The Confict in Yemen

This war is more or less completely ignored by the MSM, they have more important issues, like the Oscars !

Probably because our "ally" Saudi Arabia is murdering civilians hand over fist to re-impose their own man.

However things aren't going that well for them on the ground.

The following from http://el-akhbar.com/en/VIDEO-Yemeni-Army-Popular-Forces-75442/

Yemeni Army, Popular Forces Destroy Saudi Military Positions in Ma’rib

The Yemeni army troops backed by popular forces made remarkable advances in Ma’rib province, an Ansarullah commander stated on Wednesday.

“The Yemeni army missiles hit and destroyed the military positions of the Saudi forces in Ma\’rib,” senior Ansarullah Commander Amir al-Dorraj told FNA on Wednesday.

Al-Dorraj reiterated that the Yemeni forces also destroyed the Saudi forces\’ defense lines in the Northern part of Ma\’rib Province.

He said that over 40 Saudi and UAE forces have been killed in the Yemen forces\’ attacks on their military positions in Ma\’rib province.

In a relevant development on Tuesday, the Yemeni forces continued their advances in the Western part of Yemen, killing senior pro-Hadi militia commander in tough battle and cutting the supply line of the Saudi and Emirati forces in Ma\’rib.

“Over 20 pro-Hadi militias, including their senior commander Colonel Mohammad Abde, were killed in fierce clashes with the militants over the past 24 hours,” Senior Ansarullah commander Ebrahim al-Shari told FNA.

He noted that the Yemeni forces also cut the supply lines of the Saudi and the UAE forces in Ma\’rib province.

“The popular forces have taken full control of villages in Northern Ma\’rib province and seized several Saudi military vehicles.”

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 334 days now to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 8,300 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

Over 3,750 schools have been closed and at least 1.2 million Yemeni people have been displaced so far; FNA reported.

The Yemeni army units backed by popular forces have killed over 70 Saudi military servicemen in Jizan province in the Southern parts of the kingdom in the past four days, a senior Yemeni commander disclosed on Saturday.

Source & video http://en.alalam.ir/News/1789308

“At least 73 Saudi forces have been killed as a result of our forces’ assaults on their military positions in Jizan province,” a senior commander of Ansarullah, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told FNA on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday, the Yemeni forces attacked the Saudi army positions in Jizan and killed several of the kingdom's soldiers.

At least 9 Saudi military forces were killed in the attacks in Jizan province, the Arabic-language al-Masira news website reported on Saturday.

Also on Friday, the Yemeni forces hit Jizan airport in Southern Arabia inflicting heavy losses and casualties on the Saudi forces.

Yemen’s Qaher-I missile hit Jizan airport, killing and wounding a large number of soldiers earlier today.

This was the third time in the past two days that Jizan airport came under the Yemeni forces’ ballistic missile attack and the sixth time that Saudi military positions are targeted in Southern Saudi Arabia.

The ballistic missile attack came 48 hours after Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman attempted to boost the morale of his soldiers by paying a visit to Jizan's field hospital.

In a relevant development on Wednesday, the Yemeni forces hit Jizan airport in inflicting heavy losses and casualties on the Saudi forces.

“Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has visited the wounded Saudi soldiers in Jizan hospital to help boost their morale and he has also closely assessed the damages inflicted on the Saudi forces,” informed Yemeni sources told FNA.

On Tuesday, the Yemeni army and popular forces pounded Saudi Arabia’s military base and airport in the kingdom’s Southern provinces with ballistic missiles, killing tens of soldiers and injuring dozens more.

The Yemeni forces hit the Khamis Mushait military base in Asir province with two Qaher-I ballistic missiles.

Tens of Saudi soldiers and officers were killed in Yemen's missile attack on Khamis Mushait military base.

Meantime, the Yemeni army and popular forces fired two Qaher-I ballistic missiles at Jizan Airport on Tuesday.

“Dozens of Saudi soldiers were killed and many more were wounded in the attacks,” witness reports said.

In a similar incident on Saturday, at least 104 Saudi-led forces, including 8 senior Saudi and UAE officers, were killed in Yemen’s ballistic missile attack on Ma'as military base in Ma'rib province in Central Yemen.

Also on Friday, a Commander of Yemen's Ansarullah Movement confirmed the missile attack at the Ma'as military base in Ma'rib in Central Yemen.

In a relevant development on Wednesday, the Yemeni army and popular forces rained down a barrage of missiles at the Saudi forces' military tower in Al-Dokhan region in Jizan province in Southern Saudi Arabia.

Al-Dokhan tower was reportedly destroyed in the Yemeni missile attacks in Jizan as eyewitnesses said that they had seen smoke rising from it.

The Yemeni army and popular forces regained control of Al-Khurma region in Asir province after they destroyed two arms depots and other military hardware of the Yemeni forces in the region.

Meantime, the Yemeni army's artillery units pounded Malhama military base in Jizan province. The Saudi troops started fleeing their base as soon as they came under the missile attack.

Also on Tuesday, the Yemeni army and popular forces raided Saudi Arabia's military bases and military positions in the Southern part of the kingdom and destroyed their military equipment and hardware.

Informed military sources in the Northern parts of Yemen confirmed that the Yemeni Army alongside the popular forces raided Saudi Arabia's military bases and positions near the borders with Yemen, and destroyed 11 Saudi tanks and armored vehicles, FNA reported.

Phil Butler
New Eastern Outlook

The Wall Street Journal is the perfect example of a state and corporate controlled counter-information service. A report recently attempts to characterize the Saudi war on the Yemeni people as having little to do with oil. Nothing my friends, nothing could be further from the truth. The Saudis need untapped reserves Yemen currently controls. Here’s a look at the real reason for the genocide in Yemen.

“Yemen doesn’t produce a lot of oil, but there are reasons why oil markets would react to military action there. Why? Here’s the short answer, ” this is the “lead” for an unnamed WSJ author shifting the blame for a war for profit. The story is bait, counter-intuitive and blurb-ish, but just enough to get Americans thinking in the right direction.

“Right” that is, if you’re Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper. But the reality underneath is all about Murdoch and his cronies’ investments in the region, and nothing to do with geo-strategic tanker routes.

The WSJ wants investor types who read the paper to believe oil prices surged a bit last week because of the “fear” a “strategic choke-point” known as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait might be clogged if the Yemen chaos spilled over into Saudi Arabia. Well, there’s no danger of that given the fact the Saudis are bombing Yemen back into the Stone Age using US weaponry.

Another potential though, does implicate the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, as well as Somalia across the waters from the Saudis. Our past research has shown clearly, the fact Saudi Arabia and most of the OPEC nations have already reached the oil supply tipping point, the so-called “peak oil” paradigm.

Running out of the last of the nation’s only saleable resource, the Saudi royalty have put their country into a mess, the potential for revolution there is acute, should the people discover the real predicament.

This is why we see an “all in” Saudi aggressive stance, on Syria, with Iran, and especially where Yemen is concerned. While Washington think tank evangelists try and play the tensions off as Sunni-Shiite religious friction, new oil reserves are the truth of these matters.

When I first heard of drone strikes by the Obama administration on targets in Yemen, I was skeptical of any US effort targeting terror there. Obama, as we now see in every case of chaos in the region, is neck deep in WikiLeaks cables, investigative reports, and highly illegal military actions that contravene the US Constitution. Just how the man has stayed out of prison these 7 years seems miraculous for me.

Just last week, the Pentagon ordered strikes supposedly targeting al-Qaeda in Yemen. This reported fact reverberates in my head as I recall the al-Qaeda George Bush swore to eradicate, and the al-Qaeda Vladimir Putin and Assad are trying to kill in Syria. Or should I say ISIL? You get the point, nobody seems to know who the enemy is, but shoeless and foodless people in wadis all over the Middle East seem to be dying as a result.

Excuse me, I divert from the subject of the report here only to emphasize the clearly cohesive mission of corporation, the investor elite, media, and our governmental leadership.

Oil, this story is about oil.

A few weeks ago Zero Hedge ran a piece talking about new oil rigs being brought on by the Saudis. The piece was, for once, erroneous in its supposing the Saudis were putting new rigs online in order to boost a “sustainable” production. The indubitable Tyler Durden is seldom wrong where such investing-strategic information is concerned, but in this case he was 180 degrees off.

His supposition that rig counts going up indicate the Saudis “panning” for increased exports is not even a remotely possible. The Saudis are bringing new rigs on-line alright, offshore ones that are many times more expensive than their inland cousins. And there’s only one reasonable explanation for them doing this, the biggest fields that once contained more energy wealth than any place on Earth have peaked.

Short version, the Saudis need more fields, more oil from somewhere, in order to survive.This report I found shows clearly, the Bush and Obama administrations have known for a long time that the Saudis are almost out of oil. “Peak oil” is a reality; the wealth of the Saudi people has been squandered on frivolous investing and building projects, and if they don’t prop up the industry, then the regime is over.

This brings us to Yemen and the concrete reasons for Saudi aggression. I’ll try and be brief.

Zero Hedge and other analytical sources have failed to take into account the nature of new rig expansion the Saudis have undertaken. This Offshore report from November 2013 tells us of Saudi Aramco’s Manifa shallow water oilfield development program, which began production in April 2013. The report also clues us to another logical conclusion; the Saudis have been lying about their capacity for decades.

Why add as many as 170 new rigs, if the projected production levels are not to be increased for another 30 year, as the Saudi oil minister proclaimed in 2013? Add to this ridiculous notion, the fact these offshore rigs are 7 times more costly to run, and you have a good idea of the fallacious nature of these reports. The Saudis have to have more capacity, a lot more, in order to still compete with the Russians, Iranians, and Venezuelans. (Forget the Americans, shale production in North American cannot be sustained).

Finally, while the Wall Street Journal reports Yemen as a minor oil “producer”, evidence is emerging that the oil Yemen sits on has yet to be fully explored or accessed. A Yemen Post article first clued me to the possibility the Saudis are after Yemens reserves.

While this news source is not the most reliable in all cases, the contention of the importance of the Jawf field, in northern Yemen just south of the Saudis, interested me. The facts the Saudis are killing people in the Jawf region in record numbers aside, the oil basins first explored by Hunt Oil, Exxon, and Phillips in blocks around Jawf have largely been expropriated (2005 for block 18) by Yemen. And Big Oil hates countries taking back their resources. Most people do not realize that the oil that politicians and their armies fight over is almost totally controlled by conglomerates like Shell, and the others.

This report from 1997 names some of the developers of Yemen’s main revenue source, but it does not tell us of the targeted goal of the new Saudi aggression.

Before I elaborate on the big “kill” for the Saudis, let me frame American President Barack Obama and his state department in this mess first. The reader needs nothing more than this WikiLeaks cable to galvanize the fact the Obama administration, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton especially, knew exactly the nature of new Yemeni oil and gas capacity in 2009.

What the cable made “classified” by Ambassador Stephen A. Seche revealed was just business, but damning when current events are overlapped, I quote in part:

“In an October 13 meeting with Econoff, the Chair of the Petroleum Exporting and Production Authority (PEPA), Ahmed Abdillah, told Econoff that the governorates of Shabwa, Marib and al-Jawf have high potential for significant gas deposits. He said that natural gas deposits have been found in Occidental Block 20 (Marib-al-Jawf), Occidental Block S-1 (Shabwa) and Canadian Nexen Block 51 (Hadhramout).”

Without going into a geology or oil & gas lecture here, natural gas, particularly LNG are the mid term future for the people of Yemen. That is if the Saudis with American assistance will let them live. As for oil, and the crude oil the Saudis need to survive, Yemen has a partial solution there too.

Yemen’s real treasure trove is actually situated in a shared region of the Red Sea, and offshore in the Sea of Aden. It should come as no surprise that companies like British Gas and even the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have been fully aware of vast oil and gas deposits offshore of Yemen for some time.

This USGS report from 2002 shows an immeasurable potential, while numerous surveys and explorations offshore show vast reservoirs and potential so obvious, even amateur geologists could hit oil around Yemen. A report about Samhah Island, in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia told of oil seeping up through the solid rock.

Readers will find it ironic that the United States Navy has seized the island, and is building the largest naval base in the region on nearby Socotra Island. Further discoveries beneath the shallow sea bed of the Red Sea stretch from Yemen to the shores of neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Eritrea. Offshore “heavy oil” and onshore natural gas riches beckon the Saudis, Brits, Americans, and the French.

So now you know why Barack Obama never comes to the rescue for Yemeni civilians being murdered, it’s the same reason Russian speakers in the East of Ukraine are not protected, and the same reason ISIL has been allowed to roam Northern Iraq and Eastern Syria.

Oh, and Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, who has key energy investment in Genie Oil, is a direct competitor with any future Yemen revenue gains from new sources. AMSO American Shale, a subsidiary of Genie is vested in monetizing the last of America’s shale reserves.

So the picture puzzle of Yemen chaos should be complete for you now. And the Wall Street Journal’s counter-intuitive news revealed as well.

***

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Source http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/04/12/yemen-a-saudi-gencocidal-war-backed-by-obama-with-regional-oil-reserves-as-the-prize/