coming as it does after so much patience in the face of the transgressions by the Houthis and after the attempt to persuade them that the only way to get Yemen out of its predicament is through political concord without resorting to violence. The operation was launched before the Arab Summit at Sharm Al-Sheikh, which is expected to endorse a proposal to create a joint Arab rapid response force to defend regional interests in these troubled times. As a matter of principle, this is a correct proposal, but it should proceed with caution, lest it end up like previous suggestions such as that made following "Desert Storm" in 1991.
The timing also shows that moves to correct the current imbalances in the region may be starting in Yemen. If this is true, should they stop at the borders of the Arabian Peninsula? There are political and intellectual dimensions to consider in all of this.
Translated from AlHayat newspaper, 29 March, 2015
March
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Exactly, but I'm afraid that nothing can be done now. The divide has become too strong, and many extremist elements have appeared on both sides. To be honest, the Sunni - Shi'ite conflict would've died long ago had not Iran and Saudi Arabia exploited sectarian groups as 'tools' in their proxy wars and even if they stop now, it's just too late.
The Free Syrian Army, Iraqi Sunni tribes, Yemens government, Lebanons government and Bahrains monarchy have been provided support by Saudi Arabia to counter the influence of Iran.
The Syrian government, Iraqi government, Houthis, Hezbollah and Bahraini Shi'ites have been provided support by Iran to counter the influence of Saudi Arabia.
Last edited:
Rain
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It is late but as they better late then never.
Madali
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May I advice the Saudi government to print "MADE IN IRAN" in all the weapons drops, so that when Houthis eventually take over the weapons, someone can take a picture and go "Look! See! Weapons are from Iran!"
BLACKEAGLE
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It's a war, so it's normal that there are casualties. However, it's in it's minimum on the Saudi part only 3 have been martyred in comparison of heavy casualties on the Iranian stooges part.
Look, this operation is named after the first Saudi martyr, Maliki:
Since you guys insist on denying the fact of Iranian arm support to Huthies. Then, we've decided to deny this fact just like you. However, I'd like you to look at the situation like this: Arabs are punishing Huthies for being allies of Iran, and Iran is not allowed to get close to them even with "humanitarian help". Are we good now?
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I think you misunderstood his statement. I think he is trying to say that weapons supplied to Yemeni Loyalists should have "Made In Iran" written on them so in case Aden ever fell and the weapons were captured, the Houthis would assume that Irani weapons were given to the Loyalists.
To be honest, that's what I could make out of what he said.
Edit: Or he wants to blame Iran for supplying weapons to Houthis.
