Again and again over the past two years, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has claimed it won decisive victories that drove al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across Yemen and shattered their ability to attack the West.
Here’s what the victors did not disclose: many of their conquests came without firing a shot.
That’s because the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself....
Dozens of civilians, mostly children, have been killed and more wounded in an airstrike by the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that hit a bus in the rebel-held north of the country.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of the few humanitarian institutions helping civilians on the ground in the war-torn country, said a hospital supported by the organisation had received dozens of casualties after the attack at a market in Dahyanin Sa’ada governorate.
“Under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict,” the organisation tweeted. Johannes Bruwer, head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, tweeted: “Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of 10.”
Suze van Meegen, a protection and advocacy adviser for the council based in Sana’a, said: “I anticipate the calls will come for international government to inject more cash into solving the crisis.
“But the crisis doesn’t lie with money. It lies in stopping the war. There is a duplicity in the UK, for example, where the British government is providing a lot of money to help us reach people with aid but it could get more bang for its buck if it just stopped selling weapons to Saudi Arabia.”
It beggars beliefShe said the worst of the violence is concentrated around Hodeidah city. “In the last few months we have seen half a million people flee the region. We are also very concerned about the safety of the port there, which is depended on for 70% of the food and fuel Yemen needs.”
Van Meegen said people are already starving to death in “very large numbers”.
This week, Jeremy Corbyn suffered one of the largest backbench rebellions of his tenure, as about 100 Labour MPs failed to support a motion moved by shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry. Some, like Angela Rayner, were away for legitimate reasons. But scores of others apparently couldn’t bring themselves to support the leadership’s demand that Britain stop backing a brutal Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. That was the point of principle on which they felt compelled to take this stand....