Yemen Crisis/Conflict & the "Decisive Storm" Coalition

P

PanAsian

Major
Jura said:
tonight
CNO Richardson: USS Mason ‘Appears to Have Come Under Attack

source is USNI News
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Interestingly this third attempted attack coincides with:
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WORLD NEWS | Sun Oct 16, 2016 | 12:56pm EDT
U.S., Britain call for immediate ceasefire in Yemen

By Lesley Wroughton | LONDON
The United States and Britain called on Sunday for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Yemen to end violence between Iran-backed Houthis and the government, which is supported by Gulf states.

A Saudi-led campaign in Yemen has come under heavy criticism since an air strike on a funeral gathering in the Yemeni capital Sanaa that killed 140 people according to a United Nations' estimate and 82 according to the Houthis.

On Saturday, a U.S. admiral said a destroyer had again been targeted in the Red Sea in an apparent failed missile attack launched from the coast of Yemen.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said if Yemen's opposing sides accepted the ceasefire then the special envoy to the U.N., Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, would work through the details and announce when and how it would take effect.

"This is the time to implement a ceasefire unconditionally and then move to the negotiating table," Kerry told reporters.

"We cannot emphasize enough today the urgency of ending the violence in Yemen," he said after meeting British foreign minister, Boris Johnson, and other officials in London.

Kerry said they were calling for the implementation of the ceasefire "as rapidly as possible, meaning Monday, Tuesday".

The UN's special envoy said he had been in contact with the Houthi's lead negotiator and the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. He also said he hoped for "clearer plans" for a ceasefire in the coming days

Johnson said the conflict in Yemen was "causing increasing international concern; the fatalities that we're seeing there are unacceptable".

"There should be a ceasefire and the U.N. should lead the way in calling for that ceasefire."

Their call came after meetings in London with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and senior UAE officials.

Kerry met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Saturday in Switzerland on the sidelines of Syria talks.

"It is a crisis now of enormous proportions with an increasing economic, increasing humanitarian and health crisis, and obviously the military components are troubling to everybody," Kerry said.

He added that the release of two American prisoners by Yemen's Houthi and the evacuation of Yemeni civilians wounded in a Saudi airstrike were "an important humanitarian gesture by the Saudis to address the humanitarian concern".

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Writing by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Mark Potter, Greg Mahlich)
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Given what is happening at the same time along the northern Syrian border, around Aleppo, and around Mosul, it would appear that the longstanding differences among local factions, local sponsors, and expeditionary sponsors are straining management of the conflict as a limited conflict more than ever.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
This at a time The New York Times has an article, I saw it mentioned on their contents page but didn't read it, that US is increasing their involvement in the Somali war. Yesterday?
They are now involveded in wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, West Africa, Afghanistan and still in the Philippines. No wonder it gets to be a bit much.
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Sep 16, 2016
Jura said:
now Report Triggers UK Spat Over Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia
source is DefenseNews
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anyway UK-Supplied Precision Weapons Prove Popular in Saudi-Led Yemen Campaign
The Royal Saudi Air Force has used British-supplied cruise missiles against Houthi rebels in Yemen, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has confirmed.

The Storm Shadow long-range cruise missile was among a list of British-supplied precision-guided weapons named by Fallon as having been used against the Yemeni rebels since the two-year-long conflict erupted following a Houthi coup which saw the legitimate government forced into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The MBDA-built Storm Shadow has been in service for a number of years onboard Royal Saudi Air Force and British Royal Air Force Tornado strike jets.

The weapon, the most powerful missile in the RAF inventory, has been deployed in several conflicts by the British but this is the first confirmed operational firing by the Saudis.

The other British-supplied precision-guided weapons listed as having been used in Yemen were the Dual Mode Brimstone, ALARM anti-radiation missile, Paveway guided bombs and the PGM500 (also known as the Hakim 2), Fallon said in response to a written Parliamentary question.

Doug Barrie, the senior air analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the firing of the cruise missile was “a notable first for the Saudis, as is the fact they continue to use the ALARM anti-radiation missile taken out of service by the RAF in 2013.”

All the weapons mentioned were supplied by MBDA, with the exception of the Paveway IV, which is a Raytheon UK product.

The MoD failed to respond in time to a question about whether non-precision weapons also have been used.

Publication of the British air-launched precision-guided weapons used in the Yemen war comes at a time of growing international condemnation of the number of civilian deaths caused by the Saudi-led coalition’s air strikes.

Anti-arms campaigners and others have been trying to pressure the British government into a ban on arms exports to the Saudis, so far without success.

A recent Saudi air strike killed at least 140 people, with hundreds more injured, when aircraft attacked a funeral party in the country’s capital Sana’a. The Saudis later said they had been supplied with inaccurate information about the target.

Fallon listed only precision-guided weapons and no mention was made of the controversial UK-supplied BL-755 cluster bomb.

Earlier this year the British government denied the BL-755 , originally built by Hunting Engineering, had been used in the war after Amnesty International showed pictures of a partially exploded munition in a village in northern Yemen.

The Saudis and their coalition partner, the United Arab Emirates, are both known to hold stocks of the internationally banned cluster weapon, said Amnesty.

British defense officials said at the time that the weapon had not been exported since 1989.
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Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Sunday at 7:25 AM
Jura said:
tonight
CNO Richardson: USS Mason ‘Appears to Have Come Under Attack

source is USNI News
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while False Alarm May Have Triggered U.S. Navy Warship's Missile Defense System
After several days of investigation, the U.S. Navy believes an urgent warning about an incoming missile aboard a destroyer Saturday night may have been a false alarm, defense officials said Tuesday.

The guided-missile destroyer Mason, underway in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, detected a “possible inbound missile,” prompting the ship’s commander to activate the missile defense system and launch interceptor missiles, defense officials said.

Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the commander’s decision to fire the missile defense system was “appropriate,” but there has been no confirmation of an inbound missile posing a threat to the U.S. ship.

“We have not actually confirmed that that happened,” Davis said Tuesday.

“We are not ready to call it an 'attack',” he said. “We are going back and reviewing the information to see what happened.”

The incident underscores the heightened tension in the Red Sea after two confirmed missile attacks on U.S. ships last week came from territory in Yemen that is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis rebels.

Military officials use an array of sensors to investigate possible missile attacks, including radar systems from other U.S. ships in the area, U.S. aircraft overhead and satellite imagery.

“We look at a lot of different points of information. It’s not just one single ship and one single radar system," Davis said.

The two confirmed attacks, on Oct. 9 and Oct. 12, were the first known instances of a U.S. Navy ship engaging its Standard Missile-2 air defense system outside of training situations. The SM-2 system uses interceptor missiles to destroy incoming missiles at long-range by either striking them or detonating nearby and knocking them off course. The SM-2 is used before last-resort self-defense systems, like the shorter-range Sea Sparrow missiles.

On Thursday, the destroyer Nitze fired Tomahawk missiles into southern Yemen, where the cruise missile attacks originated. The U.S. rockets destroyed three radar sites in the area controlled by Houthis rebels, who receive support from Iran. The coastal radar systems provided key targeting data to the cruise missiles fired from Houthis-controlled area.


The U.S. ships were in international waters at least 11 miles from the coast.

Cruise missiles can travel at about 600 miles per hour, giving U.S. ships between one and two minutes between detection and possible impact.

Many experts believe the cruise missiles may have come from Iran.

The recent attacks from the Red Sea will likely make thousands of sailors eligible for Combat Action Ribbons, a citation the Navy has not bestowed on the crew of a ship in international waters since the Gulf War in 1991.
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source is MilitaryTimes
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Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Saturday at 12:56 PM
Jura said:
this is interesting:
U.S. support to Saudi Arabia to hinge on Yemen cease-fire

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and ...
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... and Yemen Cease-Fire to Begin Thursday, U.N. Envoy Says
Since March last year nearly 7,000 people have died in fighting in Yemen
U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has announced a
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to begin on Thursday.

The deal follows international outcry over a Saudi airstrike that killed 140 people when it hit a funeral procession in Yemen’s capital, Sana‘a, the BBC reports.

A Saudi Arabia–led coalition
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in March 2015 in support of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi’s forces, which have been fighting Houthi rebels in the country. Saudi Arabia has thrown its military might behind Yemen’s government and accuses Iran of backing the rebels.

Since March last year nearly 7,000 people have died and at least 3 million have been displaced, according to U.N. figures cited by the BBC.

Saudi officials say the airstrike earlier this month was targeted at rebel leaders in the Houthi-controlled capital, but the wrong side had been hit as a result of erroneous intelligence.

Announcing the cease-fire, Ahmed said he hoped it would “spare the Yemeni people further bloodshed and will allow for the expanded delivery of humanitarian assistance.”
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so let's wait and see
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
delft said:
Why would they "threaten" ships when these missiles can be used to attack military relevant Saudi army bases?
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it's too early in the morning (I misunderstood your post :) at first I wrote something about 'littorals')
but ... what do you mean, they would shoot AShMs at land targets??
 
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