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Yahya Saree, spokesperson for the Iranian-backed Houthi terror group, declared in a televised speech to supporters at a Friday rally in Al-Sabeen Square, Sana, that they intend to target Israel-linked ships in the eastern Mediterranean. The risk of conflict spilling over from the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden remains high.

“We will target any ship heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean, in any area we are able to reach,” Saree said.

Given that the eastern Mediterranean is 1,900 kilometers (1,180 miles) from Yemen, this may indicate that the conflict area is broadening, triggering a new escalation of the multi-month war.

Fernando Ferreira, energy analyst at Rapidan Energy Group, noted:

“The Houthi nuisance continues, but they are at the limit of their ability to cause disruptions. The real risk of escalation comes from Israeli retaliation on IRGC officers/assets helping the Houthis.”

This comes as Houthis have attacked dozens of Western and Israel-linked commercial vessels and military ships across the southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait, Gulf of Aden, and even the Strait of Hormuz since last November. The group claims these maritime attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Saree warned if the Israel Defense Forces launched an attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering from the seven-month-long war. They would’ve no other choice but to impose sanctions on all ships of the companies that are supplying Israel and entering Israeli ports.

What’s clear—and the West won’t like it—is that the Houthis appear to be expanding their attack coverage as numerous maritime chokepoints in the region are under constant threat.

We pointed out Thursday that Operation Prosperity Guardian, the US-led maritime coalition launched by the Biden administration earlier this year, has been largely a failure.

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Houthis Launch Attack On US Cargo & Navy Ships Following Two Weeks Of Quiet

April 27, 2024

Houthis Launch Attack On US Cargo & Navy Ships Following Two Weeks Of Quiet

Yemen’s Iran-linked Houthis have announced new aggressive actions in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea regions, saying late Wednesday that projectiles were launched against more US and Israeli-owned commercial vessels, and that a US warship was also targeted. This follows a period of relative quiet this month.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video address that an antiship ballistic missile was launched against the Maersk Yorktown cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, resulting in a direct hit.

The US military subsequently confirmed the fresh attack on the “US-flagged, owned, and operated vessel with 18 US and four Greek crew members”; however, the statement indicated no casualties or damage. The projectile may have exploded near the ship without hitting it.

“There were no injuries or damage reported by US, coalition, or commercial ships,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in the statement, without indicating whether there was any level of an actual direct strike on the ship. Commenting further, Maritime Executive details:

They received a report from a vessel of an explosion in the water approximately 72 nautical miles southeast of the port of Djibouti. The statement only said that there had been an explosion “at a distance,” and that the crew and vessel were reported safe.

CENTCOM further described that within hours of the attack on the Maersk Yorktown, US forces “successfully engaged and destroyed” four drones over Yemen.

The government of Greece this week also said it has been engaged in fresh counter-Houthi actions:

The Greek Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday that one of the country’s military ships serving in the European Union’s naval mission to counter the Houthis in the Red Sea intercepted two drones launched towards a commercial ship from Yemen.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Do not play with fire’ Yemen warns EU as Brussels embarks on Red Sea mission

February 21, 2024

‘Do not play with fire’ Yemen warns EU as Brussels embarks on Red Sea mission

EU warships have set off for the Red Sea, where the US navy is waging its largest conflict since the end of WWII in support of Israel

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

A high-ranking Yemeni official has warned the EU against “supporting the American devil to protect [Israel]” following the formal launch of the Aspides naval mission in the Red Sea.

“For Europeans, do not play with fire. Take a lesson from Britain,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a senior member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, said via social media on 20 February.

“You do not need the support of the American devil in protecting the occupying entity so that it can exterminate the people of Gaza with no disturbance,” Houthi added, stressing that “international navigation is safe.”

His message followed an announcement by Brussels of the official launch of the EU naval operation codenamed Aspides – Greek for shield.

“I welcome today’s decision … Europe will ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, working alongside our international partners. Beyond crisis response, it’s a step towards a stronger European presence at sea to protect our European interests,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said via social media.

France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium have said they will contribute ships to the EU mission in support of Israel.

The bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, described the mission as “bold action to protect the commercial and security interests of the EU and the international community.”

With a mandate initially set for one year, Aspides will see the deployment of EU warships and airborne early warning systems to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and surrounding waters. According to officials in Brussels, the mission will be exclusively defensive, and its forces will not partake in US-led attacks against Yemen.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Shipping faces lengthy disruptions as Middle East fallout worsens

January 31, 2024

Shipping faces lengthy disruptions as Middle East fallout worsens

Analysts see more upside for container shipping and tanker stocks

The fire on the product tanker Marlin Luanda was extinguished on Saturday. (Photo: French Navy)

The Red Sea crisis — and the Middle East situation in general — is worsening. There’s growing conviction that shipping diversions around the Cape of Good Hope will increase in scope and last much longer than initially expected. That should be good news for shipping stocks over time, due to durably longer voyage distances.

The Houthis hit the JP Morgan-owned product tanker Marlin Luanda with a ballistic missile on Friday, setting a cargo tank on fire. The tanker was chartered by trading house Trafigura and loaded with Russian naphtha. The fire was extinguished on Saturday, with all crew safe.

On Sunday, a drone attack by an Iranian-backed militia killed three U.S. service members and injured at least 40 more at a U.S. military site in Jordan. The Biden administration has vowed to respond, raising the specter of a wider Middle East conflict.

“Red Sea diversions are on the rise as continued attacks on vessels in the region are prompting more shipping companies to avoid transiting the area,” said Jefferies shipping analyst Omar Nokta in a client note on Monday.

The vast majority of larger container ships already avoid the Red Sea, and detours are rapidly spreading to bulk commodity shipping.

Citing data from Clarksons, Nokta said that crude tanker transits of the region are now down 22% versus their 2023 average; at the beginning of this year, they were down 5% from last year’s average. Product tanker transits are down 51% versus 2023, after being down 29% versus last year’s average at the beginning of the year, with liquefied natural gas carrier transits down 87% (from 36%) and liquefied petroleum gas carrier transits down 62% (from 23%).

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How Yemen’s ‘asabiyya’ is reshaping geopolitics

January 28, 2024

How Yemen’s ‘asabiyya’ is reshaping geopolitics

The Arabic word Asabiyya, or ‘social solidarity,’ is a soundbite in the west, but taken very seriously by the globe’s new contenders China, Russia, and Iran. It is Yemen, however, that is mainstreaming the idea, by sacrificing everything for the world’s collective morality in a bid to end the genocide in Gaza.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

When there is a general change of conditions,

It is as if the entire creation had changed

and the whole world been altered,

as if it were a new and repeated creation,

a world brought into existence anew.

— Ibn Khaldun

Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance forces have made it very clear, right from the start, that they set up a blockade in the Bab el-Mandeb and the southern Red Sea only against Israeli-owned or destined shipping vessels. Their single objective was and remains to stop the Gaza genocide perpetrated by the Israeli biblical psychopathy.

As a response to a morally-based call to end a human genocide, the United States, masters of the Global War Of Terror (italics mine), predictably re-designated Yemen’s Houthis as a “terrorist organization,” launched a serial bombardment of underground Ansarallah military installations (assuming US intel know where they are), and cobbled together a mini-coalition of the willing that includes its UK, Canadian, Australian, Dutch, and Bahraini vassals.

Without missing a beat, Yemen’s Parliament declared the US and UK governments “Global Terrorist Networks.”

Now let’s talk strategy.

With a single move, the Yemeni resistance seized the strategic advantage by de facto controlling a key geoeconomic bottleneck: the Bab el-Mandeb. Hence, they can inflict serious trouble on sectors of global supply chains, trade, and finance.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Aramco On Lockdown After Houthi Missile Attack

September 7, 2021

Aramco On Lockdown After Houthi Missile Attack

Saudi Arabia had intercepted a ballistic missile attack on facilities owned by state oil major Aramco in the Eastern Region, Reuters has reported, citing the Saudi defense ministry.

Earlier reports said Aramco facilities in Dharan had gone on lockdown because of a suspected attack.

The Iran-affiliated Yemeni Houthi group claimed responsibility for the attacks on Sunday, saying it had used ballistic missiles and drones.

Ras Tanura, which is home to extensive oil infrastructure, was not the only target of the attack: the Houthis also targeted Aramco property in the southern Saudi provinces of Jizan and Najran, according to the rebel group’s spokesman who claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Aramco oil facilities are understandably a preferred target for the Houthis, which Saudi Arabia is trying to oust from Yemen after they removed the Saudi-affiliated government of the country in 2014 and has since then assumed power in most of Yemen. The Yemeni war, which has resulted in the worst humanitarian crisis in modern times, is widely seen as a proxy war between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Saudis most often intercept the Houthi attacks but not always. The most notable attack that the Yemeni rebel group claimed responsibility for was the September 2019 attacks on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities, including an oil field and a processing plant

That attack cut off 5 percent of the daily global supply for weeks, sending oil prices soaring. But Saudi Arabia and the United States said at the time that it was Iran—and not the Houthis—that was responsible for the attack, even though the Yemeni group again claimed responsibility for the strikes.

Since the start of the Yemen war, several attempts have been made at reaching a ceasefire agreement, but so far, all have failed, locking the Saudis and the Houthis in a stalemate.

Brace For Oil Surge: Saudi Oil Tank In Ras Tanura Port Hit In Houthi Drone Attack

March 7, 2021

Brace For Oil Surge: Saudi Oil Tank In Ras Tanura Port Hit In Houthi Drone Attack

It’s not as if oil – the best performing class of 2021 – behind bitcoin of course – needed any more reasons to surge higher (for the latest tally please read “Saudis + Commodity Funds = Energy Stock Explosion“), but it got it moments ago when Saudi Arabia said that it had intercepted missiles and a barrage of drones launched from neighboring Yemen and which targeted Dhahran, where Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, is headquartered, which eyewitnesses said was rocked by an explosion.

According to Bloomberg which quotes witnesses on the ground, the blast shook windows in Dhahran, which hosts a large compound for Aramco employees.

While Bloomberg was cautious with reporting of what had happened, Saudi journalist Ahmed al Omaran who previously worked with the FT, said that “Saudi oil tanks in Ras Tanura Port hit in drone attack and Aramco facilities targeted with ballistic missile” quoting an energy ministry statement”

An official spokesman at the Ministry of Energy said that “one of the petroleum tank farms at the Ras Tanura Port in the Eastern Region, one of the largest oil shipping ports in the world, was attacked this morning by a drone, coming from the sea”

Yemen’s Houthis claimed a series of attacks on Sunday including on a Saudi Aramco facility at Ras Tanura in the east of the kingdom. The group launched eight ballistic missiles and 14 bomb-laden drones at Saudi Arabia, a spokesman for the Houthis, Yahya Saree, said in a statement to Houthi-run Al Masirah television.

“There are reports of possible missile attacks and explosions this evening, March 7, in the tri-city area of Dhahran, Dammam, and Khobar in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province,” the U.S. consulate general in Dhahran said in a statement.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Set To Spike After Report Saudi Repairs At Abqaiq May Take “Up To Eight Months”

September 22, 2019

Oil Set To Spike After Report Saudi Repairs At Abqaiq May Take “Up To Eight Months”

While S&P futures may spike at the open following Saturday’s news from the NYT that the “the delegation of Chinese agriculture officials that had planned to travel to Montana and Nebraska in the coming week didn’t cancel the trip because of any new difficulty in the trade talks” but “instead, the trip was canceled out of concern that it would turn into a media circus and give the misimpression that China was trying to meddle in American domestic politics”, oil too is likely to catch a bid after the WSJ reported that it may take “up to eight month”, rather than 10 weeks company executives had previously promised, to fully restore operations at Aramco damaged Abqaiq facility, suggesting the crude oil shortfall will last far longer than originally expected.

✔

Saudi officials say there is little sense of calm at the highest levels of the company and the Saudi government, however. It could take some contractors up to a year to manufacture, deliver and install made-to-measure parts and equipment, the Saudi officials said. #OOTT https://twitter.com/summer_said/status/1175859119061909506 …✔https://www.os-repairs-could-take-months-longer-than-company-anticipates-contractors-say-11569180194 24 3:52 PM – Sep 22, 2019

The official reason for the delay: the supply-chain is unable to respond to the Saudi needs. Specifically, Aramco is” in emergency talks with equipment makers and service providers, offering to pay premium rates for parts and repair work as it attempts a speedy recovery from missile attacks on its largest oil-processing facilities.”

Following a devastating attack on its largest oil-processing facility more than a week ago, Aramco is asking contractors to name their price for patch-ups and restorations. In recent days, company executives have bombarded contractors, including General Electric , with phone calls, faxes and emails seeking emergency assistance, according to Saudi officials and oil-services suppliers in the kingdom.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why Would Iran Attack the Saudis NOW?

September 16, 2019

Why Would Iran Attack the Saudis NOW?

U.S. officials claim that the attacks against Saudi oil facilities were launched from Iranian soil.

Are they right?

We have no idea at this point, as the U.S. government hasn’t released any evidence.

But given that the U.S. and 23 other countries have ADMITTED to carrying out false flag attacks before – including – it’s worth asking whether Iran or another country had more to gain from this attack …

Indeed, U.S. officials have admitted to twice carrying out false flag attacks intended to frame Iran and justify regime change:

(1) The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

(2) CIA agents and documents admit that the agency gave Iran plans for building nuclear weapons … so it could frame Iran for trying to build the bomb.

And neocons have been planning on further regime change in Iran for more than 25 years.

So it’s worth questioning this, at least in the absence of real evidence. This is especially true because – until a couple of days ago – it seemed like the U.S. and Iran were moving towards diplomatic talks.

And Trump just fired the head “bomb Iran” cheerleader, John Bolton. So the odds of a peaceful solution to tensions with Iran seemed higher than they had been in years

So why would the Iranians “torpedo” the momentum towards diplomacy, and hand the U.S. a casus belli on a silver platter?

Why now?

Of course, the Houthis have claimed responsibility for the attack, while the Iranians have denied it. But the U.S. isn’t paying any attention to their statements.

It’s possible it really was the Iranians … but given the history of fake “justifications” for war (like Iraq), it’s worth asking questions.

The Black Swan Is a Drone

September 16, 2019

The Black Swan Is a Drone

What was “possible” yesterday is now a low-cost proven capability, and the consequences are far from predictable.

Predictably, the mainstream media is serving up heaping portions of reassurances that the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities are no big deal and full production will resume shortly. The obvious goal is to placate global markets fearful of an energy disruption that could tip a precarious global economy into recession.

The real impact isn’t on short-term oil prices, it’s on asymmetric warfare: the coordinated drone attack on Saudi oil facilities is a Black Swan event that is reverberating around the world, awakening copycats and exposing the impossibility of defending against low-cost drones of the sort anyone can buy.(Some published estimates place the total cost of the 10 drones deployed in the strike at $15,000. Highly capable commercially available drones cost around $1,200 each.)

The attack’s success should be a wake-up call to everyone tasked with defending highly flammable critical infrastructure: there really isn’t any reliable defense against a coordinated drone attack, nor is there any reliable way to distinguish between an Amazon drone delivering a package and a drone delivering a bomb.

Whatever authentication protocol that could be required of drones in the future–an ID beacon or equivalent–can be spoofed. For example: bring down an authenticated drone (using nets, etc.), swap out the guidance and payload, and away it goes. Or steal authentication beacons from suppliers, or hack an authenticated drone in flight, land it, swap out the payload–the list of spoofing workaround options is extensive.

This is asymmetric warfare on a new scale: $20,000 of drones can wreak $20 million in damage and financial losses of $200 million–or $2 billion or $20 billion, if global markets are upended.If it’s impossible to defend against coordinated drone attacks, and impossible to differentiate “good” drones from “bad” drones, then the only reliable defense is to ban drones entirely from wide swaths of territory.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Iran-Backed” Attack On Merchant Ship In Red Sea Thwarted: Saudi Coalition

July 8, 2019

“Iran-Backed” Attack On Merchant Ship In Red Sea Thwarted: Saudi Coalition

As the tanker and pipeline wars in the gulf continue to heat up, Saudi state sources are claiming to have thwarted a new “terror attack” on a commercial ship targeted by Yemen’s Houthis.

Spokesman for the Saudi coalition fighting in Yemen, Col. Turki al-Maliki, announced Monday that “Houthis attempted to attack a commercial ship south of the Red Sea using a booby-trapped boat with explosives,” according to a statement from the Saudi Press Agency.File photo via AFP

Al-Maliki pointed the finger at the “Iran-backed” Shia militia for posing a threat to navigation and international trade, but vowed that the coalition — which has since 2015 included US forces — would “neutralize” all hostile threats in the region.

The statements via the Saudi Press Agency suggest that an active, ongoing operation is underway in response to the alleged Houthi targeting of a merchant vessel in the south Red Sea.

The Bab El Mandeb strait, located between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula to the Red Sea’s south, is considered one of the world’s most important trade routes for oil tankers and over the course of the Saudi-Yemen war has been site of multiple military operations launched between the Houthis and Saudis.

View image on Twitter

Impossible to predict Iran’s response vs UK. Expect mischief/hassling of UK tankers in Persian Gulf. Is bigger risk than attack on tanker in Persian Gulf, the wildcard of Iran proxies, in particular the Houthis who have attacked Saudi tankers in the Red Sea/Bab el Mandeb? #OOTT

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America is today’s Nazi Germany.

September 16, 2018

America is today’s Nazi Germany.

It’s not against Jews this time; it’s against, especially, Houthis.

The U.S. and its allies — in this case mainly the Saud family who own Saudi Arabia — are systematically blocking food from reaching tens of millions of people, Houthis, who live in Yemen and are surrounded by the U.S. alliance’s engines of death. The U.S. alliance’s goal is to slaughter them all. The Sauds want the land — not the people.

The U.N. has been brought into this scheme of mass-slaughter. The responsible U.N. Agency is the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Its leadership is mainly Mark Lowcock, who keeps silent about the genocide, except for rare occasions in which he says that if something is not done, then more tragedy will somehow happen in Yemen — in other words, platitudes, in the face of what might turn out to be the biggest genocide since World War II. (And most of Hitler’s slaughtering killed even more non-Jews than Jews, because the vast majority of people everywhere didn’t want to be ruled by him and resisted his rule. The U.S. aristocracy and its allies haven’t yet matched what Germany did in that time, but they’ll surpass it if they attack Russia as Hitler did — which could happen.)

Lowcock’s official web-page says about him that “Mr. Mark Lowcock of the United Kingdom … led the United Kingdom’s humanitarian response to conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria, and to natural disasters in Nepal and the Philippines” or that he was a functionary of the British aristocracy during its invasion of Iraq along with the aristocracy of the United States — the billionaires and their international corporations and the ‘non-profits’ which are actually these aristocrats’ main propaganda-mills and yet are tax-exempt. With Lowcock’s “designation as a Qualified Accountant, Mr. Lowcock brings a personal and analytical approach to humanitarian challenges.” He doesn’t count the corpses; he counts the money. That’s “Humanitarian,” in this New Nazism.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Is Now Openly at War With Houthis in Yemen (Video)

October 16, 2016

U.S. Is Now Openly at War With Houthis in Yemen (Video)

The US Navy in the Red Sea fired Tomahawk missiles into Yemen early Thursday morning, taking out three radar stations. Those facilities had allowed the Houthi rebels who control North Yemen to target US destroyers in the Red Sea on several occasions in recent days (they missed each time).The Obama administration has backed the Saudi-led war on the Houthi government of north Yemen since it began in March of 2015, offering logistical support and even help in choosing targets for airstrikes. Presumably the Houthis were firing at US destroyers in an attempt to take revenge on the US for its involvement in the war on them.The US Navy said that the Tomahawk missile strikes were defensive, without noting that the US has been deeply involved in helping plan the bombing of Yemen for a year and a half.Last Saturday a Saudi airstrike hit a funeral, killing some 160 civilians and wounding over 500.The Saudis and their partners in the war have often bombed urban areas indiscriminately, destroying some of historic downtown Sanaa. Even when advised by the US military against striking some bridges and other key infrastructure (because they are needed to get staples to civilian populations), the Saudis and their allies have nevertheless struck them. The US has on several occasions announced that it is becoming uncomfortable with the war on Yemen, but continues to be deeply involved behind the scenes.

The war has killed 4,125 civilians and left 7,207 wounded, and made over a million Yemenis out of 24 million food insecure.The US is concerned with Yemen for geostrategic reasons, since about 10 percent of world trade goes through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, and Yemen is in a position to disrupt that ship traffic. Also, some southern provinces of Yemen are bases for the radical al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is stalking the United States.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Powder Kegs Exploding: Violence Escalates In Turkey, Yemen As Mid-East Tips Towards Chaos

September 7, 2015

Powder Kegs Exploding: Violence Escalates In Turkey, Yemen As Mid-East Tips Towards Chaos

On Friday we checked in on two of the world’s most important conflicts: 1) that which is unfolding in Turkey where President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has effectively granted Washington access to Incirlik (you know, for “anti-terror” sorties) in exchange for NATO’s acquiescence to a brutal crackdown on the Kurds as AKP looks to usurp Turkey’s fragile deomcracy, and 2) that which is unfolding in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition isfighting to restore the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

In Turkey, Erdogan has successfully undermined the coalition building process necessitating new elections in November when he hopes the escalation of violence across the country will prompt voters to restore AKP’s parliamentary majority allowing the President to rewrite the constitution and consolidate his power. Journalists are being arrested, a terror “tip line” has been set up, a 24-hour Erodgan Presidential TV channel is in the works, and the country has, for all intents and purposes, been plunged into civil war with ISIS acting as a smokescreen for Erdogan’s power grab.

As for Yemen, the Iran-backed Houthis have been driven back by Saudi and UAE troops but the problem, asWSJ noted last week, is that the ragtag militia in Aden is “a motley group that spans the spectrum from southern secessionists to ultraconservative Salafi Islamists to supporters of al Qaeda.” In other words, it doesn’t seem all that far-fetched to suggest that should restoring Hadi ultimately prove to be impossible, an independent South Yemen could end up falling into the hands of extremists, which would be ironic not only for the fact that it would represent the latest example of US foreign policy gone horribly awry, but also because according to at least one source, the Saleh government – whose fighters are now allied with the Houthis – for years worked with AQP while accepting US anti-terror funding. Notably, were Yemen to split in two, it would also effectively create a permanent Iranian colony on Saudi Arabia’s southern border.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Counterterrorism “Success Story” Fails Completely As Yemen Set To Split Into Two Countries

September 4, 2015

Counterterrorism “Success Story” Fails Completely As Yemen Set To Split Into Two Countries

Late last month, as the fighting in Yemen continued unabated, Jeff Prescott, the National Security Council’s Senior Director for the Middle East said “there is no military solution to the crisis.” Saudi Arabia seemingly disagrees and that will reportedly be one topic under discussion at The White House on Friday where President Obama will meet with King Salman to discuss a variety of geopolitical issues.

The Saudi-led intervention into the conflict in Yemen has transformed the country into a battleground for a Saudi-Iran proxy war on the way to exacerbating a worsening humanitarian crisis. Civilian casualties are a regular occurrence, although, between conflicting reports from Riyadh and the Houthis, it’s nearly impossible to determine the exact figures. Just this week, sources on the ground indicated that dozens of civilians were killed when Saudi warplanes bombed a bottling plant.

Meanwhile, operations in Yemen are taking their toll on Saudi Arabia’s increasingly precarious fiscal situation, which has deteriorated rapidly in the face of persistently low crude prices. Coalition partner UAE is in a similar, if slightly more stable, position from a budget perspective.

So while the market nervously eyes the petrodollar reserves of Saudi Arabia and the UAE as the countries juggle domestic expenditures, dollar pegs, and the cost of war, Yemen itself is coming apart at the seams – literally. As WSJ reports, it now looks as though the country may in fact split, as Aden residents have eschewed the red, white and black for the flag of South Yemen, which existed as an independent republic for more than two decades. Here’s the story:

Now that pro-Iranian Houthi militias have been expelled from much of southern Yemen, many here are wondering when President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadiwill return to his homeland from Saudi exile—and, more importantly, under what flag.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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