Yemen: Houthis Accused of Planting Mines in Northern Hodeidah

Yemeni pro-government forces man a barricade in the area of al-Fazah in Yemen's Hodeidah province on June 16, 2018. (AFP)
Yemeni pro-government forces man a barricade in the area of al-Fazah in Yemen's Hodeidah province on June 16, 2018. (AFP)
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Yemen: Houthis Accused of Planting Mines in Northern Hodeidah

Yemeni pro-government forces man a barricade in the area of al-Fazah in Yemen's Hodeidah province on June 16, 2018. (AFP)
Yemeni pro-government forces man a barricade in the area of al-Fazah in Yemen's Hodeidah province on June 16, 2018. (AFP)

The legitimate Yemeni forces accused the Iran-backed Houthi militias of planting mines at the entrance of villages in the northern Hodeidah province.

The national army reported witnesses as saying that the militias planted the mines at the al-Kadan intersection in the al-Doha district villages.

The Houthi actions are in violation of the truce agreement reached with the legitimate government in Sweden last week.

Moreover, the army accused the militias of shelling military positions in Hodeidah, leaving casualties among the forces.

The army’s Amaleeqa Brigades announced that four of its forces were killed and 16 injured in Houthi attacks in Hodeidah city. The Brigades have meanwhile, respected the truce.

“This commitment to the ceasefire will not last if the United Nations does not put a stop to ongoing Houthi violations,” warned the Brigades.

Field and medical sources said that six civilians have been wounded in the militia attacks in Hodeidah since Thursday.

The truce went into effect on Tuesday.

The sources revealed that the Houthis had opened fire at a wedding convoy in Hays in southern Hodeidah, wounding several people. They also attacked a man and his wife, who were riding on a motorcycle in al-Jah region in the South. The women has incurred severe burns.

Local forces in Hodeidah city said that the militias had deployed Thursday three tanks in the Zayed and Sanaa streets.

The UN-brokered agreement in Sweden calls for a ceasefire in Hodeidah and withdrawal of legitimate forces and Houthis from the province.

On Friday, the Security Council approved a resolution that calls for the deployment of a UN team that would oversee the implementation of the truce.



Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.