US Military Targets Houthi Radar Sites in Yemen

Houthi supporters hold up weapons during a protest against the US and Israel, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people, in Sanaa, Yemen, 14 June 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Houthi supporters hold up weapons during a protest against the US and Israel, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people, in Sanaa, Yemen, 14 June 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
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US Military Targets Houthi Radar Sites in Yemen

Houthi supporters hold up weapons during a protest against the US and Israel, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people, in Sanaa, Yemen, 14 June 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Houthi supporters hold up weapons during a protest against the US and Israel, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people, in Sanaa, Yemen, 14 June 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB

The US military unleashed a wave of attacks targeting radar sites operated by Yemen’s Houthis after one merchant sailor went missing and the vessel he was on caught fire, authorities said Saturday.

US strikes destroyed seven radars within Houthi-controlled territory, the military's Central Command said.

“These radars allow the Houthis to target maritime vessels and endanger commercial shipping,” Central Command said in a statement.

The US separately destroyed two bomb-laden drone boats in the Red Sea, as well as a drone launched by the Houthis over the waterway, it said.

The Central Command said one commercial sailor from the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk cargo carrier Tutor remained missing after an attack Wednesday by the Houthis that used a bomb-carrying drone boat to strike the vessel.
“The crew abandoned ship and were rescued by USS Philippine Sea and partner forces,” Central Command said. The “Tutor remains in the Red Sea and is slowly taking on water.”
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said Saturday afternoon that the Tutor was “still on fire and sinking.”
The missing sailor is Filipino, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency, which cited Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac. He said most of the Tutor's 22 mariners were from the Philippines.
"We’re trying to account for the particular seafarer in the ship and are praying that we could find him,” he said Friday night.
Also on Saturday, Central Command said the vessel M/V Anna Meta rescued crew members from the cargo carrier M/V Verbena, which was struck Thursday in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Yemen in two separate missile attacks by the Houthis.

The crew abandoned ship after being unable to bring fires on the vessel under control. One mariner was severely wounded.
CENTCOM said the Verbena is a Palauan-flagged, Ukrainian-owned and Polish-operated bulk cargo carrier that had docked in Malaysia and was on its way to Italy carrying wood.

“The Houthis claim to be acting on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza and yet they are targeting and threatening the lives of third-country nationals who have nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza,” Central Command said. “The ongoing threat to international commerce caused by the Houthis in fact makes it harder to deliver badly needed assistance to the people of Yemen as well as Gaza.”



Evidence of Ongoing 'Crimes Against Humanity' in Darfur, Says ICC Deputy Prosecutor

A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo
A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo
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Evidence of Ongoing 'Crimes Against Humanity' in Darfur, Says ICC Deputy Prosecutor

A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo
A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo

There are "reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity" are being committed in war-ravaged Sudan's western Darfur region, the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said.

Outlining her office's probe of the devastating conflict which has raged since 2023, Nazhat Shameem Khan told the UN Security Council that it was "difficult to find appropriate words to describe the depth of suffering in Darfur," AFP reported.

"On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity, have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur," she said.

The prosecutor's office focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, Khan said, interviewing victims who fled to neighboring Chad.

She detailed an "intolerable" humanitarian situation, with apparent targeting of hospitals and humanitarian convoys, while warning that "famine is escalating" as aid is unable to reach "those in dire need."

"People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized," Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become "common practice."

"And yet we should not be under any illusion, things can still get worse."

The Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, with some 300,000 people killed during conflict in the region in the 2000s.

In 2023, the ICC opened a fresh probe into war crimes in Darfur after a new conflict erupted between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The RSF's predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide two decades ago in the vast western region.

ICC judges are expected to deliver their first decision on crimes committed in Darfur two decades ago in the case of Ali Mohamed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kosheib, after the trial ended in 2024.

"I wish to be clear to those on the ground in Darfur now, to those who are inflicting unimaginable atrocities on its population -- they may feel a sense of impunity at this moment, as Ali Kosheib may have felt in the past," said Khan.

"But we are working intensively to ensure that the Ali Kosheib trial represents only the first of many in relation to this situation at the International Criminal Court," she added.