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Yemen's Houthis to quit two ports Monday under peace deal: Sources
[AlAhram] Iranian-aligned Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews... forces have agreed to draw back from two Yemeni ports on Monday while withdrawal from the main Hodeidah port will occur later alongside a retreat by coalition-backed forces massed outside the city, U.N. and Yemeni sources said. Houthi forces will withdraw 5 km (3 miles) from the ports of Saleef, used for grain, and Ras Isa, an oil terminal, as a first step agreed with the internationally recognized government, three sources said. The Houthi withdrawal from Hodeidah port and the pull-back by coalition forces 1 km away from the city’s "Kilo 7" eastern suburb would take place as a second step, they said. An orderly troop withdrawal from Hodeidah, now a focus of an almost four-year war, is key to U.N.-led efforts to avert a full-scale assault on the port and pave the way for political negotiations. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed Yemen  ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...to the brink of famine. The United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... has been trying to salvage a truce deal agreed at peace talks in December between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government. That process has stalled over who would control of Hodeidah, a Red Sea port used to feed Yemen’s 30 million people. Hodeidah is held by the Houthis while other Yemeni forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition loyal to ousted President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi are positioned on the edges of the city. Hadi’s top negotiator, Foreign Minister Khalid al-Yamani, said the initial Houthi redeployment must be verified before further progress can be made and humanitarian corridors reopened. "This is what was agreed by the Yemeni government: we verify the first step before implementing the second," he told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in remarks published on Sunday. A small team of U.N. observers arrived in Hodeidah after the ceasefire went into effect on Dec. 18 to oversee troop redeployments by both sides. The deal calls for local authorities to assume control of Hodeidah but did not detail the process, leaving it open to interpretation. The Western-backed Sunni Moslem coalition led by Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and the United Arab Emirates intervened in Yemen in 2015 to try to restore Hadi’s government after it was ousted from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014. The conflict, widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has been locked in military stalemate. The Houthis, who say their revolution is against corruption, control most urban centers including Sanaa. Hadi’s government holds the southern port of Aden and a string of coastal towns. Posted by: trailing wife 2019-02-25 |
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