Arab League Leaders Agree to Form Joint Military Force

[Valin]

NBC News:

Mar. 29 2015

 

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Arab leaders agreed on Sunday to establish a joint military force to respond to security threats facing member nations.

 

The announcement on the closing day of the Arab League summit in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh came amid an escalating crisis in Yemen. A multinational coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes there this week to weaken Shiite Houthi rebels who have been making a play for power — an advance that has forced Yemen's president to flee the country.

 

Nabil al Araby, chairman of the Arab League, told the summit Sunday that those airstrikes will continue "until the Houthi militias withdraw and surrender their weapons."

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWMv-FmpwqE

[Valin]

Why Yemen Matters

Daniel Pipes

Mar 30, 2015

 

The Middle East witnessed something radically new two days ago, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia responded to a plea by Yemen's president and led a 10-country coalition to intervene in the air and on the ground in the country. "Operation Decisive Storm" prompts many reflections:

 

Saudi and Egypt in alliance: Half a century ago, Riyadh and Cairo were active in a Yemen war, but then they supported opposing sides, respectively the status-quo forces and the revolutionaries. Their now being allies points to continuity in Saudia along with profound changes in Egypt.

 

Arabic-speakers getting their act together: Through Israel's early decades, Arabs dreamt of uniting militarily against it but the realities of infighting and rivalries smashed every such hope. Even on the three occasions (1948-49, 1967, 1973) when they did join forces, they did so at cross purposes and ineffectively. How striking, then that finally they should coalesce not against Israel but against Iran. This implicitly points to their understanding that the Islamic Republic of Iran poses a real threat, whereas anti-Zionism amounts to mere indulgence. It also points to panic and the need to take action resulting from a stark American retreat.

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FujJ5HqnL0

[Valin]

And Now The Latest From The John Birch Society

[Valin]

[Valin]

Yemen Updates ‏@yemen_updates

 

This is #Houthi and Saleh freedom that they bring to the South: killing culture. Street fighting in #Aden. #Yemen

 

5:42 AM - 2 Apr 2015

 

[Valin]

AQAP jailbreak is just another problem for Yemen

Katherine Zimmerman

April 2, 2015

 

Early today, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants freed over 270 inmates at a central prison in Yemen’s eastern port-city, al Mukalla. The attack resembles a June 2011 AQAP jailbreak from the same prison in which 57 AQAP operatives escaped. AQAP has seized on Yemen’s chaos to rebuild its fighting forces now, as it did in 2011 during Yemen’s Arab Spring. Yemeni troops and tribal militias rolled back AQAP’s gains then, but a full-fledged AQAP insurgency today would pose a much bigger problem as Yemen’s military and many of the tribal forces are embroiled in the war against the al Houthis. So who will fight AQAP?

 

Today’s prison break and other reports that AQAP has made headway on the ground should come as no surprise. AEI Critical Threats Project analyst Alexis Knutsen began warning of AQAP’s expansion in January following the culmination of the al Houthi coup in Yemen. Knutsen has detailed how AQAP has been able to position itself as an effective force among the tribal militias in al Bayda—one of the fronts against the al Houthis. The signs of AQAP’s sustained capabilities—despite the White House’s insistence that the US counterterrorism strategy in Yemen is a successful model worth replicating—should also have been evident following a series of AQAP attacks on Yemeni military bases and the extremist group’s growth in eastern Yemen.

 

The al Houthis, an Iranian-backed Zaydi Shia group, seized control of Yemen’s central government in September and have dragged the country into a multi-sided conflict. Some Yemeni military units, particularly those with ties to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, are aligned with the al Houthis while others have sworn to fight for exiled President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Southern tribes took up arms to fight al Houthi incursions into their territory and may be cooperating with AQAP to do so. Saudi Arabia formed an international coalition to launch Operation Decisive Storm last week to fight the al Houthis, and probably also to prevent the spread of the Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) in Yemen. All of these forces—the al Houthis, the fractured Yemeni military, the tribes, and the international coalition—are also opposed to AQAP. But none of them are fighting it.

 

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