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Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 4-1-Yemen-12Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is the early winner in Yemen. -- Bruce Riedel

Previous: Iran submits four-point Yemen peace plan to United Nations; It calls for an immediate ceasefire and end of all foreign military attacks, humanitarian assistance, a resumption of broad national dialogue and "establishment of an inclusive national unity government." Enough,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said, He predicted that the only outcome of the Saudi coalition’s war is failure.

C: ….Muhammed's Army may eventually come home to Mecca."…. "Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear. " -- “Empires are lost when inadequate men become leaders and wage war for base reasons or no reason at all.” - Sun Tzu

Yemen crisis April 20: Houthi leader vows to fight Saudi 'aggression'. The leader of Yemen's Houthi rebels has vowed to resist a Saudi-led bombing campaign that has been targeting his forces since late March. In a televised speech, Abdul Malik al-Houthi said Yemenis would never give in to the Saudis' "savage aggression". Hundreds have died as the rebels and allies battle government supporters, who are backed by the air campaign. The rebels and their allies have been trying to capture Aden for weeks, but have been held back by the air strikes and by forces loyal to Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. Meanwhile, in a televised address, Mr Houthi accused the Saudis of "malice and arrogance towards the Yemeni people". He warned that the bombing campaign aimed to strengthen al-Qaeda in

Yemen. While criticising Saudi policy, Mr Houthi praised Iran as "a great Islamic country". Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia has accused its regional rival, Shia Iran, of aiding the Houthis, who are from the Zaidi Shia sect. Iran is allied to the rebels but denies arming them.

Mr Houthi accused the Saudis of malice and arrogance towards Yemen

Yemeni people have a full right to resist “Saudi aggression” and a planned occupation by “all means and options,” the Houthi rebel leader said, as Riyadh wraps-up the “first phase” of an operation that saw more than 2,300 airstrikes in less than a month. “It’s the right of our people to resist the aggression and face the aggressor by any means,” the leader of Yemen’s Houthi militia Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said in a televised speech. Saudi Arabia’s goal is the “invasion” and “occupation” of Yemen, in order to “place this country again under its feet and hegemony,” al-Houthi said as the Saudi-led airstrike campaign entered its 26th day. “Our Yemeni people will never give in – it will resist in the face of the savage aggression,” the rebel leader concluded, stressing that Saudi Arabia “has no right to interfere” in its neighbor affairs. He also stated that Iran, which some accuse of supporting the rebels, actually has “no influence” in the country. “The political problem is an internal affair and it is up to us to define our future,” he said.

With “tangible results” reached on the ground, the “first phase” of the operation against Yemen has “almost” been concluded, General Asiri told al-Arabiya. But in the meantime over 15,000 Saudi troops are fortifying border positions against possible Houthi

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attacks, with some analysts alleging an ground invasion in Yemen would imminently follow. A peace plan submitted by Iran to the UN has meanwhile been strongly rejected by the Yemeni government in exile. Calling for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian assistance, the plan also suggested an end to international military meddling and urged an inclusive national dialogue to establish a government of “national unity.” “We reject the Iranian initiative,” Yemeni government spokesman Rajeh Badi told Reuters by phone from Qatar’s capital, Doha. “The goal of the initiative is only a political maneuver.”

In a press briefing, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter was asked whether the air campaign might be helping al-Qaida gain ground. He conceded that the group has taken advantage of the “opportunity in the environment created by the turmoil in Yemen.”

The Houthis official slogan may be “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, victory for Islam,” but they, like the U.S., are fighting against al-Qaida and other Sunni militant groups. A rough analogy can be made to the Iranian-backed Shiite militias battling ISIS along with the U.S. in Iraq.

In addition to the Saudi-led coalition, al-Qaida, the Houthis, and the remnants of Hadi’s state, the conflict also includes military units supporting ousted president Saleh, a movement of separatists who want South Yemen to secede, and ISIS.

Augmenting the planned force could help address intensifying threats posed by ISIS, along with Iran-backed militias and the Assad regime.At a bare minimum, the program serves as these Sunni countries' first coordinated attempt to create a substate actor force to confront Iranian influence in Syria through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah instead of less-organized nonstate actors, such as the jihadists and Salafists.

A main focus here is Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate that, although with a "softer" touch, nevertheless shares ISIS's hard end goals of creating an Islamic state and restoring the Caliphate -- albeit at a later historical stage than that pursued by ISIS.

In the event ISIS loses ground imminently, either Jabhat al-Nusra or the Assad regime will have the numbers, and potentially the resources, to retake ceded ISIS territory. This fact is not lost on regional allies who propose training larger numbers of moderates through the program

As a framework, the train-and-equip program offers an opportunity to create a new substate force to combat Iran-backed pro-regime militias and the Assad regime while squeezing out jihadists. The problem, however, is that the Assad regime and Iran-backed militias are gaining fast and the jihadists are also advancing, as seen by their recent assault on the city of Idlib.

AQAP exploiting the chaos Taking advantage of Hadramawt being generally spared the air raids, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seized Mukalla airport and a military base full of heavy weaponry. "While the coalition is busy with its job (striking Huthis), AQAP is benefiting from the situation by seizing positions," said Mathieu Guidere, Islamic studies professor at the University of Toulouse in France. However, opening a second front now would complicate Riyadh's task.

Saudis will have to hit Qaeda in Yemen: analystsAuthor: AFPApril 19, 2015 With its campaign against Yemeni rebels at full throttle, Saudi Arabia has spared Al-Qaeda which has capitalised on the chaos, but experts say Riyadh will have to hit them eventually. Faced with the Shiite rebels' march on Aden, President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's southern refuge, Riyadh assembled a Sunni-Arab coalition that launched a campaign of air strikes on March 26. Since then, coalition warplanes have

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pounded Huthi positions and those if its allies across the country, as Sunni tribesmen joined the fight against the rebels."The growing confessional nature of the conflict definitely gives the extremists on both sides a bigger margin for manoeuvre, so fighting Al-Qaeda might not seem like the most urgent priority," said Elie al-Hindy, political science professor at Notre Dame University in Lebanon.This might explain why Riyadh did not react when Al-Qaeda on April 2 seized Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt province. Experts have spoken of an adverse effect of the military intervention, evoking a "circumstantial alliance" between Riyadh -- cradle to the austere Wahabism school of Islam -- and Al-Qaeda, which considers Shiites to be heretics.Saudi Arabia has been in war with Al-Qaeda for more than a decade, hitting what it calls the "deviant group" with an iron fist. "A de facto alliance can be ruled out," Hindy said. AQAP exploiting the chaos Taking advantage of Hadramawt being generally spared the

air raids, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seized Mukalla airport and a military base full of heavy weaponry.

"While the coalition is busy with its job (striking Huthis), AQAP is benefiting from the situation by seizing positions," said Mathieu Guidere, Islamic studies professor at the University of Toulouse in France. He argues that if the coalition succeeds in defeating the Huthis, "the next step will be to tackle AQAP which also threatens the legitimate authority in Yemen".However, opening a second front now would complicate Riyadh's task. So key ally Washington is doing its share by pressing its campaign of drone attacks against the jihadists.AQAP acknowledged this week that its ideologue Ibrahim al-Rubaish was killed in a drone attack near Mukalla. And late on Saturday, three other militants died in the same manner in the southern province of Shabwa. Since last year, Yemen's government has been caught between the Huthi rebels in the north and Al-Qaeda in the southeast. But as the rebels allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh advanced on the south after seizing Sanaa, government forces collapsed and the president fled to Saudi Arabia.

'Hitting the wrong mark' A general view shows the southeastern Yemen city of Mukalla, recently seized by Al-Qaeda militants, on April 29, 2014 (photo by: Fawaz Al-Haidari/AFP/File)According to Jean-Pierre Filiu of the Paris School of International Affairs, Riyadh is "hitting the wrong mark in taking Tehran and the Huthis as its main adversaries, rather than former president Saleh who is the main person responsible for Yemen's descent into chaos".

"The anti-Shiite mobilisation, rather than being anti-Saleh, plays into the jihadist hands," he said.Riyadh also needs to take into account the involvement of heavily armed tribes which are also fighting the Huthis. Tribesmen seized the country's only gas terminal at Balhaf on Tuesday , and tribal fighters three days later captured Masila oilfield in Hadramawt. One tribal chief, Ahmed Bamaes, told AFP the tribesmen wanted to "protect" the facility to ensure it does not fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda or the Huthis. This takeover is a "another demonstration of the state collapsing and... a reappropriation of resources confiscated by the regime of Saleh" during his three decades in power, said Filiu.Military sources say current and former members of Al-Qaeda are also fighting alongside Sunni tribesmen. For Riyadh, not all jihadists are necessarily members of Al-Qaeda, in that

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they belong to tribes that could be natural allies. But any attempt to reestablish stability in Yemen will necessitate confronting Al-Qaeda. "Fighting Al-Qaeda may not seem like the most urgent priority, but the eventual reinstatement of legitimate government is the right way to eradicate extremist factions," Hindy said. "But this will take time."

20 April, Powerful explosions have rocked the Yemeni capital, shattering windows and damaging structures, as Saudi-led air strikes targeted suspected weapon caches and missiles held by Houthi fighters. Mushroom clouds on Monday rose in the sky over Fag Atan, in western Sanaa, where the capital's largest weapons caches are located. The air strike was reportedly targeting a Scud missile base held by the Shia Houthi rebels in Fag Atan mountain beside Hadda district, where the presidential palace and many embassies are located. Nearby homes were being evacuated.

Why Is the U.S. Backing a War That’s Helping al-Qaida?By Joshua Keating Joshua Keating is a staff writer at Slate focusing on international affairsSmoke rises above the Alhva camp, east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on April 17, 2015, following an alleged air strike by the Saudi-led alliance on Houthi camps. The U.S. was already involved in one conflict in the Middle East—the fights against ISIS, al-Qaida, and the Assad regime in Syria and Iraq—in which it’s actively conducting or backing campaigns against multiple actors who are also fighting against each other. Now, the Obama administration seems to be getting pulled into a just as intractable situation in Yemen. The U.S. has reluctantly been supporting the Saudi bombing campaign there, “vetting military targets and searching vessels for Yemen-bound Iranian arms” according to the Wall Street Journal. But there has been concern that the Houthi takeover of that country and the Saudi airstrikes are providing just the sort of chaotic, sectarian environment in which al-Qaida thrives. These fears were realized on Thursday when al-Qaida seized control of an airport, seaport, and oil terminal in Southern Yemen.

In a press briefing, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter was asked whether the air campaign might be helping al-Qaida gain ground. He conceded that the group has taken advantage of the “opportunity in the environment created by the turmoil in Yemen.” The U.S. has, for years, been conducting a covert war—mostly with drones—against al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate, considered among the most dangerous (they recently took credit for the Charlie Hebdo attacks). The drone campaign was conducted with the tacit support of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, then the enthusiastic support of Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi, who replaced him after the country’s 2011 uprising. As recently as September, President Obama was citing Yemen as a promising model for light footprint counterterrorism operations.

At the beginning of this year, Hadi was forced out of power by the Houthis, a Shiite insurgent group from the country’s north, and is now in exile in Saudi Arabia. The Houthis official slogan may be “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, victory for Islam,” but they, like the U.S., are fighting against al-Qaida and other Sunni militant groups. A rough analogy can be made to the Iranian-backed Shiite militias battling ISIS along with the U.S. in Iraq. The Houthis are believed to be receiving support from Iran, though the degree to which they’re under Tehran’s direct control is disputed. Saudi Arabia views them as a dangerous Iranian proxy and last month led a Gulf coalition campaign of airstrikes against the Houthis in an attempt to drive them from power and reinstall Hadi’s government.

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In the meantime, even without a cooperative government, the U.S. is continuing its own campaign of drone strikes against al-Qaida leaders—a campaign which is a major cause of Sunni resentment and may itself have contributed to the country’s’ instability.

There are also wider regional implications to Yemen’s instability. Iraq’s prime minister has criticized the Saudi intervention, suggesting that events in Yemen could have in impact on the already delicate coalition battling ISIS.

Of course, the Obama administration would love to have Hadi’s cooperative government back, but U.S. officials say they are “skeptical the airstrikes will reverse the Houthi gains.”

So why is the administration supporting a campaign that it believes in the short-term is benefiting al-Qaida and in the long term is unlikely to accomplish its goals?

Partly, perhaps, because there aren’t an abundance of better options on the table. The administration may also feel that this is a moment where it can’t afford to risk losing Saudi support: The kingdom has been surprisingly encouraging of the recently announced nuclear deal with Iran. But in Yemen, the situation is getting more complex and crowded by the day. In addition to the Saudi-led coalition, al-Qaida, the Houthis, and the remnants of Hadi’s state, the conflict also includes military units supporting ousted president Saleh, a movement of separatists who want South Yemen to secede, and ISIS. Yemen’s civilians are being squeezed in the middle with the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe becoming acute.

As Carter put it on Thursday in a massive understatement, “It's obvious that it's easier to do our counter-terrorism operations against AQAP when there's a settled government in Yemen. There is not that now.”

The US train-and-equip program for Syrian rebels has major regional implicationsSoner Cagaptay and Andrew J. Tabler, The Washington Institute For Near East Policy Apr. 16, 2015, 4:05 PMAugmenting the planned force could help address intensifying threats posed by ISIS, along with Iran-backed militias and the Assad regime.Washington's train-and-equip program for the Syrian moderate opposition began this month. The fact that all the training will take place in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar means the program will have substantial regional implications. At a bare minimum, the program serves as these Sunni countries' first coordinated attempt to create a substate actor force to confront Iranian influence in Syria through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah instead of less-organized nonstate actors, such as the jihadists and Salafists.The program also offers a potential opportunity for the United States to organize a more efficient force to retake the ungoverned spaces lost by the increasingly Iran-dominated and sectarian government in Syria, while simultaneously confronting the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

Background The U.S. Department of Defense's three-year, $500 million Title 10 program for 15,000 moderate opponents of the Bashar al-Assad regime is designed to train a force to retake areas currently held by ISIS and other jihadists in Syria. Yet the program's end goals have been cause for tremendous early tensions. In particular, most opposition members seek to overthrow the Assad regime, with defeating ISIS their secondary goal in the broader Syrian war. On this count, the spread of jihadist influence in Syria's opposition-controlled territory has increasingly pushed moderate opposition members outside Syria's borders. In addition, some moderate opposition elements seem to have either joined ISIS or left the field of battle altogether. The longer it takes to operationalize the program, the harder it will likely be to attract recruits.

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A number of immediate tactical and strategic benefits are linked to training moderate opposition elements in regional countries. One involves breaking the pattern whereby moderate opposition members invariably work with jihadists, who often have superior arms and training.

A main focus here is Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate that, although with a "softer" touch, nevertheless shares ISIS's hard end goals of creating an Islamic state and restoring the Caliphate -- albeit at a later historical stage than that pursued by ISIS.Indeed, the principle of preventing moderate coordination with Jabhat al-Nusra and similar groups has been central to U.S. vetting and recruitment, with the plan being apparently to threaten continued access to U.S. supplies should such coordination occur.

Second, building the new force from scratch is seen as promoting a coherent chain of command heretofore unavailable to the moderate opposition inside Syria, owing to localization, ideology, and competing external patrons.Of the challenges faced by the nascent force, the greatest may be its limited scope. ISIS's harsh tactics and military prowess mean a force of only 5,000 per year is unlikely to dislodge jihadists from significant areas of Syria for years to come. Possibly mitigating this weakness would be the participation of defected Syrian military officers, who would be better trained for combat.

In the event ISIS loses ground imminently, either Jabhat al-Nusra or the Assad regime will have the numbers, and potentially the resources, to retake ceded ISIS territory. This fact is not lost on regional allies who propose training larger numbers of moderates through the program While the U.S. contribution is fixed in Congress's 2015 appropriations bill, Section 9016 says the secretary of defense "may accept and retain contributions, including assistance in-kind, from foreign governments to carry out activities." This means additional involvement from regional parties could significantly augment the train-and-equip program's capacity.Turkey has already said it could train up to 10,000 fighters this year, although given the delayed start of the Turkey-based program, this number seems unlikely to be achieved.

An area of convergence for the United States and its regional allies may concern air support. In his January interview with Foreign Affairs, Assad said that "any troops that don't work with the Syrian army are illegal and should be fought" -- indicating he could attack U.S.- and allied-trained forces. With Washington and its regional allies wanting to avoid a Bay of Pigs scenario, providing air cover to guard against this possibility would seem a natural common interest.

Regional ConcernsTurkey. The train-and-equip program will provide countries such as Turkey and Saudi

Arabia with a potential proxy on the ground against the Damascus regime, which the two states have long opposed. Specifically in the Turkish case, the U.S. language outlining the mission is intentionally vague -- it does not necessarily rule out the Assad regime as a future target. Turkish policymakers therefore seem content at the moment, believing that the program's expressly anti-Assad recruits could one day be used to fight the regime. This holds the potential for mission creep that would be welcomed by many regional players but not the Obama administration, with the United States becoming a party to the broader Syrian war once ISIS is degraded inside both Syria and Iraq.

A second concern is the potential "Pakistanization" effect of the train-and-equip mission on the Turkish security forces. In the 1980s, Pakistan worked with Washington to train Afghan militants. In this arrangement, Islamabad brought in nearly 80,000 Afghan fighters to be trained on Pakistani soil with U.S. assistance, and then sent them back into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets Some of these militants subsequently "trained" their local trainers, infiltrating their cadres and shaping the thinking of Pakistan's security services.

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Mushahid Hussain Syed, the chairman of the Pakistani Senate's Defense Committee, was recently cited identifying this risk in an article by Turkish columnist Fehim Tastekin.

This fear of "Pakistanization," among other factors, explains why the Turkish military has opted to stay out of the train-and-equip program, instead delegating the mission to its special forces, an effective but small and isolated branch of the Turkish Armed Forces.

Qatar. Support from Qatar for the train-and-equip program will be interesting to watch given the country's reported backing of Islamist groups currently fighting inside Syria. On a few occasions, Qatar has reportedly played a vital role in gaining the release of hostages, most notably those belonging to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) held by Jabhat al-Nusra. Any Qatari support for the train-and-equip program could be viewed as hostile by the jihadists the program aims to uproot. Like Turkey, Qatar is seen as a general supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and its proxies in Syria and therefore will remain focused on ousting Assad while participating in the effort to degrade ISIS in Syria. It also remains unclear what impact the Qatari-Saudi detente following Saudi King Salman's ascension to the throne will have on the train-and-equip program.

Saudi Arabia. King Salman is focused on diminishing ISIS while rolling back the Iran-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen and will continue to seek the ouster of Tehran's ally Bashar al-Assad. Recent rumored increases in Saudi support to Syria's rebels indicate that the kingdom is supporting the effort in particularly southern as well as northwestern Syria to roll back the Assad regime, and in many cases direct IRGC and Hezbollah involvement.Wsam Almokdad/ReutersRebel fighters prepare to fire a mortar towards forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar Assad who are stationed in Tel Merhi and Deir Adass villages, in Deraa on February 18, 2015.

Jordan. The Hashemite Kingdom finds itself in a Catch-22 on Washington's train-and-equip program. On the one hand, reports quoting Jordanian officials indicate a real concern about the spread of Iranian influence inside Syria, particularly in the south. Jordan is keen to roll back jihadist advances and keep ISIS out of southern Syria. This is why Amman seems eager to start the program -- and reportedly the Jordanian training site might be the first to churn out soldiers. On the other hand, Jordan lives under the shadow of the Assad regime's continued existence. Amman fears a massive wave of refugees that would accompany any regime offensive, as well as the spread of jihadist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra from southern Syria into its territory. Indeed, together with Ankara, Amman could suffer more than any other regional state from reprisal attacks by Assad and ISIS supporters alike.

Big Picture As a framework, the train-and-equip program offers an opportunity to create a new substate force to combat Iran-backed pro-regime militias and the Assad regime while squeezing out jihadists. The problem, however, is that the Assad regime and Iran-backed militias are gaining fast and the jihadists are also advancing, as seen by their recent assault on the city of Idlib.As moderates themselves are squeezed out by jihadists and the Assad regime, the best option for defeating both -- in whatever order -- may now be an augmented U.S.-led train-and-equip program. Expanding the original intended force of 15,000 personnel seems appropriate given the threat and could encourage vital regional buy-in for the program, while also likely boosting recruitment for a force slated to fight ISIS first and Assad later.Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, and author of The Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century's First Muslim Power, named by the Foreign Policy Association as one of the ten most important books of 2014.

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Andrew Tabler is a senior fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics. His publications include "Syria's Collapse and How Washington Can Stop It" (Foreign Affairs, July-August 2013) and the 2011 book In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria (Chicago Review Press).This article originally appeared at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy. Copyright 2015. Follow The Washington Institute For Near East Policy on Twitter.

Fearing Yemen Defeat, US-Saudis Stack the DeckBy Finian Cunningham April 17, 2015 "ICH" - "Sputnik" - The United Nations Security Council needs a name-change in the interests of accuracy and truth in language. It should henceforth be called the Insecurity Council. Or better still, the UN Council for Aiding and Abetting Aggression.Not content with wanton bombing of the poorest Arab country — Yemen — with hundreds of warplanes, the US and its dictatorial Saudi allies have now bounced the UNSC into trying to "legally" disarm the rebels in that country. This is while the US is moving to increase its weapons supplies to the Saudi-led bombing coalition, as well as providing sharper targeting information and logistics.American warships are reportedly helping Saudi vessels to blockade the Red Sea country to ensure that no arms find their way into Yemen. No arms supplies have yet been detected after American and Saudi naval forces began boarding suspected ships off the Yemeni coast.

This week the ill-named UN Security Council voted 14-0 to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on the people of Yemen who are fighting for their political independence. The resolution was drafted and supported by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies as well as the United States. Jordan, one of the 10 non-permanent members of the council, proposed the draft resolution. How flagrantly self-serving is that?

All of those countries mentioned are the main participants in the ad hoc foreign military coalition that has been bombing Yemen for the past three weeks. This coalition hasn't a legal mandate to carry out its military actions. Such actions therefore amount to criminal aggression.

Russia alone did not vote for the UNSC resolution this week, choosing instead to abstain, although it could have cast a veto as one of the five permanent members of the council. That may prove to be a costly mistake by Russia not to check the rampant aggression that Washington and its Arab allies are once again embarking on in another Middle Eastern country. The latest so-called resolution was passed while Yemen is being bombed into destruction by the coalition of foreign powers led by Saudi Arabia and the United States. The UNSC said nothing towards halting the airstrikes, never mind censoring the illegality of the foreign coalition — as it should do if it were indeed a "security council".

Last week, a Russian drafted resolution calling for a halt to the bombing and the implementation of a "humanitarian ceasefire" to allow aid agencies into Yemen was rejected by the UNSC. Separately, a peace plan put forward by Iran has also been spurned by Saudi Arabia.

The US-Saudi bombing can therefore continue raining down destruction on the people of Yemen, while any means to defend themselves are being denied. This is known as stacking the deck even though those stacking the deck are an international lynch mob with excessive numbers on their side and with warplanes, warships and satellites delivering shock-and-awe firepower. How pathetically cowardly can you get? But what this move shows is that the coalition armed-to-the-teeth by Washington is fearful of defeat in Yemen.

For the US-Saudi bombing of the Arab region's weakest country is not going well. Not well at all. Nearly three weeks of constant airstrikes have pounded Yemen into ruins, left hundreds of innocent civilians dead, and turned the country into a humanitarian disaster.

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Yet, in spite of all this mayhem inflicted by wave after wave of American-supplied and coordinated warplanes, the supposed military objectives are in tatters.

The Houthi rebels, who kicked out the American and Saudi-backed puppet-regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi earlier this year, have steadily increased their military control over the country since the US-Saudi foreign coalition began bombing Yemen on March 26. The Houthis are spearheading the popular uprising against the old regime. When Saudi Arabia and the gang of other Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan and the Persian Gulf monarchies, declared their air strikes on Yemen the assault was said to be aimed at two objectives: crushing the Houthi rebels and driving them back to their tribal base in the northern hinterland; and, secondly, to reinstate the regime of exiled deposed leader Hadi.The latter is holed up in Saudi capital Riyadh awaiting further instructions from his masters, while being given prestigious platform in the New York Times to write oped pieces whitewashing the slaughter being carried out in his name.

Neither of the US-Arab objectives is remotely near achievable. The Houthis appear to have galvanised even more popular support among the Yemeni population. Ordinary Yemenis have been outraged by what they see as foreign aggression on their country. This broad-based support cuts across tribal and sectarian religious lines, thus disproving Saudi and Western claims that the Houthis are a Shiite proxy serving Iranian regional ambitions.

Saudi Arabia in particular is in a quandary about what to do next. It can't win from an air war alone, despite the massive firepower at its disposal. And the oil-rich kingdom is loath to send in ground troops fearful of how the battle-hardened Houthis could drag the invader into a disastrous guerrilla war. Such an outcome could end up destabilising the House of Saud, beset by its own internal tensions among its restive and oppressed population.Egypt and the other Gulf Arab dictatorships are talking with bravado about "joint military exercises" being conducted from Saudi territory.

But none of these countries appear bold enough to take on a ground war inside Yemen. Even Pakistan, which earlier had offered military forces for a Saudi-led invasion of Yemen, has lately backed away from that perilous idea.

Washington realises too that its Arab allies are in no shape to take on a land assault. It is reportedly telling the Saudis to focus air strikes on pushing back the rebels from Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, and to forget about the other stated objective of re-installing the Hadi regime — at least in the short-term.

The Saudis have even resorted to sending in thousands of al-Qaeda-linked Takfiri brigades relocated from Syria to join up with al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. But the Houthis, joined by remnants of the Yemen Army, have managed to thwart the jihadist mercenaries in the Central and Eastern provinces.That is why the UN "Insecurity Council" was called upon this week by the Saudis and their Arab allies — no doubt under US tutelage — to impose an arms blockade on Yemen. With support from Washington, the move has nothing to do with seeking an end to violence in Yemen. Far from it. It is rather a desperate attempt to stack the deck in favour of the US-sponsored Arab coalition bombing Yemen. That coalition is facing an embarrassing defeat in Yemen and needs to accrue an unfair advantage in its futile attempt to bomb the country into submission. The wording of the resolution not only calls for the disarming of the rebels. It also wants them to surrender territory that they have gained over recent weeks.Unwilling to invade a hostile territory and unable to win from an aerial blitzkrieg, despite awesome firepower and shocking atrocities against the civilian population, the American-Saudi lynch mob wants the legalistic mechanism of the UN to aid and abet its nefarious purpose in Yemen.

C; in a strange twist: 19 April 2015 Saudi Arabia has pledged to provide all $274m (£183m; €255m) being requested by the United Nations to help those affected by the current conflict in

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Yemen. The Saudis are leading an air campaign against the Houthi rebel movement that has overthrown the Yemeni government. By this we in the West likely turn a blind eye to the non UNSCR approved actions of the Saudi led coalition. History repeats itself and a blowback is made. The Saudi-led coalition waging air strikes in Yemen takes its offensive to the diplomatic stage Tuesday, seeking a UN demand that rebels retreat and an arms embargo and sanctions against their leaders.

Yemeni commander covering half of country's border with Saudi pledges support to exiled President Hadi.19 Apr 2015 In the southern port city of Aden, Yemen's second largest, forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi regained control on Sunday of part of the coastline that had been held by forces loyal to rebel leader Abdul-Malek al-Houthi and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, security officials told the Associated Press news agency. The gained positions allow them to attack the rebel-held airport and cut off supplies to anti-Hadi forces, they said. The news comes as a Yemeni commander of a vast military district covering half the country's border with Saudi Arabia pledged support on Sunday to exiled President Hadi, local officials said. The announcement puts at least 15,000 troops in the desert and mountain border area on the same side as Saudi Arabia, which backs Hadi and has waged an inconclusive three-week bombing campaign against Houthi rebels, who are allied with Iran. "Brigadier General Abdulrahman al-Halily of the First Military District announced today his support for constitutional legitimacy as represented by President Hadi," one of the officials told Reuters. Most of Yemen's military is loyal to powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose forces are fighting alongside the Houthis in battles stretching across Yemen's south and east. But the defection of the northeastern troops brings to about 10 the number of divisions that back Hadi. Al Jazeera's Mohammed Vall, who is reporting in Jizan at the Saudi Arabia border with Yemen, said that while Hadi loyalists have gained ground, they still have no central commander to lead them.

19 April, A group of 18 Yemen scholars and experts based in the United States and Britain published an open letter decrying the near month-long Saudi bombing campaign in the country. The letter, whose signatories include academics at Harvard, Oxford and Columbia universities, argued the Saudi-led war "is illegal under international law" and urged American and British officials to push for a U.N. Security Council resolution "demanding an immediate, unconditional ceasefire." The full letter reads as follows:We write as scholars concerned with Yemen and as residents/nationals of the United Kingdom and the United States. The military attack by Saudi Arabia, backed by the Gulf Cooperation Council states (but not Oman), Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, the UK and above all the US, is into its third week of bombing and blockading Yemen. This military campaign is illegal under international law: None of these states has a case for self-defense. The targets of the campaign include schools, homes, refugee camps, water systems, grain stores and food industries. This has the potential for appalling harm to ordinary Yemenis as almost no food or medicine can enter. Yemen is the poorest country of the Arab world in per capita income, yet rich in cultural plurality and democratic tradition. Rather than contributing to the destruction of the country, the US and UK should support a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and use their diplomatic influence to strengthen the sovereignty and self-government of Yemen. As specialists we are more than aware of internal divisions within Yemeni society, but we consider that it is for the Yemenis themselves to be allowed to negotiate a political settlement. Robert Burrowes, University of Washington, Steve Caton, Harvard University, Sheila Carapico, University of Richmond, Paul Dresch, University of Oxford, Najam Haidar, Barnard College, Helen Lackner, Anne

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Meneley, Trent University, Brinkley Messick, Columbia University, Flagg Miller, University of California-Davis, Martha Mundy, London School of Economics, Thanos Petouris, SOAS-University of London, Lucine Taminian, The American Academic Research Institute in IraqGabriele vom Bruck, SOAS-University of London, Lisa Wedeen, University of ChicagoShelagh Weir, John Willis, University of Colorado, Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Sami Zubaida, Birkbeck College, London

Al-Qaida in Yemen Takes Massive Weapons Depot From ArmySANAA, Yemen — Apr 17, 2015, 3:32 PM ET

By AHMED AL-HAJ Associated Press A Yemeni boy holding a weapon poses for a picture during a demonstration against an arms embargo imposed by the U.N. Security Council on Houthi leaders, in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, April 16, 2015. Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen seized Thursday control of... View Full Caption The Associated Press

Al-Qaida's Yemen branch routed government forces from a large weapons depot in the country's east on Friday, seizing dozens of tanks, Katyusha rocket launchers and small arms, security officials said, as airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition intensified in the capital, Sanaa, and also in Yemen's second-largest city. The seized depot is located in Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt — Yemen's largest province where al-Qaida has been consolidating its control. Only the day before, the militants captured a major airport, an oil terminal and the area's main military base. The gains highlight how al-Qaida has exploited the chaos in Yemen, where Shiite rebels are battling forces loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The Saudi-led air campaign in support of Hadi, now in its fourth week, has so far failed to halt the rebels' advance. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni affiliate is known, is widely seen as the global network's most dangerous franchise and has been linked to several failed attacks on the U.S. The group claimed responsibility for the attack on a French satirical magazine in Paris earlier this year. However, the Saudi-led air campaign has not targeted areas with an al-Qaida presence, including Hadramawt, where the militant group has long been implanted despite U.S. drone strikes and Yemeni counterterrorism operations. The coalition says the airstrikes are aimed at the rebels, known as Houthis, not al-Qaida. On Friday evening, hundreds of al-Qaida supporters and fighters gathered at a theater in Mukalla to celebrate their victories in the Hadramawt region, singing war songs and chanting slogans. Pro-Hadi forces gained some ground elsewhere in Hadramawt on Friday, with fighters capturing the province's Masila oilfield, the country's largest, commander Ahmed Bammas said over the telephone. On the other side of the country, Saudi-led coalition airstrikes targeting the rebels intensified, with bombings in Sanaa and also Taiz, the country's second-largest city. The levels of the bombings were their most intense levels since the campaign started on March 26, the security officials said. Thick plumes of smoke rose high above Sanaa as weapons stores in mountains overlooking the city exploded and burned, while local residents continued to flee the violence, said the officials. In Taiz, the rebels clashed with army units loyal to Hadi, with tanks and heavy machine guns firing throughout the day and airstrikes hitting a military base of the Houthi-allied Republican Guard, the officials said.Airstrikes also continued in Saada, the Houthis' northern stronghold, and Aden, the southern port city that the rebels have been trying to take for weeks, in cooperation with forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Meanwhile, the United Nations urged the international community to provide $274 million in aid to help save lives and protect some 7.5 million people affected by Yemen's conflict. In a statement, the U.N. said that along with

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its partners in Yemen, it needed the funds to purchase medical supplies, safe drinking water, food assistance, emergency shelter and to provide logistical support. Fighting between the rebels and forces loyal to Hadi intensified in March, with the Saudi-led coalition of major Sunni countries in the region launching the airstrikes on March 26.

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