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Human cost of Yemen war

Rayhan Ahmed Topader:

More than four years of war between the Iran-backed Houthis and a coalition led by Saudi Arabia has brought Yemen to its knees, with accusations of war crimes on all sides.Yemen faces an existential threat, the United Nations special envoy has said, as he prepares to brief the UN security council on the country’s devastating, multi-faceted conflict. The UN meeting comes after disputed claims by Yemen’s Houthi rebels that they were behind the drones that caused major devastation at two Saudi oil facilities. The Metropolitan police and US justice department have been asked to launch a war crimes investigation into Saudi and Yemeni officials over a 2016 air attack that killed 137 civilians attending a family funeral. Under the powers of universal jurisdiction states can undertake inquiries and prosecutions for serious offences such as torture and war crimes even if they were carried out by foreign nationals abroad. A complaint was submitted on Monday to SO15, the Met’s counter-terrorism command by lawyers acting on behalf of UK national, Nabeel Gubari, 54, whose uncle, Muhammad Ali al-Rowaishan was among those who died in the community centre in Sana’a on 8 October 2016.The bombing was one of the most notorious atrocities of the Yemen war. Many of the victims were young children. A further 695 people were injured, many suffering severe burns as flames engulfed the building. No one has ever been investigated or charged for the incident. Lawyers, led by Rodney Dixon QC and Hakan Camuz of the London law firm Stoke White solicitors, have identified four Saudi and Yemeni officials both military and governmental whom they allege are directly responsible for ordering the bombing even though it was known those attending were civilians. United States officials have said that Iran was responsible for the attacks on Saturday, the most audacious and damaging blow to Saudi Arabia in the four and a half years of Yemen’s civil war, and have cast doubt on whether they were launched from Houthi territory in Yemen. The Americans offered no evidence of Iranian involvement beyond satellite photos of the damage, whose meaning was unclear, and they did not say who was directly involved in carrying out the strikes or from where they were launched. The Trump administration has previously blamed Iran for the actions of the Houthis, and United Nations experts say that Iran has supplied the group with drones and missiles that have greatly expanded its offensive capacity. A Saudi military spokesman, Colonel Turki al-Malki, said at a news conference in Riyadh that Iranian weapons were used in the attacks.  and that they did not originate in Yemen, but he did not provide any specifics, according to Saudi media and news service reports.Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks. And the Houthis insisted that they had carried out the strikes using drones, while threatening more, although they made no reference to whether Iranian equipment or training played a role. A spokesman for the Houthi military, Brig. Gen. Yahya Sare’e, warned companies and foreigners not to be present in the factories that were hit by our strikes because we may target them again at any moment, Almasirah, the Houthi news organization, reported.The Houthis can strike at will anywhere in Saudi Arabia, he said, and their actions against the kingdom “will expand and be more painful.In recent months a secessionist movement in the south has emerged that is taking territory from the Saudi-backed government, further complicating the battlefield situation. The secessionists are backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a partner in the Saudi fight against the Houthis. Griffiths told the BBC that Yemen faced “the risk of fragmenting and threatening its own existence, which is a massive threat to stability in the region”.In these circumstances what we need to do is waste no more time, but to get to the table to get the political agreement in place to end that conflict,” he said. Griffiths’ intervention reflects concerns that the attack on the oil installa tions could end any Saudi willingness to compromise on a future Houthi stake in Yemen’s government, and that Riyadh will instead revert to an uncompromising search for a military solution that crushes the rebels. If Riyadh believes victory against the Houthis is essential to reduce Iran’s influence across the region, the chances of compromise diminish. Griffiths will call at the UN for all sides to come together to hold wide-ranging political talks on the country’s future, moving on from the narrow focus on security troop withdrawals in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, the primary focus of his diplomacy since an outline agreement was reached in Stockholm last December. Diplomats fear Griffiths’s appeal may be ignored if Saudi Arabia joins the US in attributing responsibility for Saturday’s attack to a nexus between the Houthis and Iran. The UAE has recently signalled that it is withdrawing some forces from Yemen, and there had been hope that the Saudis might also wind down their involvement. Griffiths told the BBC he could not personally attribute responsibility for the oil facility attack, or substantiate the Houthis’ claim that they launched the drones. The US government has produced satellite photo that officials have said shows impacts consistent with the attack coming from the direction of Iran or Iraq, rather than from Yemen to the south. For the Houthi claim of responsibility to be true, their armed drones would have had to fly for nearly 620 miles (1,000km) from Houthi-controlled territory in north-west Yemen and across Saudi Arabia to reach their targets in Abqaiq. Few doubt the Houthis’ drone capabilities have grown more sophisticated since February 2017 when they first claimed they were using them for reconnaissance, surveying, assessment and early warning missions. But their basic drones do not have this range. I really hope the US are right that it did not come from Yemen because it would make it more difficult than even what we are now facing to resolve the conflict. The UN panel said it received allegations that Emirati and affiliated forces tortured, raped and killed suspected political opponents detained in secret facilities at Bir Ahmed prison II, al-Bureiqa and numerous unofficial detention sites. It found many detainees were tortured, including by electrocution, hanging by the arms and legs, sexual violence and long periods of solitary confinement. Yemeni government forces, including those backed by the UAE, continue to arbitrarily detain, threaten and otherwise target individuals who openly questioned or criticised them, including political opponents, journalists, human rights defenders and religious leaders, the report said. At least 13 journalists and media workers are in detention in Sana’a on charges relating to their work.The UN has documented at least 7,292 civilians killed (including at least 1,959 children and 880 women) and 11,630 civilians injured (including 2,575 children and 1,256 women ) in Yemen as a direct result of the armed conflict between March 2015 (when it began such tracking) and June 2019. The overall death toll is thought to be much higher. It also found Houthi fighters used anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines, in violation of international humanitarian law. But notably in the way the mines were emplaced in unmarked locations frequented by civilians, with little or no warning given, which rendered their use indiscriminate. The use of anti-personnel mines is prohibited by the anti-personnel mine ban convention, the application of which has been acknowledged by the de facto authorities. The governments of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt did not cooperate with the UN group or support its work, but the panel said it nevertheless conducted more than 600 interviews. The prime minister stressed that Iraq’s task is to maintain its own security and stability and avoid any step of escalation and to prevent the use of its territory against any neighboring or brotherly or friendly country,” the Iraqi statement said.The State Department declined to comment on Mr. Pompeo’s call or the official Iraqi statement. The department did not provide its own summary of the call. Tensions between the United States and Iran have increased sharply since last year, when Mr. Trump withdrew from the 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program and reimposed economic sanctions against Iran. This spring, he imposed new sanctions, and Iran, which had continued to abide by the 2015 accord after the United States withdrawal, began stepping back from some of their obligations. That would mean the United States does not suspect that Shiite militias in Iraq with ties to Iran are responsible for the attacks.                                  Writer and Columnist                                raihan567@yahoo.com