Yemen

The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on two military leaders of the Houthi movement in Yemen, accusing them of procuring weapons from Iran and organizing attacks, in the Biden administration’s first punitive action against the group. The sanctions contrast with the State Department’s decision last month to revoke terrorist …

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a “disappointing” $1.7 billion had been pledged by countries on Monday for humanitarian aid in Yemen – less than half the $3.85 billion the world body was seeking for 2021 to avert a large-scale famine. “For most people, life in Yemen is now unbearable. Childhood …

Hundreds of Yemeni families trapped inside their camps in Marib province by Iran-backed Houthis are being used as a human shield against government forces, a Yemen government unit has claimed. In a report seen by Arab News on Saturday, the internationally recognized government’s Executive Unit for IDP Camps said that …

The Biden administration announced sanctions and visa bans on Friday targeting Saudi Arabian citizens over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but stopped short of imposing sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself. U.S. President Joe Biden’s actions in the first weeks of his administration appear aimed at …

The Iranian regime is using the Houthi militia as a pressure card against the international community and the US administration to extract concessions on the 2015 nuclear agreement, Yemeni Minister of Information Muammar Al-Eryani said on Thursday. Al-Eryani claimed that Iran is pressuring the Houthis for a military escalation in …

Israel said Monday it will compensate families whose children were taken from their parents in the early years after the state was founded, in a major development in the so-called “stolen babies” affair. Activists and family members have for decades charged that up to several thousand babies were taken in …

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed bilateral relations in a phone call with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin, state news agency SPA reported. They further discussed enhancing the defense cooperation, and developments in the region. The defense secretary also condemned the recent Houthi attacks against Saudi …

The US condemns attacks against Saudi Arabia and remains committed to helping the Kingdom defend itself, the Pentagon’s press secretary said on Wednesday. Speaking at a press briefing, John Kirby said that Houthi attacks against the Kingdom “violate international law and undermine efforts to grow peace and stability in the …

The United States urged Yemen’s Houthi movement on Tuesday to halt an offensive on the government-held city of Marib and join international efforts to find a political solution to the more than six-year civil war. The advance by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement on the last government-held city in Yemen’s north …

A fundraising event for Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is expected to take place in early March, hosted virtually by Sweden and Switzerland, four aid sources told Reuters on Sunday. A U.N.-backed push for international donors last June fell short of its $2.4 billion target, raising only $1.3 billion for what the …

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said he will revoke terrorist designations of Yemen’s Houthi movement effective Feb. 16, even as he warned that members of the group could be hit with more sanctions. The Trump administration imposed the specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) and foreign terrorist organization …

At least 400,000 Yemeni children under 5 could die of starvation this year without urgent intervention amid soaring rates of severe malnutrition driven by war and the coronavirus pandemic, four U.N. agencies said on Friday. The warnings come nearly six years after the outbreak of war that rendered 80% of …

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan discussed the recent Houthi attack targeting Abha International Airport in a phone call with US Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken, state news agency SPA reported. Both sides stressed the need to stop these hostile acts and support efforts to reach a political solution to …

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said it carried out a drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport on Wednesday which the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi forces in Yemen said caused a fire in a civilian aircraft. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said four Houthi drones were used in an attack that …

The United States expects Saudi Arabia to improve its human rights record, including releasing women’s rights activists and other political prisoners, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Friday. Pskai’s comments underscored U.S. President Joe Biden’s intention to make human right a key issue in U.S.-Saudi relations, which he pledged …

The United States said on Friday it intends to revoke the terrorist designation for Yemen’s Houthi movement in response to the country’s humanitarian crisis, reversing one of the most criticised last-minute decisions of the Trump administration. The reversal, confirmed by a State Department official, comes a day after President Joe …

The leader of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate has been under arrest for several months, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday. The report to the Security Council from a UN monitoring team said Khalid Batarfi, who took over the leadership of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) a year …

President Joe Biden on Thursday declared a halt to U.S. support for a Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, demanding that the more than six-year war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, “has to end.” Biden also named veteran U.S. diplomat Timothy Lenderking as the …

Yemen’s Houthi group has advised the United Nations to pause preparations to deploy a team to assess a decaying oil tanker threatening to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil off the war-torn country’s coast, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday. The tanker Safer has been stranded off Yemen’s Red …

Authorities in Yemen have foiled a plot to kill military and security officers after uncovering a Houthi cell of eight women. The women were planning to carry out attacks against local targets when they were found by police hiding in several houses in the central Yemeni city of Marib, a …

Yemen’s Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed on Monday criticized a UN report accusing the country’s central bank of corruption. Saeed said that the methodology for the report was wrong and that a Saudi deposit of $2 billion into the central bank in Aden had “greatly alleviated the humanitarian crisis” …

At least two people were killed and more than 90 wounded in an explosion at a gas station on Saturday afternoon in the Houthi-controlled central city of Bayda, a health official told Arab News. A video circulating on social media showed a large ball of fire emanating from the gas …

Italy has halted the sale of thousands of missiles to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Friday, citing Rome’s commitment to restoring peace in war-ravaged Yemen and protecting human rights. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are part of an Arab coalition that …

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the State Department was taking a “very urgent and very close look” at the Trump administration designation of Yemen’s Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization and wants to make sure aid groups can deliver assistance to the country. Former U.S. …

The United Nations is still hearing concerns that companies are planning to cancel or suspend business with Yemen despite a U.S. decision to allow all transactions with the Houthi movement “given this move does not resolve underlying uncertainties,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday. The United States on Monday …

Independent U.N. sanctions monitors accused Yemen’s government, in a report seen by Reuters on Tuesday, of money-laundering and corruption “that adversely affected access to adequate food supplies” and said the Houthi group collected at least $1.8 billion in state revenue in 2019 to help fund its war effort. The annual …

The United States on Monday approved all transactions involving Yemen’s Houthi movement for the next month as Washington reviews a Trump administration designation of the Iran-aligned group as a foreign terrorist organization. The move appeared designed to allay fears of companies and banks involved in commercial trade to Yemen, which …

YouTube permanently deleted seven Houthi accounts on Sunday due to a breach of its policy, less than a week after the US designated the militia as a foreign terrorist organization. It deleted accounts that the group had been using to share its agenda, such as its main channel “Ferqat Ansar …

Twenty-two aid groups working in Yemen called on Sunday for the new U.S. administration to revoke the designation of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization, saying it puts millions of lives and the peace process at risk. The U.S. State Department has initiated a review of the …

The US on Sunday condemned an attempted air attack on Riyadh at the weekend and said anyone who tried to undermine the Kingdom’s stability would be held to account. The strike on the Saudi capital on Saturday, which was thwarted by air defenses, “appears to have been an attempt to …

The U.S. State Department has initiated a review of the terrorist designation of Yemen’s Houthi movement and is working as fast as it can to conclude the process and make a determination, a State Department spokesperson said on Friday. President Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State Antony Blinken said …

The United States on Tuesday exempted aid groups, the United Nations, the Red Cross and the export of agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices from its designation of Yemen’s Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization. The carve-outs are not enough to allay U.N. fears that Washington’s move would push …

Yemenis fear a U.S. decision to blacklist the Houthi movement could further isolate them from the global financial system, depriving the war-battered country of vital remittances and hampering the flow of imports. Yemen’s war and the ensuing economic collapse has left 80% of the population reliant on aid. On Thursday, …

The Yemeni Interior Ministry said the missile which were used to attack Aden’s airport last month were ballistic, Al-Arabiya TV reported. They were launched from a site 100 kilometer away from the airport, in Houthi-controlled areas, the report added. The Ministry said “Iranian and Lebanese experts” are behind the missiles …

U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock will on Thursday urge Washington to reverse a plan to designate Yemen’s Houthis a foreign terrorist organization, warning the move would push the country into a “famine on a scale that we have not seen for nearly 40 years.” In prepared remarks for a briefing …

Yemen’s internationally recognized government has called for pressure to stop the Houthi offensive and siege on several villages in the southern province of Taiz, the official Saba news agency reported. Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed said during a phone call with the Taiz governor, Nabil Shamsan, that Houthi crimes …

The United States plans to designate Yemen’s Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late on Sunday, a move that diplomats and aid groups worry could threaten peace talks and complicate efforts to combat the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The decision to blacklist the …

A Saudi-backed team of engineering experts has been drafted in to assess and repair the damage to Aden’s airport following Wednesday’s deadly missile attack. The specialists’ work is being carried out as part of the Saudi Program for the Development and Reconstruction of Yemen (SDRPY). Yemen blames Iranian military experts …

The deadly terrorist attack on the airport of the southern Yemeni city of Aden is a result of the foreign occupation of the country, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said. “Continued foreign aggression and occupation of Yemeni soil are the key contributors to instability as well as a lack …

Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck targets in Yemen’s Houthi-held capital Sanaa on Thursday in retaliation for attacks in the southern port city of Aden the previous day that took place as officials in a government backed by Riyadh arrived there. The coalition accused the Houthi movement, which it has been fighting …

The US state department has approved the sale of $290m in bombs to Saudi Arabia as part of a flurry of arms deals with Middle Eastern dictatorships in the last weeks of the Trump administration. Critics of the sales say they are being rushed through despite broad congressional and public …

A large explosion struck the airport in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Wednesday, shortly after a plane carrying the newly formed Cabinet landed there, security officials said. At least 25 people were killed and 110 wounded in the blast. Yemen’s internationally recognized government said Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired …

The war-torn country announced a power-sharing government this weekend, but it excludes women for the first time in 20 years. Yemeni women’s activists denounced the new power-sharing government in Yemen over its omittance of women for the first time in two decades. In December, a feminist movement launched a campaign …

Israel is monitoring Iran’s movement in the region and expects that the Iranian threat will likely come from Iraq and Yemen, IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman told the Saudi news website Elaph. In an interview given to Elaph and published on Friday, Zilberman addressed Iran and the tactics deployed by …