Yemen 2016 onwards: an intractable war?

[davidbfpo]

Hardly a surprise, this AP report covers several places in the Yemen.
Link:https://apnews.com/f38788a561d74ca78c77cb43612d50da

[AdamG]

Saudis intercept Al Houthi missile Al Houthis have launched 176 ballistic missiles towards the kingdom so far

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s Royal Air Defence Forces intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Iranian-backed Al Houthi militia towards the kingdom, the Arab coalition command said in a statement. No injuries or casualties were reported.

https://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen...sile-1.2267700

[AdamG]

Report to Congress on Yemen Civil War
August 28, 2018 8:03 AM

The following is the Aug. 24, 2018 Congressional Research Service report, Yemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention.

From the report
This report provides information on the ongoing crisis in Yemen. Now in its fourth year, the war in Yemen shows no signs of abating. On June 12, 2018, the Saudi-led coalition, a multinational grouping of armed forces led primarily by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), launched Operation Golden Victory, with the aim of retaking the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah. The coalition also has continued to conduct air strikes inside Yemen. The war has killed thousands of Yemenis, including combatants as well as civilians, and has significantly damaged the country’s infrastructure. According to the United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights, from the start of the conflict in March 2015 through August 9, 2018, the United Nations documented “a total of 17,062 civilian casualties – 6,592 dead and 10,470 injured.” This figure may vastly underestimate the war’s death toll.

https://news.usni.org/2018/08/28/rep...emen-civil-war

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Navy sailors seized more than 1,000 AK-47s from a small, disabled boat in the Gulf of Aden this week after boarding the vessel to determine its nation of origin, service officials said Thursday.

Sailors aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham on Monday observed unmarked packages being transferred onto a skiff from a small, masted sailing vessel, known as a "dhow." U.S. sailors boarded the craft Tuesday to investigate, according to Navy officials. The skiff was sailing in international waters near Yemen without flying a country’s flag and determined to be “stateless,” the officials said.

https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-...yemen-1.545177

[davidbfpo]

This is a 'long read' via CTC, by Michael Knights who has visited the Houthi areas and is an interesting read on how they fight, not the fighting itself.

The Abstract:

Abstract: The Houthi rebels have been at war with the Yemeni government almost constantly since 2004. In the first six years, the Houthis fought an increasingly effective guerrilla war in their mountainous home provinces, but after 2010, they metamorphosed into the most powerful military entity in the country, capturing the three largest cities in Yemen. The Houthis quickly fielded advanced weapons they had never before controlled, including many of Iranian origin. The story of how they moved from small-arms ambushes to medium-range ballistic missiles in half a decade provides a case study of how an ambitious militant group can capture and use a state’s arsenals and benefit from Iran’s support.

Link:https://ctc.usma.edu/houthi-war-mach...state-capture/

[davidbfpo]

An article in Newsweek and for once Eastern Yemen, the province known as Hadramawt, with the the port city of Mukulla is the focus.
Link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...79_story.html?

[davidbfpo]

Via Lawfare Gregory D. Johnsen, a SME; the Editor's foreword:

The war in Yemen has gone from bad to worse, leaving tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands of civilians at risk from disease and malnutrition. The war's complexity rivals its brutality, with a dizzying array of actors with discreet and shifting agendas. Gregory Johnsen of the Arabia Foundation describes the three wars Yemen is facing: the struggle against terrorism, the civil war, and the regional struggle encompassing Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran. Each has its own dynamics, and together they are shattering Yemen.

He ends with:

There is, simply put, no longer a single Yemen. There are multiple Yemens and no single individual or group capable of re-uniting them into a coherent whole. Yemen has too many groups with too many guns to ever be a unified state again. The civil war, which has taken a back seat to the regional conflict over the past three years, will eventually resume at full force. And when it does, the fighting it produces will be bloody and protracted.

Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/yemens-three-wars