Stockholm, Yemen… Traditions, Intersections

Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anne Linde at the Yemen International Forum 2022 (Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies)
Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anne Linde at the Yemen International Forum 2022 (Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies)
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Stockholm, Yemen… Traditions, Intersections

Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anne Linde at the Yemen International Forum 2022 (Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies)
Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anne Linde at the Yemen International Forum 2022 (Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies)

Sweden’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Ambassador Peter Semneby, constantly recalls old Swedish traditions centered around promoting conflict resolution and care for humanitarian affairs. Sweden has showcased those traditions in many conflicts around the world.

For example, Sweden has provided continued support to Afghanistan for over four decades, according to Semneby, who served three years as an ambassador to the South Asian country.

In Yemen, Sweden has made an effective contribution on the humanitarian and political levels. It cooperated with the Yemeni government and civil society organizations as well as with researchers, activists, and experts.

“The focus is the plight of the people living in that country,” Semneby told Asharq Al-Awsat about Sweden’s concern with Yemen.

Semneby spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat at the Yemen International Forum 2022, an event organized by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies in cooperation with the Folke Bernadotte Academy.

Held on June 17-19 in Stockholm, the Forum offered a platform for Yemenis to engage in in-depth conversations on the political situation, peace efforts and the economy.

Semneby stressed that Swedish interaction in Yemen began with humanitarian participation.

“Alongside Switzerland, we hosted five UN donor conferences for Yemen,” revealed Semneby, adding that Sweden later decided to complement its efforts for Yemen with actions that support a peace solution.

The Swedish shift in support yielded the Stockholm Agreement in 2018.

However, the Yemen International Forum 2022 mirrored deep divisions among Yemenis with some welcoming the event and others, like the Southern Transitional Council (STC), abstaining from participation.

Asharq Al-Awsat investigated the reason behind the STC not participating in the Forum and discovered that the Yemeni group strongly opposes the work of the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.

“We sent a letter valuing the role played by Sweden in producing peace in Yemen and the region, and we apologized for not partaking in the Forum,” STC spokesman Ali Al-Kathiri told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“We did not participate because of the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies and its involvement in fueling conflict and tearing apart the Yemeni social fabric,” said Al-Kathiri, accusing the center of bias that goes against the cause of the people of southern Yemen.

Al-Kathiri added that the STC had relayed its concern and opposition to the Center’s work during an earlier meeting with Semneby in March.

For her part, Rasha Jarhum, from the Peace Track Initiative (PTI), stresses the importance of creating common spaces for all Yemenis.

“The Forum in Stockholm gathered more than 270 people, 36 % of whom were women,” noted Jarhum, adding that the assembly discussed many issues on the peace agenda, including south Yemen.

It also tackled the role of parties, minorities, women, tribes, and victims in advancing the peace process.

Moreover, the Forum discussed the challenges of integrating combatants.

“The Forum provided space for Yemeni, regional and international peacemakers to discuss and find future opportunities for cooperation,” said Jarhum.

“This space follows the holding of the Yemeni talks under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Riyadh talks), which brought together more than 500 people, of whom 12 % were women,” noted Jarhum.

The Riyadh talks had led to outcomes in six tracks for enhancing stability and national cohesion.

“It resulted in a political transformation that stirred stagnant waters,” said Jarhum about the Riyadh consultations.

“One of the most vital messages that I shared in the Forum is the importance of supporting the transitional stages by financing services and salaries, reparations, and fighting corruption,” she noted.

Tim Lenderking, US special envoy for Yemen, said that the Forum was a great opportunity to meet Yemenis from all over the country.

“While many Yemenis may disagree about some tactical moves, every Yemeni here desires peace, and these moments should be seized. Yemen is on a much better path,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat at the sidelines of the Forum.

“However, it’s a fragile path,” he added.

“If Yemenis work together and with the support of the international community, I really believe that peace in Yemen can become a reality,” noted Lenderking.

On Sweden expanding its efforts to find a peace solution for Yemen, Semneby notes that his country is partaking in regional consultations.

“We are also engaged in dialogue with regional actors,” said Semneby.

“Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anne Linde has made at least four trips to the region, and Yemen has figured high on her agenda for the past four years,” affirmed the Swedish diplomat, adding that Linde has visited Yemen twice.

“The political process is in the hands of the UN,” he asserted.

“If there is a desire from the UN and from the parties, Sweden is ready to host further talks,” noted Semneby.

“But we also engage in conversations that are not part of any process; It could even be useful to the UN,” he explained.

Speaking about the advantages of the Forum, Semneby said: “Yemenis from a wide range of political parties and nationwide civil society organizations can meet in an informal setting to discuss the most pressing issues facing their country.”

He added that the Forum also aids Yemenis in putting forward long-term visions for the war-torn country.

“I hope that those who have been invited to Stockholm and who have not attended the Forum will consider the subject of this meeting, and the new ideas that have emerged,” said Semneby.

“I hope, for the future, they conclude that there is nothing to lose by participating, and that there is a lot to gain,” he added.



Israeli Campaign Leaves Lebanese Border Towns in Ruins, Satellite Images Show

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from northern Israel, October 28, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Smoke billows over southern Lebanon, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from northern Israel, October 28, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
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Israeli Campaign Leaves Lebanese Border Towns in Ruins, Satellite Images Show

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from northern Israel, October 28, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Smoke billows over southern Lebanon, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from northern Israel, October 28, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Israel's military campaign in southern Lebanon has caused vast destruction in more than a dozen border towns and villages, reducing many of them to clusters of grey craters, according to satellite imagery provided to Reuters by Planet Labs Inc.

Many of the towns, emptied of their residents by the bombing, had been inhabited for at least two centuries. The imagery reviewed includes towns between Kfarkela in southeastern Lebanon, south past Meiss al-Jabal, and then west past a base used by UN peacekeepers to the small village of Labbouneh.

"There are beautiful old homes, hundreds of years old. Thousands of artillery shells have hit the town, hundreds of air strikes," said Abdulmonem Choukeir, mayor of Meiss al-Jabal, one of the villages hit by Israeli attacks.

"Who knows what will still be standing at the end?"

Reuters compared satellite images taken in October 2023 to those taken in September and October 2024. Many of the villages with striking visible damage over the course of the last month sit atop hills overlooking Israel.

After nearly a year of exchanging fire across the border, Israel intensified its strikes on southern Lebanon and beyond over the last month. Israeli troops have made ground incursions all along the mountainous frontier with Lebanon, engaging in heavy clashes with Hezbollah fighters inside some towns.

Lebanon's disaster risk management unit, which tracks both victims and attacks on specific towns, said the 14 towns reviewed by Reuters had been subject to a total of 3,809 attacks by Israel over the last year.

Israel's military did not immediately respond to Reuters questions about the scale of destruction. Israel's military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Oct. 24 that Israel has struck more than 3,200 targets in south Lebanon.

The military says it is attacking towns in southern Lebanon because Hezbollah has turned "civilian villages into fortified combat zones," hiding weapons, explosives and vehicles there. Hezbollah denies using civilian infrastructure to launch attacks or store weapons, and residents of the towns deny the assertion.

A person familiar with Israel's military operations in Lebanon told Reuters that troops were systematically attacking towns with strategic overlook points, including Mhaibib.

The person said that Israel had "learned lessons" after its last war with Hezbollah in 2006, including incidents in which troops making ground incursions into the valleys of southern Lebanon were attacked by Hezbollah fighters on hilltops.

"That is why they are targeting these villages so heavily - so they can move more freely," the person said.

The most recent images of Kfarkela showed a string of white splotches along a main road leading into a town. Imagery taken last year showed the same road lined with houses and green vegetation, indicating the houses had been pulverized.

Further south, Meiss al-Jabal, a town 700 meters (yards) away from the UN-demarcated Blue Line separating Israeli and Lebanese territory, suffered significant destruction to an entire block near the town center.

The area, measuring approximately 150 meters by 400 metres, appeared as a swatch of sandy brown, signalling the buildings there had been entirely flattened. Images from the same month in 2023 showed a densely packed neighbourhood of homes.

 

ANY SIGN OF LIFE'

 

At least 1.2 million people have been displaced by Israel's strikes and more than 2,600 have been killed over the last year - a vast majority in the last month, Lebanon's government says.

Residents of the border villages have not been able to reach their hometowns in months. "After war came to Meiss al-Jabal, after the residents left, we no longer know anything about the state of the village," Meiss al-Jabal's mayor said.

Imagery of the nearby village of Mhaibib depicted similar levels of destruction. Mhaibib is one of several villages - alongside Kfarkela, Aitaroun, Odaisseh, and Ramyeh - featured in footage shared on social media showing simultaneous explosions of several structures at once, indicating they had been laden with explosives.

Israel's military spokesman said on Oct. 24 that a command center for Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit lay under Mhaibib, and that Israeli troops had "neutralised the main tunnel network" used by the group, but did not give details.

Hagari has said that Israel's goal is to "push Hezbollah away from the border, dismantle its capabilities, and eliminate the threat to northern residents" of Israel.

"This is a plan you take off the shelf," said Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. "Militaries plan, and they're executing the plan."

Seth Jones, another senior vice president at CSIS, had earlier told Reuters that Hezbollah used frontline villages to fire its shorter-range rockets into Israel.

Lubnan Baalbaki, the conductor of Lebanon's philharmonic orchestra and son of late Lebanese artist Abdel-Hamid Baalbaki, said his family had been purchasing satellite imagery of their hometown of Odaisseh to check if the family house still stood.

The house had been transformed by Abdel-Hamid into a cultural centre, full of his art works, original sketches and more than 1,000 books in an all-wood library. Abdel-Hamid passed away in 2013 and was buried behind the house with his late wife.

"We're a family of artists, my father is well-known, and our home was a known cultural home. We were trying to reassure ourselves with that thought," Baalbaki, the son, told Reuters.

Until late October, the house still stood. But at the weekend Baalbaki saw a video circulating of several homes in Odaisseh, including his family's, exploding.

The family is not affiliated to Hezbollah and Baalbaki denied that any weapons or military equipment were stored there.

"If you have such high-level intelligence that you can target specific military figures, then you know what's in that house," Baalbaki said. "It was an art house. We are all artists. The aim is to erase any sign of life."