Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
September 09, 2015

Foreign Invasion Force In Yemen Grows

The invasion force in Yemen is growing. The invasion troops now include:

  • 3,000 United Arab Emirates
  • 1,000 Qatar
  • 1,000 Saudi Arabia
  • 6,000 (somewhat unreliable) Yemeni expats hired and trained by Saudi Arabia
  • 600-800 Egypt
  • small contingents from Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan

All together the force ha now nearly the size of an infantry division in a "western" army. That is not really much should these want to advance from Marib towards the capital Sanaa through the mountainous terrain inhabited by an unfriendly and well armed population. I would recommend at least three division or some 40-50,000 men for that partial task. (For comparison: In the 1960s Egypt sent some 70,000 troops to a proxy civil war in Yemen of which some 12,000 got killed and many more wounded.)

Coordinating such an array of forces with different military cultures will be extremely difficult. There have already been several cases in which the Saudi air force "successfully" bombed ground elements of its Yemeni allies.

Announced are also some 6,000 troops from Sudan though I doubt that so many will ever arrive. Smaller contingents are also to come from Senegal and Morocco.

The U.S. is not only supporting the Saudis with targeting advice, intelligence and logistics. It has now silently joined the fighting:

Haykal Bafana
#Yemen : US drones in Sirwah area of Marib tonight where Saudi allies trying for weeks to dislodge Houthi/Saleh forces. 2 missiles missed

There are no al-Qaeda forces around Marib so this was not a U.S. "anti-terror" strike.

The devastating blockade of Yemen continues. Yesterday an Indian fisherboat smuggling some small load of fuel near Hudaydah harbor was bombed by Saudi aligned forces. Twenty Indian fisherman died. Eleven food trucks with inspected load on their way from "liberated" Aden toward Mocha were bombed and destroyed. Over the last months Yemen received only 10% of the fuel it needs to keep emergency generators, ambulances and water pumps going. Child male nutrition in several areas is now above 30%. Half of the Yemeni population of 26 million are in danger of famine. Yemen's religious and cultural heritage gets literately ruined.

The capital Sanaa is under constant bombing even though there are hardly any Houthi forces or valuable targets left but a Saudi general now announced that it is time to completely "cleanse" it.

All peace talks have broken down and the UN envoy, selected by the Saudis, is hapless and gets ignored.

"Western" media mostly ignore the war on Yemen and "western" governments excuse their very best customers, the Saudis, by repeating that the Houthis are aligned with Iran which is just one of the false myths around this war.

Posted by b on September 9, 2015 at 18:05 UTC | Permalink

Comments

saudi arabia, the usa and the msm really show their true colours here.. thanks for the updates and for your ongoing good work in keeping us informed as much as possible.

Posted by: james | Sep 9 2015 19:06 utc | 1

Nice to have all your enemies in one place...

The'll be a massive humiliation of this retarded coalition...

Posted by: Zico | Sep 9 2015 19:14 utc | 2

All part of the USA-KSA-IL Axis of Great Shaytan, as KSA keeps pumping to crush US Oil after Obama meets with the King and IL gleefully continues free trade with RU, sans sanctions, at the same time Poroshenko prepares the Sampson Option to invoke Kerry-Kohn's $58B pledge to use US taxpayers to backstop the ZiMF loans that are set to default, with $58B the US ZiSenate illegally set aside as a 'war slush fund' in their own words, like, "I did not know who was at that meeting, says #JohnMcCainArmedandFundedISIS, but better save some of those $Bs for CIA coup against Venezuela, anything to spike the price of crude oil for global trillionarianism and sell more arms for Perpetual War of the Oiligarchs.

"Release the Rufugees!" Oh, but Hillary is "sorry", so it's all going to be OK, and, "On the whole, I think it was worth it."

"Read my lips," ...you are just Zeks to the Mobsters and Monsters.

On to Tehran! Lu,lu,lu,lu,lu,lu,lu,lu!

Posted by: Chipnik | Sep 9 2015 20:02 utc | 3

The evil US Empire is relying on genocidal mass starvation to kill their enemies in Yemen, more then bombs and bullets.

Obama knew that from the very beginning so that's why the starvation blockade started day one.

Posted by: tom | Sep 9 2015 20:15 utc | 4

The Angry Arab said to me yesterday, when I doubted that Qatar was able to furnish 1,000 troops, that he thought they were Sudanese, i.e. mercenaries. (Saudi prince: Qatar is 300 people and a television station). The same must be true of the Emiratis: they can't supply 3000 nationals. If the last attack had killed nationals, the Emirati contribution would now be very much in question.

If it's mercenaries, there's very much the question of whether they are going to be ready to push home an attack on San'a in the mountains, against skilled mountain fighters.

Possible that the bombing and blockade have discouraged the locals, but they will still fight for their homeland.

Posted by: Laguerre | Sep 9 2015 20:34 utc | 5

What is puzzling is how few KSA soldiers are committed. All tied up keeping order in Bahrein?

WSJ reports that liberated Aden is not exactly looking forward to be administered by the "legal government". QUOTE START. At a checkpoint on the isthmus leading into the rocky peninsula where Aden’s center is located, local resistance fighters brandishing Kalashnikov rifles on a recent day swarmed around a convoy of SUVs transporting troops from the United Arab Emirates, believing that one of the cars contained Aden’s new governor, appointed by Mr. Hadi.

“We don’t want the governor. We won’t let him in,” they chanted. Having ascertained that the governor wasn’t in the vehicles, they let the convoy pass. QUOTE END

The south seems to be split between Salafis supporting al-Qaeda and separatists. Somehow the separatists do not want Hadi, even though he is a southerner himself, they just want to separate. Does Hadi want to come to Aden that he proclaimed to be temporary capital?

QUOTE START But even some of the generals under Mr. Hadi’s nominal authority don’t hide their irritation with the fact that the Yemeni government has remained in the comforts of Riyadh more than a month after the Houthis were driven from Aden.

“We need the state here,” Maj. Gen. Ahmed Seif al-Yafai, the commander of anti-Houthi forces in Aden and four nearby provinces, quipped when asked when the government would move to the city. “But, unfortunately, the seven-star hotels do not exist in Aden.” QUOTE END

For the sake of accuracy, I checked how is it with hotels in Aden. Before fighting, the one with highest rating was described as four star, "a bit above the average, but this is Yemen so you have to be realistic". Then again, I think that there is no beer in Riyad, so I do not know how one can cope with the bitterness of exile. I privately suspect that Hadi is kept in the closet for future use, but right now it is better not to show him around.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 9 2015 20:38 utc | 6

@5 Laguerre.. all of these fucking war criminals are paying mercenaries to carry out the task, obama included..

Posted by: james | Sep 9 2015 20:49 utc | 7

What is puzzling is how few KSA soldiers are committed.
Not puzzling, they don't have the people, though more than the Emirates.

They can advance as long as they have the weaponry, but that advantage will stop in the mountains.

Posted by: Laguerre | Sep 9 2015 20:52 utc | 8

Thanks for the detailed breakdown of the growing Saudi backed Joint Arab Intervention Force. b. I'm sure it was just an oversight but you neglected to list the 66,000 Loyalist Yemeni Security Forces and the 27,000 loyalist tribal fighters who have been and continue to fight the Houthis and the Saleh aligned troops.

It's true that Ansar Allah is not directly connected to Iran, they indirectly make that connection through Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia Militias.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Sep 9 2015 21:12 utc | 9

I'm sure it was just an oversight but you neglected to list the 66,000 Loyalist Yemeni Security Forces and the 27,000 loyalist tribal fighters who have been and continue to fight the Houthis and the Saleh aligned troops.
If that is true, why are they not already in San'a?

Posted by: Laguerre | Sep 9 2015 21:24 utc | 10

The fact that Saudi-led coalition forces (chortle!) are so small and come from countries with zilch military traditions but too much money to fling around on expensive toys from the US (whose value outside the narrow mindset of the Pentagon might be questionable) might be some consolation.

Significantly the KSA was not able to bully Pakistan into supplying soldiers or materiel. Pakistan itself was concerned that the Yemeni war might spread to its territory and the KSA apparently erred in stipulating that only Sunni soldiers be sent.

If that's the level of competence and intelligence in the KSA's armed forces, I don't wonder that the Saudis and their allies are bogged down in a war they will never be able to win.

Posted by: Jen | Sep 9 2015 22:55 utc | 11

It is interesting that the US has twisted so many arms (and paid lord knows what bribes) across MENA to get this show going. I had no idea Senegal was 94% Muslim, sad to see another nation corrupted and dragged into this 'coalition of the killing'.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 10 2015 0:54 utc | 12

Malnutrition was accidentally written male nutrition. Please fix.

Posted by: Massinissa | Sep 10 2015 1:09 utc | 13

@4, @7, @12

That's about it. The Commander in Chief of the Coalition of the Killing remains the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, retains his laurels.

We all have our popcorn popped and are pulling up our chairs to watch the genocide. Just like Palestine.

Who are the most depraved of all?

Posted by: jfl | Sep 10 2015 1:56 utc | 14

genocide, propagated by the NATO ruse with our bastards as accomplices.

Posted by: Jay M | Sep 10 2015 2:06 utc | 15

The evil US Empire is relying on genocidal mass starvation to kill their enemies in Yemen, more than bombs and bullets. Obama knew that from the very beginning so that's why the starvation blockade started day one.
Posted by: tom | Sep 9, 2015 4:15:12 PM | 4

Not quite right.

This is all part of "Israel's" Fake War On Terror i.e. Islam.
Bibi's butt plug, the US of AmeriKKKa (with delusions of Superpower Grandeur), is his proxy, pre-Yinon, Culture-obliterating Machine.
The irony is that US Taxpayers give "Israel" enough $US every year to buy the complicity of Congress in the destruction (from the inside) of the USA.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 10 2015 4:29 utc | 16

@17

Are you a flack for that website mina? One word and a link. I get there and it's a tracking front for Google. All just so I can puke?

Posted by: jfl | Sep 10 2015 11:47 utc | 18

Breaking news this morning, the daily beast is running an exclusive on 50 intel analysts at CENTCOM filing an IG complaint with the pentagon alleging their intel reports are being watered down or cherry picked to fit the administration's talking points that we're "winning" against ISIS. I hope this gets wider media traction as congressional hearings need to happen to see if it was local officers at CENTCOM doing it or if the nutpicking was coming from the admin itself.

Link to the article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html

Posted by: thepanzer | Sep 10 2015 12:13 utc | 19

When are we going to see a starving Yemeni toddler washed up on the coast of Somalia, so the world wakes up to the horrible ordeal of the Yemenis under the hysterical bombing by the richest countries in the region?

Posted by: Virgile | Sep 10 2015 12:40 utc | 20

@19

Mayber they're Israeli 5th column analysts and this is the dispersal of the anti-Iran front? Maybe this will be happening along every axis the 5th column can gain traction on? Now that they seem to have lost in the senate, but never say die?

Posted by: jfl | Sep 10 2015 13:49 utc | 21

@22

It's hard to tell what is actually going on with these Puzzle Palace intrigues but analysts are not 'spies' and their work product is meant for internal consumption, what the public receives has always been filtered, spun and propagandized.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Sep 10 2015 15:12 utc | 22

@22,@23-

Oh look, the meeting of two great minds.

Posted by: nana2007 | Sep 10 2015 17:07 utc | 23

From another blog, and I had roughly the same arguments with my profs. After finishing my masters, I was politely, but firmly told, to not pursue a doctorate.

" When I was in college I used to vehemently argue with my professors about the root cause of the agony and violence and injustice in the world. My contention was that everyday people could get along just fine with each other and that the widespread trauma was caused by so-called “leaders.” These political, religious and corporate rulers constantly sow animosity and fear amongst their people. They use the “Us against Them” tactic to demonize others - thus turning One Human Family into bands of mortal enemies.
They do this because shock and destabilization allow them to both expand and consolidate their wealth and power. For example, just a few hours of internet research will reveal to you how many U.S. bankers and industrialists assisted Hitler in his meteoric rise to power. These Malignant Overlords - as I accurately describe them - made enormous amounts of money setting up the war, then building and financing weapons during the war and then rebuilding the saturation-bombed continent after the war.
To learn more about how tyrants - disguised as leaders - actually control the world, read Carroll Quigley’s books about Cecil Rhodes and his secret Roundtable. These behind-the-curtain power junkies have been working to insure Anglo-American global dominance for over 100 years. Or investigate Anthony Sutton’s work on the dark and horrific dealings of U.S. intelligence services. Or stroll down the evil brick road of America’s hidden foreign policy since World War II as it clandestinely overthrew governments and assassinated leaders. William Blum’s books document this grotesque conduct in encyclopedic detail. And for a general overview of the devastation that Empire wreaks upon ordinary people, read Michael Parenti’s sobering books.
Needless to say, none of my college professors included authors like these in our political science curriculum. Instead our texts promoted the deliberate deception that our leaders are the “best and the brightest.” But honest and objective research reveals that they are actually the “most ruthless and pathological.” These Malignant Overlords thrive because they are emotional mutants who lack the heart and soul genomes. This is why it is so difficult to convince most people of how vile these rulers are. Ordinary people do have consciences and ethics and compassion, so it is hard for them to imagine people who lack basic empathy and decency."

Source: http://theseagypsyphilosopher.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Rg an LG | Sep 10 2015 20:10 utc | 24

digby was here,said ignorant idiot,,,,you would not know if your asshole had been popped or riveted,i said i prefer a self -tapper.thats why they call them analysts........ysts in the report

Posted by: mcohen | Sep 10 2015 21:37 utc | 25

@ Rg an LG: "Malignant Overlords", an apt description, and a good post. As its always been, since the dawn of humanity. Begs the question, how do we rid ourselves of this latest batch?

Posted by: ben | Sep 10 2015 22:14 utc | 26

Filipinos have been doing the manual labor in Saudi for years. Saudi has been recruiting Filipino soldiers for Yemen. Many are turning up in a hospital dedicated to soldiers in Oman.
Also Filipino nurses working the hospital. (Good Pay and benefits from their POV). Armed Forces Hospital in Oman is flush with injured Filipino Soldiers.

Posted by: fast freddy | Sep 10 2015 23:11 utc | 27

My fear is that this migrant theater isn't about the ones currently on the move, but about the ones NATO will soon create by starting to bomb Assad. That it is happening alongside the push that the Russians are invading Syria, this is starting to smell very much like the Iraq War run up.

Posted by: guest77 | Sep 11 2015 0:24 utc | 28

@ 29: Who do you support? and why?

http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/03/01/paid-govt-and-corporate-internet-trolls-are-real/

Posted by: ben | Sep 11 2015 2:08 utc | 29

Incredible and very informative interview with:

San’a-based political analyst Hisham Al- Omeisy

Voices of the Middle East vomena.org

http://archives.kpfa.org/data/20150909-Wed1400.mp3

Posted by: Kim Sky | Sep 11 2015 2:15 utc | 30

Another view on Yemen:

http://atlanticsentinel.com/2015/09/saudi-arabias-no-good-very-bad-war-in-yemen/

Posted by: ben | Sep 11 2015 2:46 utc | 31

ben and kim.. thanks for the links..

Posted by: james | Sep 11 2015 4:32 utc | 32

@31 ben

That's the best troll call I've seen yet. I wonder who he does work for? I don't imagine there's anything in her contract about not revealing her position and salary, the assumption must be it would be demeaning ... hell, he can say she's recruiting. I think that all the trolls might 'come clean' ... I mean - what the hell, it's only a job, right?

Give up your employer and gain the respect of other human beings in doing so. I mean, we all understand everyone has to keep body and soul - such as it is - together. You can keep trolling with a clean conscience. Just keep it short and to the point ... or hell, carry on, if you're paid by the word. B can periodically just clean troll comments ... in case storage space is a factor ... and we can just watch where we're walking in the meantime. Step over them, like paddies in the pasture. Live and let live.

So, who do you work for abcdxyzhl?

Posted by: jfl | Sep 11 2015 7:25 utc | 33

@32, @33, @34 kim, ben, james

Yes, these are very good links. I've just begun the kfa audio ... there's a link to the original sie for the text of the second at the bottom ... very large picture of the terraces in the Yemeni mountains. I've bookmarked the site.

I will not be surprised if this does end in the collapse of the Saudis and the loss of their oilfields to the the Americans and Israelis. And I do imagine that was assessed as an alternative - a not undesirable one - when the US cranked the braindead Saudis up for this senseless, brutal war. The US bears - as with all the wars being waged on earth at this point - the ultimate responsibility for this war and genocide.

Break the blockades of Gaza and Yemen NOW NATO! Sit on your hands, NATO, and go down in history as has your largest? - certainly perrennially most powerful European state. You do care about your 'self-images', right? - certainly not for the Palestinian Gazans or Yemenis, no matter what empty words fall from your pieholes; murderous, lying scum!

Break the blockades! Avert the genocides. NOW!

Posted by: jfl | Sep 11 2015 7:56 utc | 34

38 zed

Houthi are described by Yemenis as very similar to Wahhabist Taliban, makes you wonder if #JohnMcCainArmedandFundedISIS as a 21st Century 'Northern Alliance', then KSAs contribution was to churn out 1000s of Houthi Talibansi's from their madrassas, as a means to pacify both Syria and Yemen, then when you go in yourself, Full Battle Rattle to install you Puppet Poroshenkos, you can pretend to the world that ISIS and Houthis are Spawn of Tehran, so you'll have to 'destroy the village to save it', and ...oh, look, 300,000 refugees!!... all for oil and ports and pipelines and free passage for the Royals.

This is as much a war of deliberate disinformation as bmobs and bulltes, a war whose sole goal is the consolidation of all oil wealth into the hands of the few, the proud, the cowardly Oiligarchs, ... and let Four Horsemen rampage as they may.

For Tehran to now declare war on ISIS today kinda teases John McCain's cover story, and for that he's going to hang from the gibbet when this is all otver, ...right next to Hillary.

Veni, vidi, mortui duo grueso cunts.

Posted by: Chipnik | Sep 11 2015 9:14 utc | 35

11 jen

Let's put a name and a face to this modern global Holocaust.

Posted by: Chipnik | Sep 11 2015 9:49 utc | 36

We, and the Saudis have been in the middle of Yemen's various civil wars since I was there in the 70's

Posted by: callistenes | Sep 11 2015 20:35 utc | 37

Instead of averting the genocide its murder mor Yemanis ...

US drone strikes kill nine people in Yemen


Washington has been conducting targeted killings through the remotely-controlled armed drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

The US says the airstrikes target members of al-Qaeda and other militants, but according to local officials and witnesses, civilians have in most cases been the victims of the attacks.

The United Nations says the US drone attacks are “targeted killings” that flout international law.


But it's OK when the US does it.

Posted by: jfl | Sep 13 2015 9:04 utc | 38

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/world/middleeast/airstrikes-hit-civilians-yemen-war.html?ref=world

Some quotes for the folks outside the pay wall:

Sentence used as the summary: "What began as a Saudi-led aerial campaign against the Houthis, the rebel militia movement that forced Yemen’s government from power, has become so broad and vicious that critics accuse the coalition of collectively punishing people living in areas under Houthi control."

The opening paragraph: 13 workers of a bottling plant were killed, with no military objects visible in wide area around it. "Nothing in the ruins suggested the factory was used for making bombs, as a coalition spokesman had claimed. And it was far from any military facility that would explain the strike as a tragic mistake: For miles around, there was nothing but desert scrub."

Further down: "Rather than turning more Yemenis against the Houthis, though, the strikes are crystallizing anger in parts of the country against Saudi Arabia and its partners, including the United States. The Obama administration has provided military intelligence and logistical assistance to the coalition, and American weapons have been widely used in the air campaign. Human Rights Watch has found American-manufactured cluster munitions in the fields of Yemeni farmers. Near the site of airstrikes that killed 11 people in a mosque, researchers with Amnesty International saw an unexploded, 1,000-pound American bomb. The United States is finalizing a deal to provide more weapons to Saudi Arabia, including missiles for its F-15 fighter jets."

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 13 2015 15:44 utc | 39

@35, as you can see, the "uncomfortable" info gets deleted here. It's a pity but it's what it is - quite telling as well.

Posted by: zed | Sep 14 2015 11:51 utc | 40

"critics accuse the coalition of collectively punishing people living in areas under Houthi control."

And funnily enough, not a single photo to confirm any of this. Just a bunch of old pics from Iraq and several (extremely precisely) destroyed buildings.

Also no proof of the alleged "5000+ dead civilians" to be seen anywhere, and that after six months of bombing.The same numbers have been thrown around three months ago by the very same propagandists. So Saudis killed noone since June? Or do the media wh*res think we're all braindead and can't google the news from 3 months ago?

Just for comparison, US usually killed more civilians in Iraq within two weeks of bombing. THAT should tell you how much "collective punishment" there is. If Saudis really wanted that, you would have thousands of dead daily. Think about that.

Posted by: zed | Sep 14 2015 11:58 utc | 41

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