Yemen Demands Decisive Int’l Stance against Houthi Terrorism

Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed meets with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Geneva. (Saba)
Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed meets with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Geneva. (Saba)
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Yemen Demands Decisive Int’l Stance against Houthi Terrorism

Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed meets with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Geneva. (Saba)
Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed meets with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Geneva. (Saba)

The legitimate Yemeni government warned on Tuesday that it may wage a “decisive” battle against the Iran-bqacked Houthi militias should peace efforts fail.

It stressed the need for the international community to take a firm stance against the terrorist militias, especially in wake of its increasing violations of the truce and crimes against civilians in regions under their control.

Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed held talks with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of a donors conference for Yemen in Geneva this week.

Official Yemeni sources said the officials discussed UN and international efforts to achieve peace in Yemen. They tackled the Houthis’ deliberate obstruction of the extension of the nationwide truce that was in place from April to October 2022.

They discussed the partnership between the Yemeni government and its institutions with the UN with the aim to address the dire humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country. They also covered the delivery of relief aid and the implementation of the 2023 humanitarian response plan and garnering international support for it.

Abdulmalik underscored his government and the Presidential Leadership Council’s (PLC) support for UN peace efforts, stressing the need for the international community to pressure the Houthis and their backers in Tehran to be receptive to these efforts and quit their criminal practices against the Yemeni people, reported the state news agency Saba.

The PM spoke with Guterres about the “mounting terrorist Houthi militias’ violations and crimes against civilians.” The latest of these violations was the imposing of restrictions on women in regions under their control. Abdulmalik described the restrictions as alien to Yemeni society.

Furthermore, he discussed the challenges that have emerged from the Houthi attacks on oil export ports and threats to marine navigation. He highlighted the government’s efforts in addressing these challenges and the importance of supporting the national economy and maintaining its stability.

Guterres, for his part, stressed that Yemen will remain a priority for the UN, adding that he was closely monitoring the developments there. He stated that efforts to revive the political process and renew the humanitarian truce will continue.

Meanwhile, in Yemen’s Khokha, PLC member Tareq Saleh declared that waging a “decisive” battle against the Houthis was “inevitable” after the militias demonstrated that they were not interested in peace.

He underlined the need to unify ranks, saying that Yemen needed to “cleanse itself from the alien phenomenon that is the Houthis,” whom he described as the number one enemy to all Yemenis.

The militias had in recent days launched intense attacks against military positions in the Taiz and Marib provinces. The army managed to repel the attacks, said military media.



US Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East is Heading Home

File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)
File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)
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US Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East is Heading Home

File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)
File photo of the US aircraft carrier "Eisenhower" in the Red Sea (AFP)

The Pentagon's rare move to keep two Navy aircraft carriers in the Middle East over the past several weeks has now finished, as the USS Theodore Roosevelt is heading home, according to US officials.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the Roosevelt to extend its deployment for a short time and remain in the region as the USS Abraham Lincoln was pushed to get to the area more quickly. The Biden administration beefed up the US military presence there to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies and to safeguard US troops, according to The AP.

US commanders in the Middle East have long argued that the presence of a US aircraft carrier and the warships accompanying it has been an effective deterrent in the region, particularly for Iran. Since the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip began last fall, there has been a persistent carrier presence in and around the region — and for short periods they have overlapped to have two of the carriers there at the same time.

Prior to last fall, however, it had been years since the US had committed that much warship power to the region.

The decision to bring the Roosevelt home comes as the war in Gaza has dragged on for 11 months, with tens of thousands of people dead, and international efforts to mediate a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group have repeatedly stalled as they accuse each other of making additional and unacceptable demands.

For a number of months earlier this year the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower remained in the Red Sea, able both to respond to help Israel and to defend commercial and military ships from attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. The carrier, based in Norfolk, Virginia, returned home after an over eight-month deployment in combat that the Navy said was the most intense since World War II.

US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements, said the San Diego-based Roosevelt and the USS Daniel Inouye, a destroyer, are expected to be in the Indo-Pacific Command's region on Thursday. The other destroyer in the strike group, the USS Russell, had already left the Middle East and has been operating in the South China Sea.

The Lincoln, which is now in the Gulf of Oman with several other warships, arrived in the Middle East about three weeks ago, allowing it to overlap with the Roosevelt until now.

There also are a number of US ships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and two destroyers and the guided missile submarine USS Georgia are in the Red Sea.